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Yale grad student shot to death in what investigators feared was a perfect murder
On Feb. 6, 2021, Kevin Jiang, a 26-year-old Yale graduate student and former Army National Guardsman, spent the day with Zion Perry, his fiancée, who was also a graduate student there. The couple went hiking and ice fishing, followed by dinner at her home in the affluent East Rock section of New Haven. Police say that at around 8:30 p.m. Jiang left her apartment and headed off in his Prius to his house, where he lived with his mother.
Kevin Jiang/Instagram
He barely made it two blocks before his car was struck from behind by a dark SUV in what appeared to be a minor fender bender. Police believe he got out of his car, likely to check on how the other driver was and exchange information. Instead, the other motorist shot Jiang eight times — with several bullets fired so close to his head that the exploding gunpowder left burn marks on his face.
David Zaweski, the lead homicide detective in Jiang’s murder, talked with “48 Hours” correspondent Anne-Marie Green for “The Ivy League Murder.” An encore of the broadcast is streaming on Paramount+.
Zaweski said that one witness told investigators she heard the minor fender bender, looked out a window, heard gunshots and saw muzzle flashes from a weapon. And another witness added that she not only heard the gunshots, but she saw the shooter — dressed all in black — standing over his fallen victim, continuing to fire bullets into him after he was down. Detectives would later recover a chilling home surveillance video that virtually captured Kevin’s final moments alive, confirming the witness’ accounts.
But deepening the mystery was the fact that the eight spent shell casings lying near Jiang were .45 caliber bullets — and they were similar to .45 caliber shell casings found at the scene of four recent shootings in the area.
According to police, a gunman had fired .45 caliber bullets into four homes over the last several months. In those cases, no one had been hurt. Investigators interviewed the homeowners but were unable to find any connection between them.
At first glance, Jiang’s murder had all the earmarks of a violent case of road rage. But Zaweski and his colleague Steven Cunningham quickly began to wonder if there was more.
“It seems a little bit more personal,” Zaweski told Green. “When you have someone laying on the ground and not moving, what would cause someone to continue firing?”
Cunningham questioned the car accident. “Was it deliberate to get him out of the vehicle? Possibly something that was planned?” he said.
“And if he was specifically targeted,” Zaweski continued, “what could have happened in his life to drive someone to do this?
It was a logical investigative avenue to pursue, but after breaking the tragic news to Jiang’s mother and his fiancée, investigators say the portrait that emerged of Kevin was that of a gifted young man who couldn’t have had an enemy in the world. He was living with, and taking care of, his mother, whom he brought from Seattle to live with him. He volunteered to work with the homeless, was deeply religious, and was a former lieutenant in the U.S. Army National Guard. Just a week earlier he had proposed to Perry, which she posted on Facebook, virtually on the anniversary of their meeting at a Christian retreat.
Facebook
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson summed up the young newly engaged couple for Green. “They clearly shared a lot in common,” he began. “They both loved nature. Zion was a scientist studying molecular biophysics and biochemistry… he was in the School of the Environment. They’re both brilliant and hardworking students,” he said, “and yet they didn’t feel like their accomplishments were what defined them at the deepest level.”
Zaweski and Cunningham knew they faced a daunting investigation. Jiang’s murder may just have been another random shooting by the mysterious .45 caliber gunman. Whoever the shooter was, he was still on the loose.
“The suspect was out there,” Zaweski said. “He wasn’t identified. We didn’t know where he went … and we didn’t know what he would be doing next.”
With few leads to pursue and a vague image of a dark SUV from surveillance footage at the scene, they knew they likely would need a break. And they got one the following day when they received an urgent call from Sgt. Jeffrey Mills of the nearby North Haven police. He provided them with startling information about two different 911 calls.
The first one occurred about a half hour after Jiang’s murder. A motorist had gotten stuck on a desolate snow-covered railroad track outside a scrap metal yard he had accidentally driven into, he said, while looking for a nearby highway entrance. The motorist, Qinxuan Pan, was from Malden, Massachusetts. His record was clean, and he was calm with an excuse that Mills had heard before from others who got lost near that scrap yard. So, he helped Pan get a tow and a nearby hotel room. At the time, Mills was unaware that there had been a murder in New Haven.
But about 15 hours later, at 11 a.m. on Feb. 7, Mills responded to another 911 call at an Arby’s, where employees had found a bag containing a gun and box of .45 caliber bullets. The Arby’s was right next door to the Best Western hotel where Pan had been taken. And by then he knew Kevin Jiang had been murdered, by someone driving a dark SUV similar to Pan’s. That’s when he reached out to New Haven homicide.
It turned out Pan had checked into the hotel but never stayed there. And when Zaweski sent detectives to Malden, where Pan went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and lived with his parents — no one was home.
Zaweski turned to his computer searching for Pan, hoping to find a connection to Jiang. “We’ll use Facebook as a tool to try and get a background on an individual, who they’re friends with,” Zaweski explained. But there seemed to be no connection with Jiang.
“And so, you’re going down the list of names,” Green says, “Nothing, nothing, nothing, and then you’re like, ‘whoa.’”
“There’s our connection,” Zaweski replies. That connection was Zion Perry, who was listed as a friend of Pan. She and Pan had met each other at a Christian group when Perry was an undergraduate at MIT. And although Perry was barely an acquaintance of Pan and hadn’t communicated with him since she left MIT and moved to New Haven to attend Yale, the homicide detectives felt they had more than a break. They had a potential suspect who was missing from his home. And a possible motive: an obsession with Perry.
“It did seem like there was a secret obsession of Pan’s going on behind the scenes that Kevin wasn’t aware of, and that Zion wasn’t aware of,” Zaweski said. After all, Jiang’s murder occurred just one week after Perry posted their engagement on Facebook, along with previous photos of them dating.
Qinxuan Pan/Facebook
Investigators believe Pan was also responsible for the four .45 caliber shootings, and that the shootings were part of a premeditated plan. They theorized that those shootings were done to mislead them when Jiang was eventually killed, to make them think his death had been just another random incident.
“He planned it, Cunningham said. “And he knew we’d be looking at these other things.”
“This wasn’t a random incident out there,” Zaweski added. “He was targeted.”
Now, their homicide investigation, and the massive manhunt for their brilliant, tech-savvy MIT fugitive took off. U.S. Marshals joined the case and learned that Pan’s family had access to millions of dollars in assets. Pan was missing, and they worried he might be trying to flee the country. The pressure was on.
“This became so high profile so fast,” U.S. Marshal Joe Galvan told “48 Hours.” “It was just heightened.”
The Marshals galvanized their vast resources to track down Pan. They noticed Pan’s parents had withdrawn large sums of cash, and that they had taken a long trip south with their son right after the murder. When the parents had been stopped in Georgia, they were in the car, but their son was gone. They said he’d simply gotten out of the car and walked away, and they didn’t know where he’d gone. Investigators were skeptical.
“They would go to the ends of the earth to help support and hide him,” said Matthew Duffy, a supervisor of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Connecticut. The Marshals focused in on the parents as their way to find Pan. They knew finding him would take patience as they utilized all their surveillance techniques to track the family.
Weeks went by, but eventually, their patience paid off. Pan’s mother finally made a mistake that would lead the Marshals straight to her son. She made a phone call from a hotel using a clerk’s phone. Investigators spoke to the clerk and were able to track that call, leading them to Pan’s location at a boarding house in Alabama.
“They went there with a small army,” Duffy said. “Around 20 guys … he just came out and said, ‘I’m who you’re looking for.’”
At the time of his arrest, Pan had on him approximately $20,000 in cash, multiple communication devices, and his father’s passport. He was charged with Jiang’s murder, accepted a plea deal, and was sentenced in April 2024 to serve 35 years in prison.
Pan’s parents were never charged with anything. “48 Hours” reached out to the Pans, but they did not respond to our request for comment.
Investigators believe that had Pan not gotten stuck on the train tracks on that fateful February night, Jiang’s murder may never have been solved.
“Could he have gotten away with murder?” Green asked Zaweski.
“He very well could have,” Zaweski replied. “If he had not gotten caught up on those tracks … it would’ve been very difficult.”
Though investigators, friends, and family were relieved that Pan had been caught and brought to justice, Jiang’s mother spoke at Pan’s sentencing to say she felt that 35 years was too short a sentence for the man who’d killed her only son.
Perry agreed. “I wanted to address Pan specifically,” she said at the sentencing. “Although your sentence is far less than you deserve … there is also mercy. May God have mercy on you. And may he have mercy on all of us.”
Even four years after Jiang’s death, friends wonder what Kevin, a man of deep faith, might have thought about his killer.
“Do you think Kevin would’ve forgiven Pan?” Green asked Jamila Ayeh and Nasya Hubbard, who served with Jiang in the military.
“Yes, I do,” said Hubbard. Added Ayeh, “Without a doubt.”
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An Oregon woman was a baby when her mother was murdered. Decades later, evidence points to her loving father.
It was Thursday, Dec. 1, 1988, when Deborah Atrops, known as Debe, was found murdered in her car, next to a construction site in Beaverton, Oregon. Debe had been reported missing two days earlier by her estranged husband, Bob Atrops, who lived about five miles away on a rural road.
Washington County District Attorney’s Office
On the night she went missing, Bob says Debe, who was then 30 years old, never arrived to pick up their baby, Rhianna, as expected.
Allison Brown: It think that it’s important for everyone to know that just because a case goes unsolved doesn’t mean that it’s forgotten.
Allison Brown is a senior deputy district attorney in Washington County Oregon, who, along with attorney Chris Lewman, joined a team of investigators working on Debe’s unsolved murder. Brown says they hoped talking to the original detectives, witnesses, and looking at the evidence again, might give the old investigation new momentum.
Allison Brown: There were opportunities for forensic analysis that were not available in 1988.
DEBE ATROPS DISAPPEARS
Debe Atrops was last seen alive on Tuesday, Nov. 29, 1988. Bob Atrops called the Tigard, Oregon, police that night at 9:40 p.m.
DISPATCHER: This is Tigard Police. May I help you?
BOB ATROPS: … My wife is running about three hours overdue from a hair appointment. I was getting a little concerned. … We live in Sherwood. …
DISPATCHER: OK, what’s her name? …
BOB ATROPS: Deborah Atrops.
DISPATCHER: OK, and what kind of vehicle would she have been driving?
BOB ATROPS: It’d be a black Honda Accord.
Bob told the dispatcher Debe hadn’t shown up after an appointment in Tigard, about eight miles from his house, at a hair salon called Razz Ma Tazz.
BOB ATROPS: Called and let it ring, ring, ring about 20 times …
DISPATCHER: It would probably be easier for you to make a run down her path to, you know, how she would go … than it would be for us.
Family home video
Bob says he drove the route and saw no sign of Debe. He called Tigard police back at 10:25 p.m.
DISPATCHER: Why don’t we give it another hour … and, if you haven’t heard anything, give me a call back.
Bob did call back — a third time — at 11:29 p.m.
BOB ATROPS: Hey, this is Bob Atrops again. Have you heard anything or—?
DISPATCHER: No, and the guys have gone out and looked. It’s real foggy out, but they have checked around the area.
DISPATCHER: … Did you go to the Razz Ma Tazz and see if her car was there at all?
BOB ATROPS: Yeah, I did. I drove up there’s no car …
DISPATCHER: There’s no friends or anything she might have gone to visit?
BOB ATROPS: No. Checked. Called everyone I can think of.
But the one call Bob did not make that night was to Debe.
DISPATCHER: OK sir, we have checked around the Sherwood area and we can’t find her car at all.
The dispatcher suggested Bob call the Washington County Sheriff, which he did at 11:34 p.m., and they opened a missing person’s case the next morning. But Debe Atrops would not be a missing person for long.
Det. Michael O’Connell: Even though I’ve been retired for years, it still kind of hung over me.
Washington County Sheriff’s Detective Michael O’Connell remembers responding to the scene when Debe’s car was found. The license plates had been taken off, the window was open and the keys were inside. O’Connell’s partner called Bob Atrops.
DETECTIVE LAZENBY: With you being the husband —
BOB ATROPS: Uh-huh.
DETECTIVE LAZENBY: — we need permission. We’d like to search the car …
BOB ATROPS: OK.
DETECTIVE LAZENBY: And I’d like to know if that’d be alright with you.
BOB ATROPS: Sure.
A few minutes later police found Debe’s body face down in the trunk.
Det. Michael O’Connell: She was nicely dressed. … Still had her coat on … Looked like she’d been placed somewhat carefully in the trunk.
Washington County District Attorney’s Office
Police say Debe had been strangled, and there were no signs of sexual assault. There was mud on her coat and shoes, the front passenger tire and the steering wheel of the car. Law enforcement scoured her vehicle for evidence.
Det. Michael O’Connell: It looked like someone may have tried to wipe down the hood. There were, like, broad clothing swipes, like, someone maybe was trying to destroy fingerprints.
O’Connell and his partner went to Bob’s house to tell him they had found his wife’s body. A witness who saw Bob later that day told the cold case team Bob was “very calm, much calmer than I would expect.”
Allison Brown | Prosecutor: It wasn’t consistent with a grieving, estranged husband.
Debe’s stepfather, Ed Holland, says her mother, Gloria, who was close to Debe, was overwhelmed with grief.
Ed Holland: She broke down … and I held her, and that’s all I could do … She just laid there, sobbing.
Police searched outside Bob’s home for any further clues.
Det. Michael O’Connell: The driveway was a mix of mud, dirt, and gravel. And it looked like … her car may have driven through some of the mud.
Bob had said Debe was last there about a week before her murder. Police took photos of the tire tracks outside his house and collected soil from his driveway and lawn.
Det. Michael O’Connell: Just to make sure we weren’t missing anything.
Police never found any tire tracks that matched Debe’s car on Bob’s property. Yet Bob Atrops was an obvious suspect. But he wasn’t the only man in Debe’s life. Since she had moved out five months before, Debe had been dating—and those relationships were complicated.
Ed Holland: Debe had very good taste and was a good judge of people, but a terrible judge of men. Every man that she seemed to hook up with was a problem.
WHO KILLED DEBE ATROPS?
Rhianna Stephens: It was great growing up with my dad. He was an amazing dad.
Rhianna Stephens
Natalie Morales: Do you have memories of him being hands on? …
Rhianna Stephens: Yeah. My dad was very hands on … I knew that I was his number one.
Rhianna Stephens: I remember being at my grandpa’s house with my cousin, going through old photo albums and finding a picture of this woman. And I was like, “Who’s that?” And she just kind of was like, “That’s your mom.” … From that point on, I always remember knowing the story.
Debe Atrops’ daughter Rhianna Stephens says she learned about her mother’s murder when she was 6 or 7 years old. She says growing up, her dad only shared fond memories of her mom.
Rhianna Stephens: I didn’t know that they had separated. … Anything that I had ever heard about her was always good from him.
But things were not always good in Bob and Debe’s marriage. Debe’s stepfather, Ed Holland, remembers meeting Bob, a construction product salesman, and talking to Debe’s mother about how quickly Bob and Debe walked down the aisle.
Darlene Lufkin
Ed Holland: They were still in a courtship when they got married. … I said to Gloria, I said, “This is way too fast.” … She says, “Well, if they’re in love, why not?”
Debe’s friend Darlene Lufkin says, like Holland, she was not confident the relationship had a strong foundation.
Natalie Morales: How long did they know each other?
Darlene Lufkin: Just a few months it seems like. … It takes time to get to know someone. And I don’t think she really knew Bob yet.
Bob and Debe got married in June 1987 and adopted Rhianna the following March.
Because of conflicts in their marriage, just a few months after bringing Rhianna home, Debe moved into her own apartment in Salem, 30 miles away from Bob. Investigators say Debe had soon reconnected with an old boyfriend, Jeff Freeburg.
Natalie Morales: You said he was the one for her, perhaps …
Darlene Lufkin: That’s the one she kept wanting to go back to. … She really, really liked him. And I don’t think he was just ready for that kind of relationship yet.
By September 1988, Debe had a new boyfriend—a man she met at work—named John Pearson. Pearson was separated from his wife and had two young boys.
Darlene Lufkin: But I remember she was on the phone at my house once with him. She handed me the phone, and he said how much he was looking forward to meeting me and the girls. …
Darlene Lufkin: When Debe was seeing people for some reason, she wanted them to meet me and my girls.
Lufkin says she and Debe had grown close in their 20s when Darlene was a single mom.
Darlene Lufkin: She’s really the only friend I had that enjoyed spending time with my daughters. And I treasured that.
In that autumn of 1988, although Debe was dating Pearson, she stayed in touch with Freeburg. He loaned Debe $8,000.
Natalie Morales: He had lent her money to buy… a car. Could there have been motive in that?
Allison Brown: He was wealthy … So, I think he was happy to help Debe.
Back in 1988, detectives had asked Freeburg for his alibi on the night Debe was last seen alive— and he said he was home except for going out briefly to get some dinner.
Det. O’Connell: He seemed very straightforward. Didn’t hesitate to answer our questions. Didn’t seem to be hiding anything.
Police had also questioned John Pearson, who said he was with his children and his estranged wife that night. Pearson knew about Debe’s hair appointment and gave detectives a detailed description of many items inside her car.
Natalie Morales: John Pearson … told police back then that there was a Burger King bag … as well as a box with cranberries and a child car seat. … Seems like a lot of details about … the car.
Allison Brown: Yeah.
Pearson also told police there “wasn’t enough room in the trunk for a body” and that “stuff would have to have been taken out” … but O’Connell says Pearson had seemed truthful back in 1988.
Det. O’Connell: He was mostly accessible. … Didn’t appear to be trying to throw us off or anything.
And prosecutors Chris Lewman and Allison Brown say there is an innocent reason John Pearson knew so much about Debe’s car.
Allison Brown: They were seeing each other every day. … I mean, something to look into for sure, which is why they did multiple interviews of John Pearson and a polygraph in 1988. …
Natalie Morales: And did he pass the polygraph?
Allison Brown: He did. And he was willing to do it and basically do everything that they asked him to do.
Bob Atrops hired a lawyer a week after Debe’s body was found and declined to take a polygraph. Detective O’Connell says, Bob did not seem very worried about finding out who killed his wife.
Det. O’Connell: He was kind of removed. … just kind of distant.
O’Connell and his partner looked into the calls Bob said he made the night Debe went missing.
Bob told detectives he called the babysitter, Debe’s boss, and her parents while he was home waiting for her. They all confirmed he did call them that night – but there was a hitch. Those three calls were long distance and should have shown up on his phone bill.
Det. Michael O’Connell: That was a problem. Those phone calls were not there.
Rhianna Stephens
By now detectives suspected Bob had killed Debe. They thought there was no record of those three phone calls because Bob was out of the house that evening disposing of Debe’s car and her body. Police began looking for evidence Bob made those calls from somewhere else.
Det. Michael O’Connell: It involved checking payphones. … We looked at every angle. … We struck out.
They did not find proof that Bob was lying or evidence connecting him to Debe’s murder.
Det. Michael O’Connell: I didn’t like the thought of it just remaining unsolved.
O’Connell and his partner had a final meeting with Bob in 1990—asking him to account for those missing calls, or to admit he had killed his wife. But Bob maintained his innocence.
Det. Michael O’Connell: And then it kind of went dead.
When the cold case team next interviewed Bob in 2022, they asked again about those phone calls and heard a very different story.
DET. WINFIELD: I’ll be honest with you, Bob. Your story that you’re telling us today is significantly different than what you told investigators back in the day … And so, my question is … what really did happen?
A NEW LOOK AT THE COLD CASE
Darlene Lufkin: We spent a lot of time … together. … We took the girls to the beach … went to … music in the park with picnic dinners.
It’s been more than 30 years since Darlene Lufkin last saw her friend Debe Atrops, but she says she still feels the loss.
Natalie Morales: Sounds like you have really fond memories of Debe.
Darlene Lufkin: Oh yeah. … I miss her every day still.
Lufkin, like many in Debe’s life, longed for answers and in 2022 she got one step closer when the cold case team sent Debe’s coat and those soil samples for testing.
Bob Atrops’ defense
Allison Brown: The soil was sent to the FBI lab. The DNA was sent.
While they waited, the cold case team continued to examine Bob’s behavior back in 1988, which prosecutors say was suspicious from that first call.
Allison Brown: He calls law enforcement within, you know, probably 20 minutes of calling their friends and family and to us that seemed, a little quick … So, we believe he was attempting to … get his story out there and to portray himself as a concerned husband and try to … develop that narrative that he wanted to early on.
Detective O’Connell says he had the same feeling. Remember, Bob had called police four times that night.
Det. Michael O’Connell: What’s the Shakespeare quote? He protests too much? It was interesting to us that he was calling so frequently and so soon. … It didn’t seem normal.
The cold case team also turned their attention to the road where Debe’s car was found — next to that construction site. Bob’s former boss at Allied Building Products told them he believed Bob had a connection there.
Allison Brown: He was … selling roofing products … we knew, I knew that he was selling products in that area.
In 2022, the results from those DNA tests came back. The lab said they found a mixture of DNA on the collar and shoulder of Debe’s coat.
Allison Brown: They swabbed that area of her coat, because if you’re strangled, that would be the area … you’d have contact with.
The lab compared that sample from Debe’s coat to her boyfriend at the time, John Pearson.
Allison Brown: It’s not present.
And neither was her ex-boyfriend, Jeff Freeburg.
Allison Brown: Jeff Freeburg … not present.
But the lab said Bob could not be excluded as a contributor to that DNA mixture.
Chris Lewman: We can’t say it’s a match. It’s just, it’s moderate support that it’s more likely Mr. Atrops than an unknown individual.
Prosecutors admit, while the DNA from Debe’s coat excludes Freeburg and Pearson, it does not make a complete case against Bob Atrops.
Allison Brown: I think it’s another piece. … There are many, many different pieces. It was a very fact intensive case.
Another one of those pieces, they say, is the mud.
Allison Brown: This murder was connected to mud. Her body was covered in mud, there was mud on the outside of the car, on the inside of the car.
Washington County District Attorney’s Office
The FBI lab, which examined this evidence, concluded that the mud on Debe’s car tire did not match the mud where her car was found. However, that mud on the tire, they said, was “indistinguishable” from the mud from Bob’s lawn in color, composition and texture. This is evidence, prosecutors say, that Bob was lying when he said Debe did not come to his house the night she went missing.
Allison Brown: According to the defendant’s interview, she had not been to his house for about 10 days.
Bob Atrops hadn’t spoken to police about the case since that final conversation with detectives in 1990. But in 2022, he agreed to talk to the cold case team.
Investigators asked Bob about those calls to friends and family that didn’t appear on his phone bill back in 1988.
DET. WINFIELD: It is October 19th, 2022 … here with … Bob Atrops.
DET. WINFIELD: You made those phone calls?
BOB ATROPS: Yes.
DET. WINFIELD: From your house?
BOB ATROPS: Yes.
DET. WINFIELD: Using your home phone?
BOB ATROPS: With an MCI card.
DET. WINFIELD: No.
BOB ATROPS: Yes.
DET. WINFIELD: No.
Bob now said he had used an MCI calling card to make those missing long distance calls from home.
BOB ATROPS: Yeah, an MCI card from Allied Building Products …
DET. WINFIELD: That is not what you told investigators. … and you said, “I made those calls from my home phone.”
BOB ATROPS: Yes.
DET. WINFIELD: “Using my home long distance.”
BOB ATROPS: But you dial in, and … you punch in the code and then you can complete the long-distance call.
Prosecutors say Bob didn’t have that MCI calling card in 1988, and what’s more, prosecutor Chris Lewman says, this story doesn’t make sense.
Chris Lewman: In 1988, to make a calling card, you had to input about a 16-digit calling card number and then another six- or eight-digit code. And if you’re frantically looking for your wife, why take the time to do that, and enter all those numbers?
In 2023, prosecutors brought the case to a grand jury—who voted to indict.
Rhianna Stephens: I got a phone call on March 2nd of 2023 at five o’clock in the morning … that my dad had just been arrested. … I was just in shock.
Washington County District Attorney’s Office
Rhianna says Bob is a loving dad, and a doting grandfather to her three children.
Natalie Morales: What was it like seeing your dad … front page story?
Rhianna Stephens: It was awful to see the news … making him out to be this terrible person that he just isn’t. …
Rhianna Stephens: He didn’t do this.
Cold case detectives spoke to Bob Atrops again after his arrest.
DET. WINFIELD: My opinion is, you’ve told yourself a story for the last 34 years, and you’ve told yourself the story over and over and over again to the point that it’s become the truth for you … It doesn’t make it true, but it makes it easier for you to tell that story.
BOB ATROPS: I don’t believe that, but OK.
DET. WINFIELD: What part don’t you believe?
BOB ATROPS: A story that I created, I guess. …
DET. WINFIELD: You don’t believe that you created a story?
BOB ATROPS: No.
DETECTIVE WINFIELD: OK. …
DETECTIVE WINFIELD: You just are not in a position to acknowledge that you played a role in her death.
BOB ATROPS: No, I did not.
Bob Atrops pleaded not guilty to Debe’s murder. Attorney April Yates argues it’s more likely Debe’s killer was her boyfriend at the time, John Pearson, than Bob.
April Yates: John Pearson not only had motive, he had opportunity. He knew where Debe Atrops was going to be. He knew about her hair appointment. And also, he knew an incredible amount of detail about her car.
But prosecutors say Pearson had nothing to do with Debe’s murder. Back in 1988 he told police that, about a week before the murder, Bob confronted Debe because he was suspicious she was in a new relationship. Pearson said Debe was afraid if Bob found out it was true, he would kill her. The prosecution planned to call Pearson as a witness in Bob Atrops’ upcoming trial.
Chris Lewman: We wanted to have him testify … because we found him credible.
But that would never happen. Pearson, who had been ill, and had an outstanding warrant for a DUI in Oregon, stopped responding to detectives. When authorities located him in Arizona, five days before opening arguments were to begin, John Pearson killed himself.
Janis Puracal: John Pearson fled the state … He was on the run.
Attorney Janis Puracal was part of the defense team.
Janis Puracal: Police find him in a trailer in the desert in Arizona. When police surround that trailer, he … ends his life, rather than coming back to Oregon to answer questions about Debe Atrops murder. Those are the facts. Prosecution can spin it all they want, but those are the facts.
DID BOB ATROPS MURDER HIS ESTRANGED WIFE?
Rhianna Stephens: I’m trying to be strong for my dad.
In spring 2025, Robert Atrops’ murder trial began at the Washington County Courthouse. Prosecutors worried the jury might get stuck on details they could not explain.
Allison Brown: In a case where we need to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, we’re not going to be able to answer every single detail of what happened that night.
ALLISON BROWN (in court): Remember, the appointment’s supposed to end around 7:15 … By 9:40 p.m., he’s calling 911.
At the trial, which allowed audio but not video recording of witnesses, attorney Allison Brown argues that Bob Atrops intentionally misled the police — starting with those four calls he made to them the night Debe was last seen alive.
Allison Brown: He didn’t tell the law enforcement officials that they were separated, that they lived separately … So, he didn’t actually give them the information that they would need to find her.
Family photo
Bob didn’t tell police Debe lived in Salem until the next day. Even more incriminating, prosecutors say, is the fact that Bob Atrops did not call Debe the night she went missing — or ever.
Chris Lewman: He never called her apartment.
Allison Brown: … that would’ve been the first phone call, right? … Someone hasn’t showed up. You’re expecting them. You call them.
Natalie Morales: Mm.
Allison Brown: … not only was that not the first phone call, but he never made that phone call at all.
At trial, prosecutors played Bob’s interview with investigators in 2022 where he explained why he didn’t ever make that call.
DET. CAREY: Did you ever call Debe’s place?
BOB ATROPS: Her house? No … I didn’t even consider that as an option …
DET. CAREY: So, let me rephrase and correct me if I’m right, you never considered calling the place she lives?
BOB ATROPS: Not when she was supposed to be in our vicinity, no.
Prosecutors also want the jury to hear more about the troubles in Bob and Debe’s marriage. Debe’s friend Christy Knapp testified to an encounter with Bob at his house, soon after Debe moved out.
CHRISTY KNAPP (court audio): We went there to get some serving dishes. … We walked into the entry, and he just started freaking out and screaming. … He seemed really, really tall, and really scary. … It was terrifying.
Another friend, Tami Nelsen, told police in 1988 Debe had confided in her that Bob Atrops had choked her in a violent confrontation shortly before she moved out. Nelsen told the jury Debe was still worried about Bob after their separation.
ALLISON BROWN (court audio): What did she say she was concerned about?
TAMI NELSEN: Well, she was concerned that he’d kill her. … And I thought she was teasing to begin with … you know, or she was being dramatic.
ALLISON BROWN: Yeah.
TAMI NELSEN: And so, I turned around and I looked at her, and I saw that she was genuinely scared.
Nelsen had also told police in 1988 that a few months before her murder, Debe was worried about Bob finding out about her relationship with John Pearson. Nelsen later told the cold case team Debe had said, “If anything happens to me Bob did it.”
Allison Brown: Debe is predicting her own murder. She is telling friends and family if he finds out about this, he will kill me.
Natalie Morales: Mm-hmm.
Allison Brown: And she was right.
But in their cross-examinations, the defense suggests these stories Debe told are not reliable and they say Debe had a history of making up false tales.
April Yates: She had told different stories to different people, and these things were verifiably not true.
Some of Debe’s friends say she did tell questionable stories, often about her health. Darlene says she thought Debe might have done it for attention.
Darlene Lufkin: One time she said that she went to work out … her stomach flipped or something and she had to go get emergency help with it … It didn’t seem real to me.
Attorney April Yates says there is a simple explanation for why Bob Atrops didn’t call Debe that night—he had spoken to her stepfather, Ed Holland.
April Yates: Ed told Bob that he had been by Debe’s apartment … and she wasn’t home. … There was no reason for Bob to call.
April Yates: And the next morning, Debe’s parents went to her apartment again, as did law enforcement, so there was no reason for Bob to call or go there. The fact that the state is trying to make something out of that — it’s a red herring.
During trial, the babysitter and Debe’s stepfather testified that Bob had called them the night Debe went missing, which supports Bob’s story. Attorney Stephanie Pollan says the best explanation for why those so-called missing calls weren’t on his phone bill is that the billing equipment was faulty.
Stephanie Pollan: We found the engineer … and he testified that this equipment failed all the time.
But the cold case team believes Bob made those calls while he was out of the house, getting rid of evidence, to help him create a false alibi. And they say it was impossible to check every payphone in the area back in 1988.
Allison Brown: What was significant is he’s not where he said he was, he’s not at home. Why would he lie about where he was that night?
While the state emphasized the link between the mud on Debe’s tire and the soil from Bob Atrops’ front yard, the defense says that this soil is everywhere in the region and is as common as — dirt.
April Yates: This soil is everywhere. … My yard, her yard, the DA’s yard. It doesn’t make us suspects in a murder.
Back in 1988 police didn’t collect mud from Jeff Freeburg’s property, or John Pearson’s. They only took samples from where Debe’s car was found and from Bob Atrops’ driveway and lawn. Then there was the matter of the DNA from Debe’s coat.
April Yates: … the DNA in this case doesn’t tell the jury anything about who killed Debe Atrops.
Attorney Yates points out that the amount of DNA on Debe’s coat that the lab had said could be consistent with Bob Atrops was miniscule—the equivalent of about six skin cells.
April Yates: And this very low level of DNA is consistent with something called transfer DNA … People who have babies and shared custody transfer DNA all the time.
Natalie Morales: So, in your opinion, this DNA was not strong evidence?
April Yates: This DNA was not only not strong evidence—it doesn’t mean anything.
The defense argues there is a much more important DNA result from Debe’s autopsy.
Janis Puracal: One of the very first items that the lab tested for DNA were vaginal swabs taken from the autopsy.
Attorney Janis Puracal specializes in evidence that can lead to wrongful convictions. She says the DNA from Debe’s autopsy does not point to Bob Atrops.
Janis Puracal: The semen came from John Pearson. … and the likelihood ratio … is 94.6 sextillion. … it’s an enormous number.
Prineville, Arizona, Police Department
And she points out Pearson’s DNA at autopsy contradicts his statement to police from 2022.
Janis Puracal: John Pearson told law enforcement that he did not have sexual contact with Debe Atrops in the 72 hours before she was murdered, and definitely not on the day that she was murdered. But they found that semen … two days later, at the autopsy. Everything is telling us that that … was most likely deposited on the day that she was murdered.
And the defense reminds the jury, John Pearson was avoiding the cold case team in the months leading up to his suicide. In its closing statement, the defense says the state just doesn’t have enough to make its case against Bob Atrops.
But prosecutors argue all of the pieces point in one direction — to Bob Atrops.
Allison Brown: Like you hear: motive, means and opportunity, he had it all.
Now, after two weeks of testimony, it is time for the jury to decide.
Allison Brown: We didn’t know if that would be enough or not. … it’s incredibly nerve-wracking.
“WE ARE GRIEVING SOMEONE THAT IS STILL ALIVE”
CBS News
Natalie Morales: What did you think before the jury left to go deliberate? Did you feel confident?
Rhianna Stephens: I didn’t feel confident. I just— because of the fear of the unknown. … I don’t feel like any evidence was actually given that proves my dad did this. … because he didn’t. There is no evidence that he did this.
On April 17, 2025, the jury reached a decision.
Stephanie Pollan: It was six hours that they were deliberating. … we thought that that was a quick verdict and that could be a good thing.
JUDGE OSCAR GARCIA (court audio): My understanding, the jury has a verdict in this case. Is that correct?
FOREPERSON: Correct. …
JUDGE OSCAR GARCIA: To the charge of murder in the second degree, the jury has found the defendant guilty.
Guilty. Thirty-seven years after her death, Robert Atrops was found guilty of murdering Debe Atrops.
April Yates: It was like the room went dead silent … and everything was still in that moment.
Rhianna Stephens: We all crumbled. We are grieving someone that is still alive. …
Natalie Morales: Were you able to say anything to your father in that moment right after?
Rhianna Stephens: No. I —
Natalie Morales: Hug him, nothing?
Rhianna Stephens: I haven’t been able to hug my dad in over two years.
April Yates: We had so many family and friends of Bob behind us. … It was really hard, for them especially, to see this happen to their loved one.
Natalie Morales: I could see it’s hard for you, too.
April Yates: It is hard. It’s hard to have an innocent client get convicted.
Prosecutors say they are glad that justice was served.
Natalie Morales: This case took 37 years to finally be resolved. Are you satisfied that we know the truth about what happened to Debe Atrops?
Allison Brown: Yeah, absolutely … There’s no other people … no other suspects, no one else with the motive. … We feel absolutely a hundred percent sure that he’s the one who committed this crime.
Prosecutors are confident the investigation proved the other men in Debe’s life, including Jeff Freeburg, were not involved in her murder. Freeburg declined “48 Hours”‘ request to comment on the case.
Allison Brown: There just really wasn’t any information that pointed in the direction of Jeff Freeburg … he gave his DNA freely … There really just wasn’t any motive, evidence, or anything else that caused him to be a significant suspect.
And, they say, John Pearson’s suicide was an unrelated tragedy.
Chris Lewman: He had an open criminal case …I believe he thought they were there to arrest him for this misdemeanor warrant and took his life.
Allison Brown: There was quite a bit of investigation that was done by our detective after he committed suicide to show it had nothing to do with guilt for Debe’s murder.
When “48 Hours” reached out in 2025, Pearson’s lawyer declined to comment on the case. Prosecutors say Pearson’s family told them he had wanted to testify at Bob’s trial.
Chris Lewman: I thought that it would be important for him to … relay all the things he knew, including those statements that Debe made back in 1988, that … Bob’s going to kill me if he finds out about us.
As for the defense’s argument that Debe had a history of making up stories, prosecutors say this is unfortunately consistent with life inside an abusive relationship.
Allison Brown: When someone’s going through a domestic violence situation, they are in a way living a lie.
Natalie Morales: Bob’s side of the courtroom … was full. … Did that strike you as interesting?
Allison Brown: It depends on the case.
Chris Lewman: Yeah, I mean, I think he had a large support system and it’s not uncommon for people … in a domestic abuse situation to kind of go unknown as a DV abuser … And I think Bob was good at that. I mean, he was a salesman.
After all these years, Darlene Lufkin says she thinks the jury got it right.
Darlene Lufkin: I had my suspicions all along …
Natalie Morales: You believed that that was the right verdict?
Darlene Lufkin: I do. … I just feel that the question’s been answered now.
At her father’s sentencing in July 2025, Rhianna Stephens made an emotional appeal for leniency.
CBS News
RHIANNA STEPHENS (in court): When I was 8 months old, someone robbed me of getting to have a life with my mom, there to support my every milestone. … Thirty-six years later, I’m being robbed of my father, the man that was there for all of those milestones. … I need him in my life.
Attorney Pollan read a letter from Bob Atrops’ current wife who has been married to him since 2011.
STEPHANIE POLLAN (reading letter in court): “My husband has always been a devoted and loving father to his daughter.”
Despite these appeals, the judge sentenced Robert Atrops to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
Natalie Morales: When you lost your mom at a young age, and you said, now you grieve your dad who’s still alive, how do you make sense of what’s happening?
Rhianna Stephens: I can’t make sense of what’s happening. I just have to live through it and keep fighting.
Ed Holland
Darlene Lufkin: She truly loved Rhianna …
Natalie Morales: What do you want people to know about your friend, Debe?
Darlene Lufkin: That she didn’t deserve this … that she was a light that should still be here.
Natalie Morales: Do you think about your mother now?
Rhianna Stephens: I do think about her. I wonder what life would’ve been like. … had I gotten to live … my whole life, grow up having my mom.
Robert Atrops will be eligible for parole in 2048. He will be 93 years old.
Produced by Sarah Prior. Ken Blum and Grayce Arlotta-Berner are the editors. Chelsea Narvaez is the field producer. Rebecca Laflam is the associate producer. Danielle Austen, Cindy Cesare, and Sara Ely Hulse are the development producers. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
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Did a secret obsession lead an MIT
This story originally aired on Jan. 25, 2025.
It was a cold night in New Haven, Connecticut, in February 2021 when lead detective David Zaweski and his colleague Steven Cunningham arrived at the crime scene.
Det. David Zaweski: The patrol officers had already been out there canvassing the area. They were knocking on doors looking for anyone that might’ve seen anything or heard anything.
Det. David Zaweski: The crime scene detectives were starting to locate all the, uh, shell casings.
Kevin Jiang
Kevin Jiang, a 26-year-old Yale graduate student, was lying in the street, shot eight times.
Det. David Zaweski: His body was still on scene … covered in a white sheet.
Anne-Marie Green: When you saw the body … what did you see?
Det. David Zaweski: What we could see were gunshot wounds to his upper body and to his head. And you could see stippling on the left side of his head.
Stippling is a burn pattern caused by gunpowder exploding from a weapon fired at close range.
About a hundred feet down the street —
Det. David Zaweski: There was a Prius just parked in the middle of the road with its hazards on.
They quickly discovered the Prius belonged to Kevin. Crime scene detectives noticed a peculiar bit of damage that suggested it had been hit from behind.
Det. David Zaweski: There was an impression that was left on the back bumper that looked like a license plate holder.
Anne-Marie Green: So, this is like a fender bender. It’s not a violent crash.
Det. David Zaweski: No. There’s not much damage.
One witness told detectives she heard the sound of an accident and went to the window to look.
Det. David Zaweski: When they look out, they see a Prius come to a stop and put its hazards on. They see a dark colored SUV pull up behind it and then reverse back toward the intersection. They see the operator of the Prius walk out and approach the SUV – most likely to see how they were, exchange insurance information. When the operator gets to the black SUV, they hear a round of gunshots and they see the muzzle flash from the gun from the driver’s side of the SUV.
Another witness heard the first round of gunshots and went to her window.
Det. David Zaweski: When she looks outside, she sees a subject, wearing all black, standing over another individual who’s laying on the ground. … she hears another round of gunshots and she can see the muzzle flash from the gun as he’s firing.
Det. David Zaweski: But she sees someone standing over another person, which means the victim is already down. And they’re still shooting.
Det. David Zaweski: Yes.
Anne-Marie Green: What did you think?
Det. David Zaweski: There’s a little bit more to it. It seems a little bit more personal. When you have someone laying on the ground and not moving, what would cause someone to continue firing at them?
The detectives were able to confirm these accounts when they got a look at video from a neighbor’s security system.
Det. David Zaweski: It was located on the inside of a window, facing outward.
Det. David Zaweski: We hear the collision between the two cars.
Det. David Zaweski: And that’s when you see Kevin’s Prius pull into frame … and the SUV pulls up behind him. And then reverses out of frame. You see Kevin exit his vehicle and then walk out of frame to approach the SUV.
Det. David Zaweski: You then hear two gunshots.
Det. David Zaweski: A scream.
Det. David Zaweski: And then six more gunshots.
Moments later, the video shows the SUV driving off into the night.
Anne-Marie Green: Can you make out any details when it comes to the SUV?
Det. David Zaweski: Unfortunately, not. … You could kind of get the idea of the potential make and model of it with the taillights, but you couldn’t discern any identifying features.
WERE RANDOM SHOOTINGS IN NEW HAVEN RELATED?
Investigators soon felt the dark SUV and the .45 caliber shells recovered at the scene pointed to a potential link to earlier shootings around the area that police had been investigating. Four times over a two-month span, someone fired shots into family homes – the fourth incident occurred just one hour before Kevin’s murder.
Det. David Zaweski: We had detectives in the bureau looking into each of the incidents to see if there’s any more of a connection to link them.
Paul Whyte (points out where the bullets came in): Two bullets came in from this window and ended up in this wall.
Paul and Nyree Whyte’s home was the target of the third shooting.
Paul Whyte: We had just finished dinner … I had a fire going.
Nyree, a schoolteacher, headed upstairs to take a shower. Paul — an educator with degrees from Yale, Harvard, and Columbia University — was sitting downstairs.
Paul Whyte: All of a sudden, something comes through this window. … then a second bullet came through – you heard the pop and the glass going everywhere with that one.
Paul shouted a warning to Nyree.
Paul Whyte: Get down. Someone’s shooting.
Nyree Whyte: And then I heard bang-pop again and I turn, and I literally saw the frame of the door just splinter.
Anne-Marie Green: And then she yells back at you.
Paul Whyte: Right, that someone’s shooting upstairs.
It was over in a matter of moments and no one was injured.
Anne-Marie Green: Do you feel lucky?
Paul Whyte: Yes.
Nyree Whyte: Absolutely.
Paul Whyte: Absolutely.
Detectives interviewed the Whytes and the occupants of the other houses.
Det. David Zaweski: There didn’t seem to be any connection between them.
And none of them, investigators say, had any connection to Kevin Jiang. But the shell casings from all the shootings would later tell a different story.
Det. David Zaweski: When the casings are sent to the lab, they all came back as matches to the casings found at the homicide.
The casings matched, but Kevin was the only person murdered, and detectives didn’t know why.
Det. David Zaweski: It could have been a road rage incident that turned a little too violent.
Or was Kevin targeted?
Det. Steven Cunningham: The car accident … was it deliberate … to get him out of the vehicle … Possibly something that was planned.
Det. David Zaweski: And if he was specifically targeted, what could have happened in his life to drive someone to do this?
SURVEILLANCE VIDEO CAPTURES KEVIN JIANG’S FINAL MOMENTS
It was late when detectives Zaweski and Cunningham left the crime scene on Feb. 6. They went to Kevin’s home looking to find a family member to notify about what had happened. His mother, Linda Liu, came to the door.
Anne-Marie Green: It’s got to be the hardest conversation.
Det. David Zaweski: It is. They always are.
Det. David Zaweski: You want to be direct and upfront and make it clear. As horrific as it is … for them. … So, we explained to her that he was shot and killed in the area of Lawrence and Nichols Street in New Haven.
Anne-Marie Green: Can she even comprehend that?
Det. David Zaweski: She’s absolutely devastated. She falls to the ground crying.
The detectives wanted to know everything about Kevin and why he may have been targeted that night. Liu began to tell them about her son.
Det. David Zaweski: It was just the two of them. And he was actually supporting her.
Trinity Baptist Church/YouTube
Det. David Zaweski: She told us that he was a grad student at Yale University and was in the Army National Guard.
Kevin was deeply religious. He and his mother were part of the congregation at Trinity Baptist Church. Pastor Gregory Hendrickson knew them both and says that Liu, a divorced single parent, got Kevin through a tough childhood where he was often bullied.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: She was very committed to sort of seeing him come through and eventually he thrived on the other side of that … I think he had a sense of … honoring his mom by, as she had cared for him when he was a child … caring for her as she was getting older.
Kevin bought a house in 2019 and Hendrickson says he invited his mother to come live with him.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: She was living alone, she was living on the other side of the country, she didn’t have a lot of family support around her and … he … wanted … her to come and be with him during his studies at Yale.
Zion Perry/Facebook
Police also learned then that Jiang had recently gotten engaged to his girlfriend of a year, Zion Perry. She posted the proposal on Facebook. This was just one week before he was murdered.
Nasya Hubbard: He was so in love with Zion — you could tell — he didn’t even have to really say too much.
Nasya Hubbard served with Kevin in the Army National Guard.
Nasya Hubbard: I — oh my gosh. … I remember one time … he was on the phone with her and I was like, wow, like you could hear the genuineness and his love towards her. And I was like, wow. I hope I find someone like that.
Perry grew up in Pennsylvania, where she was an honors high school student. The couple met in January 2020 when Zion was still an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: He said, you know … I met her at Christian Retreat … she is very kind and we enjoy talking and um, just have great conversations together. … then she, uh, came to do her PhD at Yale.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: They clearly shared a lot of common — they both loved nature. … I mean, Zion was … a scientist … she is studying molecular biophysics and biochemistry. … So, you know, he was studying the — in the School of the Environment … they’re both brilliant and hardworking students … and yet … they didn’t feel like their accomplishments were, what, defined them at the deepest level.
Zaweski and Cunningham then interviewed an emotional Perry, and she told them she and Kevin had spent the day together.
Det. David Zaweski: They had gone ice fishing and had dinner at her house … and then he left her house around 8:30 that night.
Kevin Jiang/Facebook
Kevin didn’t get far. His Prius was struck by the dark SUV just two blocks from Perry’s house — close enough for Perry to hear the gunshots that followed.
Det. David Zaweski: She remembers hearing the gunshots, but she thought there was a good five or ten minutes after he’d left to when she heard the gunshots. So, she didn’t think he was anywhere near the area and didn’t think twice about him potentially being involved in any way.
Anne-Marie Green: Did she have any idea who would have done something like this?
Det. Steven Cunningham: At that point, no. Nothing that she told us that she — she could think of.
After speaking with Perry, detectives were no closer to figuring out why Kevin would be a target.
Det. Steven Cunningham: It seemed like just an innocent — innocent guy.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you think this was gonna be a tough case though?
Det. David Zaweski: That night —
Det. Steven Cunningham: Yes.
Det. David Zaweski: — we had a little bit, but there wasn’t a lot to go on.
But just 15 hours after the shooting, they got a huge break.
Det. David Zaweski: Little did we know that we’d get the phone call …
Det. Steven Cunningham: And it was like, wow.
THE MAN STUCK ON THE TRAIN TRACKS
News of Kevin Jiang’s murder spread among his loved ones and closest friends.
Nasya Hubbard: And I was at home and I actually got a phone call from another soldier … And she was saying, I know you guys were close … And then … like, her voice cracked. … and … she told me that he had passed away … And I was like not comprehending what was going on. … So I text him … And I was like, “answer your phone please.” And obviously, he never answered me.
Hubbard reached out to Capt. Jamila Ayeh. And if sharing the news about Jiang wasn’t tragic enough, someone posted the chilling video of his murder online, and his fellow soldiers now saw and heard Kevin’s final moments alive.
Nasya Hubbard: … to this day. … I can still hear him — hear him screaming … I was like, why did I listen to that?
Detectives Zaweski and Cunningham were back at their desks in headquarters, struggling for answers and leads to pursue.
Anne-Marie Green: Day two … you get a phone call.
Det. David Zaweski: Yes.
The call, from a sergeant at nearby North Haven Police Department, was urgent.
Det. David Zaweski: … two incidents had happened in North Haven the night before and then earlier that morning.
It began with a 911 call from a local scrap metal yard around 9 p.m. – less than a half hour after Kevin was killed.
911 CALL: I’m the, uh, security guard at … Sims Metal Management. … I just had somebody drive through my yard here … they didn’t know where they were going. … So I’ve been chasing them around the yard and, uh, they just pulled way in the back, off the property … it’s like a black minivan, SUV type of thing.
Sergeant Jeffrey Mills and Officer Marcus Artaiz responded and spotted that vehicle stuck on snow-covered railroad tracks, not far from the rear exit of the Sims scrap metal yard. They approached the driver.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: How you doing?
QINXUAN PAN: I’m stuck.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: Oh, yeah. What are you doing back here?
QINXUAN PAN: Stuck here.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: What are you doing back here, though?
QINXUAN PAN: I just got it here accidentally, and I got stuck. … Is there any way to get unstuck here?
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: Uh, the only thing I can do is call you a tow truck.
QINXUAN PAN: OK, cool. Thanks.
North Haven Police Department
The motorist was 29-year-old Qinxuan Pan from Malden, Massachusetts.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: OK. Do you have your driver’s license on you?
QINXUAN PAN: Yes.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: Registration?
QINXUAN PAN: Yes. You can take this. OK.
His driver’s license and criminal background were clean. During the encounter, Mills noticed a yellow jacket on the passenger seat. He also saw a blue bag and a briefcase in the backseat, but not much else.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS (bodycam): He took a wrong turn. … He got lost, and he thought the Jeep was probably chasing him, the security guy.
Because Sgt. Mills hadn’t heard about Kevin’s murder, he wasn’t particularly concerned.
OFFICER MARCUS ARTAIZ (bodycam): So, it’s nothing you think?
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: Yeah, he’s —
OFFICER MARCUS ARTAIZ: He doesn’t look like he’s got any scrap on him or anything.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: No.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: I’ve been on the tracks I don’t know how many times with vehicles that were, you know, called into suspicious or whatever but kids go back there … people always come down there, um, according to the security guard … and they turn around in the front lot and they leave ’cause they missed the highway or something.
Anne-Marie Green: Yeah. Did he look nervous?
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: He wasn’t nervous at all … He was perfectly calm.
QINXUAN PAN (bodycam): So what — what do you recommend I do? … I mean if I can get it off the track, I prefer to drive — drive it myself.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: He was just like, well sorry. I got stuck on the tracks can you help me get off?
OFFICER MARCUS ARTAIZ (bodycam): So how about you get a hotel for the night. We’ll have the tow truck drop you off at the hotel and you pay with credit card and you can arrange pick it up the car in the morning.
QINXUAN PAN: OK, let’s get the hotel then.
OFFICER MARCUS ARTAIZ (bodycam):: Yeah let’s do that.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: That’s probably the safest thing to do.
QINXUAN PAN: OK.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS: OK.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: The tow truck came, uh, took a little work, but it got it off the tracks. … he gave, uh, Mr. Pan, uh, ride back to Best Western and I cleared the call like any other call.
But hours later, there was another call to 911.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: February 7th, around 11:00 a.m.
911 OPERATOR: Hello. Can I help you? … This is the police department.
CALLER: Uh hello, I work at Arby’s here in North Haven.
911 OPERATOR: Mm hmm.
ARBY’S EMPLOYEE: … we found a gun … and probably like, uh, 10 boxes of, um –
911 OPERATOR: Bullets?
ARBY’S EMPLOYEE: … bullets.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: An employee found a couple of bags on the grass at the north entrance here. When they brought ’em in …
North Haven Police Department
OFFICER #1 (bodycam): There were three bags … this one, that one, and this.
OFFICER #2: Got it.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: I took a better look at the bags that it came in … And here’s a … blue retail bag with the Massachusetts logo on it and a small leather black briefcase. And it instantly hit me. These are the bags that were in Mr. Pan’s car the night before.
The Arby’s was right next door to the Best Western where Pan was dropped off. And by then, Mills had heard about the murder in New Haven.
Anne-Marie Green (with Mills outside Arby’s): What’s going through your brain?
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: At that point … knowing … that New Haven had a homicide … they were looking for a dark-colored GMC SUV. Um, now, we’ve got a firearm. And then Officer Bianchi shows me a yellow jacket that was in it … And the suspect was wearing a yellow jacket.
SGT. JEFFREY MILLS (bodycam): So, he might be at Best Western right now.
OFFICER #1: Let’s go over there.
OFFICER #2: I’m gonna go over there.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: And when we got here I went in to the front desk and spoke with the attendant there and asked if Qinxuan Pan had checked in. Which they checked and said yes he did … I mean he hasn’t checked out yet.
That’s when Mills alerted New Haven homicide about Pan.
Anne-Marie Green: Do you immediately think there might be a connection with the homicide?
Det. David Zaweski: There’s a very good chance. … the vehicle matched. And … the items that were left behind at the Arby’s restaurant … it included a .45-caliber handgun and that matched the casings that were at the scene.
Zaweski immediately sent detectives to meet Mills at the Best Western.
Sgt. Jeffrey Mills: Uh so we got a key, went to room 276 … We knocked on the door, we entered the room. And the room was clean. … Nothing in it. It didn’t appear that anybody stayed in it for the night. … At first, we were like, oh, we lost him.
Qinxuan Pan/Facebook
New Haven police sent investigators, including Detective Joe Galvan, to track down Pan. Galvan went to Malden, Massachusetts, where Pan lived with his parents and was a graduate student at MIT.
—
Det. Joe Galvan: … right outside of Boston …very affluent homes … There’s no one there. … so we knock on the door. … So … the day after the homicide, we were unsure if, uh, maybe the family, um, was on vacation. … out of state, out of the country.
But police were also worried.
Det. Joe Galvan: … were they — given the heinous act that occurred in New Haven the day before, were they potentially kidnapped by their own son? Were they victims of another … hor-horrible crime?
WAS AN OBSESSION A MOTIVE FOR MURDER?
With Qinxuan Pan and his parents missing from their home, Detective David Zaweski turned to his computer searching for Pan.
Det. David Zaweski: The first thing I wanna know is, who he is … and if there’s any connection between him and Kevin. … I see that he has a Facebook page.
Anne-Marie Green: What was his page like?
Qinxuan Pan/Facebook
Det. David Zaweski: There was not much activity at all. His last, uh, post was back in 2016, and he had a few photos with some other students, but that was it.
Anne-Marie Green: Is that when you first found out that he’s an MIT grad student?
Det. David Zaweski: Yes that was the first time we got the connection between him and MIT.
Det. David Zaweski: So, I check his friends list to see if Kevin is in there.
Anne-Marie Green: Is he?
Det. David Zaweski: Kevin is not listed, but I do notice that Zion Perry is listed.
Zion Perry, Kevin’s fiancee, who also went to MIT.
Det. David Zaweski: Now we have a connection … I got in contact with her. … she explained that they had met at MIT back in, uh, 2019. And they were more associates than friends.
Anne-Marie Green: Nothing romantic?
Det. David Zaweski: No. … She said that they never dated, they never had any romantic relationship.
Det. David Zaweski: The last time she spoke with him was May of 2020 … he reached out to her through Facebook Messenger … to congratulate her on graduating. … He asked to FaceTime with her and she politely declined it.
Anne-Marie Green: She must have been wondering why you asking me so many questions about this guy. What’d you say to her?
Det. David Zaweski: She was, and that’s when I told her that he was a person of interest in this and she was completely shocked. … he was barely a part of her life. … and why he would’ve been involved with this in any way.
Anne-Marie Green: What did she have posted on her page?
Zion Perry/Facebook
Det. David Zaweski: The last things that she had posted were the engagement between her and Kevin.
Anne-Marie Green: Are you starting to formulate a theory about the case that goes a little beyond possible road rage?
Det. David Zaweski: Yes … It did seem like there was a secret obsession of Pan’s going on behind the scenes that Kevin wasn’t aware of and that Zion wasn’t aware of.
The next day, Zion Perry joined Kevin’s mother, Linda Lui, and father, Mingchen Jiang, and nearly 700 people on a virtual vigil for Kevin. Perry addressed the mourners.
ZION PERRY: One day, I — I will get to see … Kevin again, yeah, in heaven and then everything is made right … I thank Miss Liu and Mr. Jiang for raising such a fine young man and for, yeah, bringing him into the world.
LINDA LIU: He gave me a lot of joy. He’s very thoughtful, warm boy taking care of me. And, uh, I miss him.
MINGCHEN JIANG: He’s a nice boy. Everybody likes him. (CRYING) Thank you. … Thank you, you all.
That week, Pastor Hendrickson eulogized Kevin at his funeral.
Pastor Gregory Hendrickson: We come to you today, remembering Kevin, grateful for his life, grieving over his loss.
Perry read a poem Kevin wrote to her. It began –
Zion Perry: “If this world falls apart, it will be all right, because we have each other’s hearts.”
A medical officer also trained to operate tanks, Kevin was buried with full military honors, just two days before his 27th birthday, on Valentine’s Day.
Meanwhile, Galvan, a member of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Connecticut — along with supervisor Matthew Duffy and Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault — were utilizing their vast resources to urgently gather intelligence on Pan.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: MIT graduate … not socially active … degree in computer science.
Lawyer William Gerace.
William Gerace: … grad student … in artificial intelligence.
Anne-Marie Green: Genius?
William Gerace: Genius. … socially not a genius.
The Marshals discovered Pan had three active phones, and they noticed that in the months before Kevin was killed, Pan was using one of those phones to contact car dealerships.
Det. Joe Galvan: He would tell them all the same thing. … um, said he was going for a test drive. I believe he said he was going on a camping trip.
Investigators were able to match the date of Pan’s test drives with each of the .45 caliber shootings in New Haven, including Kevin’s murder. It was all part of a plan, investigators say. They believe that Pan likely fired shots into those homes to ultimately mislead them, hoping that they would think Kevin’s murder was just another random shooting.
Det. Steve Cunningham: … he planned it … and he knew we’d be looking at these other things.
Det. David Zaweski: Yeah he did his best to … to mislead us.
Det. David Zaweski: Now we knew that, yes, this wasn’t a random incident out there … That he was targeted.
They also discovered that not long after Kevin’s murder, Pan called his parents, and they made a cash withdrawl of about $1,000.
William Gerace: They had tremendous assets somehow from Shanghai.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Access to large sums of money … several million dollars.
The Marshals zeroed in on Pan’s parents and picked up a ping on their phone at a North Carolina gas station.
Det. Joe Galvan: Our task force … found it on — on the … on the ground.
The cellphone was crushed.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Like a car ran over it.
Three days later, investigators caught up with Pan’s parents driving near Atlanta, Georgia.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Georgia state police pulled them over.
Anne-Marie Green: He’s not in the vehicle.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Nope.
Police told them they suspected their son had killed someone.
Anne-Marie Green: Were they shocked?
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: No.
Anne-Marie Green: They weren’t shocked that their son was being investigated in connection with the cold-blooded murder.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: They may have been, but they didn’t — they didn’t lead on to us at all. They didn’t lead on to us at all.
Det. Joe Galvan: The father said our son called, said he was in Connecticut and needed help. He asked us to bring cash. Then once we picked him up in Connecticut, he took the wheel. … they take this very long drive down south …
Pan’s father didn’t say why his son was heading that direction.
Det. Joe Galvan: And he says he is quiet, acting weird. Doesn’t really say what’s going on. … they make it down to Georgia and … he pulls over … and he gets out of the car and walks away. … he said, no words to them, just walked away from the car. … That was their story
Pan’s parents agreed to be photographed. Pan’s mother declined to answer any questons without an attorney, but she later volunteered that her son walked away from her and his father and likely killed himself. The Marshals were skeptical.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: We knew after talking to the parents that they would go to jail for him. … knowing the degree that the parents were helping him … And his resources, his intelligence, we had to take a different approach on it …
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: … we needed to focus in on the parents … they probably would lead us to him.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: … they would go to the ends of the earth to help support and hide him.
Anne-Marie Green: And what does that mean?
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Patience.
And they would need plenty of it. Weeks went by without an arrest. They wondered if they missed something — and if their murder suspect had outmaneuvered them?
UNRAVELING QINXUAN PAN’S PLOT
Five weeks passed without a solid lead on the MIT student wanted for Kevin Jiang’s murder.
Anne-Marie Green: Can you give me a real sense of the pressure.
Det. Joe Galvan: Yeah, because this became so high profile so fast … it was — it was just heightened.
Then the manhunt for Pan suddenly heated up. Police said his mom told them she suspected her son killed himself. But they noticed his parents had a lot of banking activity.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: We start to see large sums of cash being withdrawn.
Anne-Marie Green: How much?
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: At that time it was about $5,000, $10,000.
Det. Joe Galvan: That’s a large sum of money that someone could use to get out the country.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: They still have family in China.
And then Pan’s parents rented a car.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: And they start traveling south again.
But the vehicle’s GPS system the Marshals were tracking went dark.
Anne-Marie Green: Did they turn it off?
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: It was disabled.
By then, investigators said they knew that their son had disabled GPS systems in several cars he drove in the runup to Kevin’s murder.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Counter tactics.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Counter tactics …
At one point, surveillance cameras at a Georgia mall recorded Pan’s father purchasing a computer.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Now this is during COVID. So everybody has their masks on. … We see the father walk in. … And probably about 10 minutes later, we see an individual fitting the description of the son. … So, the story of the suicide out in the woods … that’s — that’s not true.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: So from there … the parents end up traveling back north and —
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Once they’re in Connecticut, the GPS comes back on.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: We felt — we felt the clock was really ticking.
And it ticked away for nearly two more months until May 4, 2021, when Pan’s parents drove off for a third time. But there was a difference.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: They were traveling with another couple …
Anne-Marie Green: What do you think the deal was with the other couple?
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Yeah, make it appear that it’s a regular trip … There’s no big deal, we’re just going on a trip, meet some friends … we’re not here to help our son.
Pan’s parents and their unwitting companions were eventually placed under surveillance at a North Carolina hotel, where Marshals interviewed a clerk after the Pans checked out.
Det. Joe Galvan: At one point … Quixuan Pan’s mother. … came to the clerk’s desk late at night and asked to borrow his phone.
U.S. Marshals
Det. Joe Galvan: After she used his phone, she deleted the number from his phone.
Anne-Marie Green: Were you able to find that number?
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Yes.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: We were.
The Marshals tracked the phone to a boarding house near the University of Alabama in Montgomery.
Anne-Marie Green: So, you guys are closing in —
Det. Joe Galvan: Yeah.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: They went there with a small army, around 20 guys … they ended up finding his room and they knocked on it and he just came out and said, I’m who you’re looking for.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: He had, uh, approximately $20,000 cash on him. He had his father’s passport … And he had had multiple communication devices on him.
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: Seven SIM cards —
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Seven SIM cards and um —
Supervisory Marshal Matthew Duffy: — and the computer.
Pan was arrested for the murder of Kevin Jiang and brought back to Connecticut. He maintained his innocence, but a judge ordered him held on $20 million bond.
Deputy Marshal Kevin Perreault: Huge relief …
His case was delayed by the pandemic, but investigators had amassed a trove of evidence.
Remember that license plate imprint on Kevin’s car? Police say it matched the plate on the bumper of the SUV Pan was driving when Kevin was rear ended.
And forensic tests revealed that Pan’s DNA was on the gun and ammo found outside Arby’s…and Kevin’s blood was also on Pan’s hat, and on the gear shift of the SUV pan was driving the night Kevin was murdered.
Anne-Marie Green: Was there anything missing?
Stacey Miranda: The murder weapon.
Turns out, the gun recovered at the Arby’s was not the gun that was used to kill Kevin.
“Who knows where that murder weapon ended up,” said Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Stacey Miranda.
But there was so much other evidence that Pan’s lawyer William Gerace recommended he cut a deal.
William Gerace: Overwhelming evidence. Overwhelming evidence.
U.S. Marshals
On Feb. 29, 2024, three years after Kevin’s killing, Pan pleaded guilty to his murder in exchange for serving 35 years in prison without parole.
Stacey Miranda: … and had he not been stuck on the railroad tracks, this still might not be a solved case. We might not know who did this.
At his sentencing in April, Pan sat silently as Kevin’s loved ones and friends described their loss. By court order, the camera was fixed on him. Some of Kevin’s mother’s remarks were read by a family friend.
ESTHER: I was dreaming that Kevin will have a few beautiful children after getting married. … this beautiful and joyful dream is destroyed. I am left alone by myself. … I will never see Kevin smile again. (emotional)
Then Kevin’s mother decided to speak.
LINDA LIU: To charge the murderer, Pan, 35 years in prison is too short and too light …
CBS News
Pan never explained why he killed Kevin, but the only time he looked up was when Zion Perry rose to speak.
ZION PERRY: I wanted to address Pan specifically. … Although your sentence i
fs far less than you deserve … there is also mercy. May God have mercy on you. And may he have mercy on all of us.Then Pan briefly addressed the court.
QINXUAN PAN: Your honor, um, what I’m thinking about is my action and the horrible consequences. … I feel sorry for what my actions caused and for everyone affected … I fully accept my penalties.
JUDGE HARMON: Court is gonna impose the agreed upon sentence of 35 years.
Finally, Judge Harmon passed sentence, and Pan was led away in handcuffs.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you ever consider charging his parents?
Stacey Miranda: We couldn’t charge them … because we couldn’t prove that they knew when they picked him up that he was — had committed a murder.
Anne-Marie Green: So they might be lucky that they didn’t find themselves charged as well.
Stacey Miranda: 100%.
“48 Hours” reached out to Pan’s parents for comment but did not hear back.
Now Kevin’s friends are left to wonder what Kevin, a man of deep faith, might have thought about his killer.
Anne-Marie Green: Do you think Kevin would’ve forgiven Pan?
Nasya Hubbard: Yes … I do.
Capt. Jamila Ayeh: Without a doubt.
Nasya Hubbard: Yeah.
The officers visited Kevin’s grave after they spoke to “48 Hours.” Hubbard recalled her first time there when she says she felt Kevin’s presence.
Kevin Jiang/Instagram
Anne-Marie Green: And did something happen?
Nasya Hubbard: It’s just like wind blew, you know? And I was —
Anne-Marie Green: Did you feel like it was him?
Nasya Hubbard: Um, I felt like it was definitely different, as if like a peace kind of like, I want you to carry on, don’t be — don’t be sad that I’m gone. … Just keep going.
Qinxuan Pan is scheduled to be released in 2056, when he is 65 years old.
Produced by Murray Weiss. Emma Steele is the field producer. Elena DiFiore, Marc Goldbaum and David Dow are the development producers. Gary Winter and George Baluzy are the editors. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
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The death of Livye Lewis: A party, a murder, and a man on the run
On Oct. 31, 2020, at around 5 a.m. Livye Lewis was found unresponsive in her car on the side of a road in Hemphill, Texas. Her ex-boyfriend, Matthew Edgar, said he had no memory of what happened to Lewis or how he ended up in the fetal position behind her car.
Wandering Rose Photography
To find out what happened to Livye, investigators had to retrace her steps from the night before.
2:30 a.m. | A party turned sour
About two hours before Lewis was found in her car, she was at a friend’s pre-Halloween party. Edgar, her ex-boyfriend, and his ex-wife, Montana Bockel, were also there. Lewis had broken up with Edgar a few weeks before, and according to the party’s host, Bobby Ozan, Lewis and Bockel were enjoying the night while ignoring Edgar.
By 2:30 a.m., most people had already left the party except Lewis and Bockel. According to Bockel’s first interview with investigators, Edgar suddenly returned to Ozan’s house and overheard that Lewis was going to spend the night with Ozan.
Sabine County Sheriff’s Office
This made Edgar so furious that he started attacking Bockel, feeling she could have stopped Lewis. He was also kicking Bockel’s car.
Ozan tried to restrain Edgar, giving Bockel and Lewis a chance to escape. Bockel headed to Edgar’s grandparents’ home seeking refuge, but it is unclear where Lewis was headed.
Once inside Edgar’s grandparents’ home, Bockel began texting Edgar. Those texts would become key evidence in the case.
3:34 a.m. | Livye is “Dead”
Edgar was angry at Bockel because he said she knew about Lewis and Ozan. Bockel and Lewis had a friendly relationship.
Sabine County Sheriff’s Office
At 3:34 a.m., Bockel texted Edgar asking where Lewis was. He responded: “Dead.”
3:30 to 5 a.m. | The crime scene
The text messages indicate Edgar was at the scene at around 3:30 a.m.. A pickup truck that belonged to Edgar’s cousin was parked behind Lewis’ car.
Sabine County Sheriff’s Office
“I think she pulled over to talk to him and I’ll tell you why,” Sabine County Sheriff’s Investigator J.P. MacDonough told “48 Hours.” She was just sitting there with her legs crossed. Well, it indicates to me she was not afraid … It was not a fight or flight thing where she was prepared to just bolt out the car. She was actually, to some degree, comfortable with who she was speaking with.”
5:15 a.m. | A passerby calls 911
Sabine County Sheriff’s Office
A 911 call was placed around 5:15 a.m. The caller had seen a car on the side of the road and stopped to help. She discovered a grisly scene. Lewis didn’t have a pulse. She was dead from a gunshot wound to the neck.
Around 6 a.m | Evidence at the scene
Sabine County Sheriff’s Office
When first responders arrived, they discovered Edgar on the ground. While Edgar was transported to the hospital, investigators processed the scene. They located a rifle in the nearby grass that they later linked to a bullet fragment found inside Lewis’ car.
7:39 a.m. | A mother looking for answers
At around 7:30 a.m., Darci Bass arrived at the scene looking for her daughter Livye Lewis. Bass had gotten a call from a friend saying something happened to Lewis.
Sabine County Sheriff’s Office
Bass’ interaction with officers at the scene was captured on bodycam footage. She asked at least 23 times where Lewis was, but authorities seemed reluctant to tell her. Finally, once they said Lewis was sitting in her car, Bass dropped to the ground, realizing her daughter had been killed.
7:28 a.m. | Hospital interview with Matthew Edgar
While the scene investigation continued,. MacDonough met with Edgar at the hospital. He captured the entire encounter on bodycam.
Sabine County Sheriff’s Office
A bloodied Edgar claimed he did not remember how he ended up on the ground on the side of the road. After admitting he drank an entire bottle of whiskey the night before, Edgar says the last thing he remembers is falling asleep on his porch and then waking up in the ambulance.
MacDonough informed Edgar that Lewis was found dead in her car. Edgar appears to cry but MacDonough wasn’t buying his story. MacDonough arrested Matthew Edgar for Livye Lewis’ murder while he was still on that hospital bed.
Around 8:15 a.m. | DNA evidence
Sabine County Sheriff’s Office
While at the hospital MacDonough also gathered Edgar’s clothing as evidence. DNA testing revealed a tiny drop of Lewis’ blood on Edgar’s pants that later became key evidence for prosecutors.
But Edgar’s defense attorney, Rob Hughes, argued it was impossible to tell how long the blood had been there.
Jan. 4, 2022: Matthew Edgar’s trial begins
Sabine County Reporter
Matthew Edgar was free on bail. On Jan. 4, 2022, Edgar went on trial, but he only faced the jury for two days.
On the third day of testimony, Edgar failed to show up to his own murder trial. His mother, Cindy Hogan, informed Hughes that her son was nowhere to be found.
Authorities say Edgar had let the battery on his ankle monitor die and escaped most likely on foot. The trial continued without him, and he was found guilty.
2022 | Where is Matthew Edgar?
With Edgar on the run, Bass put up wanted posters in hopes of finding her daughter’s killer.
Darci Bass
“That time was — was horrible. It was scary. And I thought that he was going to just get away and nobody was looking, and I was having to make wanted posters and go hand ’em out at the flea markets or little events that they had around town, put ’em up in the store windows with people telling me to take it down,” Bass told “48 Hours.”
Dec. 29, 2022 | Matthew Edgar captured
Sabine County Sheriff’s Office
Nearly a year later, U.S. Marshals along with the Sabine County Sheriff’s Office and Texas Parks and Wildlife Game Wardens, found and arrested Edgar. It turns out the house where he was found was just yards away from his grandparents’ home. Investigators later determined that the home belonged to a family friend. Edgar’s mother Cindy Hogan was also found at the house when Edgar was captured.
Jan. 3, 2023 | Matthew Edgar formally sentenced
KJAS
On Jan. 3, 2023, Edgar was formally sentenced to 99 years in jail with the possibility for parole after 30 years, for the murder of Livye Lewis.
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Pennsylvania woman’s beloved dog disappears after her mysterious shooting
On a summer’s night in August 2013, 22-year-old Chelsea Cicio received an alarming call from her father, Bruno Rocuba. He said there had been a terrible accident and her mother, Melissa Rocuba, had been injured.
Cicio, who lived next door to her parents in Simpson, Pennsylvania, was captured on a home security camera, frantically racing to see what had happened. She can be heard screaming, “Mommy, Mommy” as she enters the house and finds her mother has been shot in the head.
“Soon as I walked in, you could see right here … she was laying on the bed,” Cicio told “48 Hours” correspondent Anne-Marie Green as they revisited the scene for “Melissa Rocuba’s Final Moments,” now streaming on Paramount+.
“The blood was just all over the floor, the side of the bed,” Cicio explained.
Cicio said her father would later tell her that he had been sitting on the bed cleaning his gun, when her mother sat down and it accidentally went off. With one bullet, Bruno Rocuba had shot himself in the left hand and his wife in the head.
Melissa Rocuba was airlifted to the hospital and placed on life support, as family raced to her bedside. Bruno Rocuba was taken to a different hospital, where he had surgery on his hand. “Everyone felt horrible for him,” said Cicio’s older sister, Sabrina Rocuba. “That’s his wife of 25 years.”
The day after the shooting, Bruno Rocuba agreed to walk several Pennsylvania State troopers through his still bloody house and explain how the shooting happened. With a trooper videotaping him, Bruno Rocuba sat on a mattress stained with his wife’s blood and used a toy gun to demonstrate how he says he accidentally shot her.
Bruno Rocuba said his .40 caliber pistol was on the nightstand by their bed because there had been several robberies in the neighborhood. “I reached over. I grabbed it,” so he could put it away, Bruno Rocuba told investigators. “My wife was sitting on the bed on that side. I was on this side,” he continued. “And I pulled the trigger by accident.”
Sabrina Rocuba says her father’s story was very believable given the injury to his hand. “We thought, like … well, who was gonna – who’s gonna shoot themselves?” she said.
Melissa Rocuba was in intensive care for three days when her family made the heart-wrenching decision to take her off life support. The next day, on Aug. 10, 2013, she was pronounced dead.
The couple’s daughters were devastated by the loss, but in the days that followed, they were so worried about their father that their focus was on comforting him. “I kept wanting to make sure he was OK,” said Cicio.
Cicio said she was worried that her father might be arrested, so she recommended that he hire a top local attorney named Joe D’Andrea. But D’Andrea says he didn’t have to do much to keep Bruno Rocuba out of jail. The Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office, he said, didn’t have enough evidence to charge Bruno Rocuba with murder, so they didn’t charge him at all.
“Not every shooting is a crime,” said D’Andrea. “He never wavered from his story … that it was an accident.”
But as time went by, Melissa Rocuba’s daughters and her sister, Joanne Swinney, began to have second thoughts about the shooting and events that followed.
For starters, said Swinney, Bruno Rocuba spent very little time by his wife’s side as she lay dying. “He would come there, maybe stay like an hour … and then leave,” she said.
While their mother was still on life support, Melissa Rocuba’s daughters said their father asked them to clean his bloody house and get rid of the mattress on which their mother had been shot.
“He’s like … I can’t go home to that … I don’t want to see all the blood,” Cicio recalled. “And here I am, 21, 22. … Now as an adult, I’m like, wow, I can’t believe he asked us to do that.”
Melissa Rocuba’s daughters said that even before their mother was buried, their father asked for help getting rid of her belongings.
“He wanted us to get rid of everything,” Cicio told Green. “It’s like he wanted her erased.”
Melissa Rocuba/Facebook
Sabrina Rocuba said her father even got rid of her mother’s beloved 10-year-old Rottweiler, Zeus. “My mom loved that dog. And my dad got rid of him right after my mom died,” she says.
Melissa Rocuba’s sister said she was shocked when she saw that Bruno Rocuba had even removed all photographs of his wife. “Bruno said he couldn’t look at them … he was grieving, he couldn’t look at them,” said Swinney. She said Bruno Rocuba also got rid of her sister’s entire wardrobe. “We had to go down to the thrift store where they donated the clothes … and I had to get clothes for my sister to bury her in.”
But most alarming, said Cicio, was that within months of her mother’s death, her father began dating a woman named Tonia Wilczewski. “I remember looking out my window and she was cooking Christmas dinner in my mom’s kitchen. I wasn’t invited,” she said.
Swinney began to wonder if her sister’s husband had been having an affair with Wilczewski prior to the shooting. Swinney said that not long after her sister’s death, Melissa Rocuba’s best friend got a call from Bruno Rocuba to ask her, “How long do you think it is before, you know, you could kind of like go public with dating someone?” And she said, “Are you freaking kidding me?”
Wilczewski declined “48 Hours’” request for an interview but sent a text message that stated, “There was never an affair.” Bruno Rocuba never responded to requests for an interview.
Despite their suspicions, Melissa Rocuba’s daughters and sister said they didn’t have enough evidence that her shooting was intentional, so they were forced to accept the district attorney’s decision not to charge their father.
Then, seven years after the shooting, in 2020, Pennsylvania State Police investigators Greg Allen and Dan Nilon were assigned to investigate open homicide cases, and this one caught their eye.
“What about this case stood out to you?” asked Green. “To me, it was the original 911 call,” Corporal Allen explained. “On the 911 call, I hear three different accounts of what happened.”
Chelsea Cicio
Bruno Rocuba had called 911 to report his wife’s shooting, and when the operator asked, “Was it self-inflicted?” Rocuba said, “No, we were fighting.” Then he nervously changed his story and said that he had been “playing with the gun” and accidentally “let it go off.”
Rocuba then denied any argument and changed his story a third time. He said that he had been handling the gun because he and his wife were “going to go shooting,” and that’s when he accidentally pulled the trigger.
Investigators Allen and Nilon then watched the videotape of Rocuba’s police walkthrough and interview the day after the shooting, and said they heard several more inconsistencies in Rocuba’s explanation of the shooting.
“There were so many red flags… that we knew he wasn’t telling the truth,” said Nilon.
Corporal Nilon then did a deep dive into the case and discovered a key piece of evidence that had been collected at the Rocuba home but never been examined. A home security system that had captured footage of Melissa Rocuba’s last movements and words.
“We were able to … hear … their last conversation together,” says Nilon. “And then a gunshot goes off.”
“It may very well be your sister’s own voice that ultimately put him behind bars,” Green commented to Swinney.
“I never really thought about it like that. Yeah,” Swinney replied.
On June 3, 2022, nearly nine years after Melissa Rocuba’s death, Bruno Rocuba was arrested and charged with her murder.
But two years later, in May 2024, as Bruno Rocuba’s trial approached, both sides agreed to a plea deal. Bruno Rocuba pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and was sentenced to 12 to 40 years behind bars. With time served, he will be up for parole starting in 2035.
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Texas mom confronts her daughter’s suspected killer, and she’s charged with assault: “You killed my daughter”
On Dec. 16, 2021, Darci Bass was standing in her local convenience store when the man who stood accused of the shooting death of her 19-year-old daughter Livye Lewis strolled in. “When he came in the door … I just went — started — started throwing whatever at him and went for him,” Bass told “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant in an interview for “The Blackout Murder of Livye Lewis.”
An encore of the broadcast airs Saturday, Jan. 17 at 9/8c on CBS and and streaming on Paramount+.
It all began in the early morning hours of Halloween 2020, when Lewis was discovered on the side of a road in the tiny town of Hemphill, Texas. She was draped over the steering wheel of her car, dead from a rifle shot to the neck.
Bass says she was not notified by police of her daughter’s death. Instead, she heard from a friend that Lewis was in trouble and showed up at the crime scene demanding answers. “I just needed to know is she alive or is she dead,” Bass told Van Sant. Her anguished cries for answers were caught on police bodycam video. “I wanna see my child,” she shouted. “Livye Lewis! Where is she?”
Sabine County Sheriff’s Investigator J.P. MacDonough says that the minute he saw Lewis’ body, he knew that Lewis’ killer was no stranger to her. “She was just sitting there with her legs crossed,” he tells Van Sant. “Well, it indicates to me she was not afraid … She was actually, to some degree, comfortable with who she was speaking with.”
MacDonough says he didn’t have to look very far for a suspect. Also discovered at the crime scene was Lewis’ boyfriend, 23-year-old Matthew Edgar. “He was found in the fetal position behind the vehicle that Lewis was found in,” says MacDonough. Beside Edgar was his rifle.
Edgar was rushed from the scene of the crime in an ambulance. Bloodied but not injured, he is seen on police bodycam footage lying in a hospital bed, being interviewed by MacDonough.
“When was the last time you saw Livye?” MacDonough asks Edgar. “Tonight,” he answers, and then claims to have no memory of how he ended up at the crime scene. “You don’t know how you ended up on the ground behind the car … With the dead girl in it,” says MacDonough. “No, sir,” Edgar replies. “I have no clue.”
Sabine County Sheriff’s Office
But for Edgar’s defense attorney Rob Hughes, it was not an open-and-shut case. “We got all the DNA results back and … there were some holes in the case,” Hughes tells Van Sant. “There were no fingerprints taken or DNA lifted off the gun.”
Shaun Dunn, who calls himself a close friend of Edgar’s, tells “48 Hours” that he believes Edgar when he says he can’t recall how he ended up at the crime scene. Dunn thinks that, like Lewis, Edgar was a victim and that someone else pulled the trigger. “I believe it was someone that was … close to Matthew,” he says. “Someone that was involved in events of that evening.”
But where Dunn sees a victim, MacDonough saw a suspect and arrested Edgar while he was lying in that hospital bed. Then, months later, Bass says that while she was praying for justice, Edgar was released. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down the courts and with no grand juries being convened, Texas law required that a still-unindicted Edgar be allowed out on bail.
It was months after Edgar’s release when he walked into that convenience store in Bass’ neighborhood. “And I just remember saying, ‘You killed my daughter … you killed my daughter.’” According to MacDonough, Bass chased Edgar into the parking lot, where she grabbed a chain in the bed of his truck and started slinging it across his windshield. Bass says she just wanted some answers: “She loved you and she was good to you and your kids and to your family. What made you think that this was the answer to anything that was going on?”
Edgar called the sheriff’s office and filed a complaint against Bass, who was then charged with assault caused by bodily injury, retaliation and criminal mischief. An arrest warrant was issued and Bass turned herself in. The charges were eventually dropped.
On March 16, 2021, four-and-a-half months after his arrest, a grand jury heard the evidence against Edgar and indicted him for the murder of Lewis. But Edgar, who was still out on bail during his trial, was not done breaking the law. On the fourth day of trial, Edgar let the battery on his ankle monitor die and went on the run. His trial went on without him, and the jury found him guilty. But it took authorities 11 months to capture Edgar, so he could be sentenced to 99 years, with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
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Pennsylvania woman’s final moments captured on home security video. Will it help prove she was murdered?
On a steamy August night in 2013, Melissa Rocuba was airlifted to a hospital still clinging to life with a bullet wound to her head. Her then 22-year-old daughter Chelsea Cicio, who lived next door, was already there when the helicopter arrived.
Chelsea Cicio: I had no idea how I got down there. … I was just panicked and frantic.
Her sister Sabrina Rocuba, who lives in Wisconsin, sped to the airport in tears.
Sabrina Rocuba: It was just a lot of me just praying to God that my mom was gonna be OK.
Melissa’s sister Joanne Swinney, and their father — then a police sergeant in another county — raced to Melissa’s bedside.
Anne-Marie Green: It’s a few hours of driving.
Joanne Swinney: Not that night. … we got there really fast.
AN ACCIDENTAL SHOOTING?
Bruno was being treated at a different hospital, where specialists operated on his hand.
Sabrina Rocuba: He had a hole through the middle of his hand.
Chelsea Cicio/Facebook
Pennsylvania State Police detectives wanted to know how the bullet went through Bruno’s palm and hit Melissa in the head.
Less than 15 hours after the shooting, with Bruno’s hand freshly bandaged and Melissa on life support, detectives asked Bruno to walk them through his house and explain what happened after the couple arrived home from a night out with friends.
BRUNO ROCUBA (to detectives): Got home from work at 3:30 in the afternoon.
BRUNO ROCUBA: And we came home just before 10, and after that we went downstairs, washed up, came up to go to bed.
Using a toy gun provided by police, Bruno demonstrated how he claims his .40 caliber pistol went off accidentally.
BRUNO ROCUBA (to detectives): My wife was home alone all last week. So, I left it in the top drawer on the nightstand for her because of recent break-ins.
He said their grandson was coming over the next day, and he wanted to safely store the gun.
BRUNO ROCUBA: I went to check the, um, chamber to see if there was a round in there.
TROOPER MCGURRIN: OK.
Sitting on the mattress still stained with his wife’s blood, Bruno tried to show them what happened.
Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office
Bruno demonstrated how he says he was sitting, pointing his gun to the left side of the bed with his right hand. He said Melissa was sitting in bed, watching TV, when she leaned back and that’s when he “must have pulled it away and then shot through my hand.”
Earlier, investigators had gone through the house shooting video of the scene and collecting evidence and didn’t note any signs of a struggle. Hospital staff found no other injuries on Melissa, and Bruno said they had been getting along just fine.
TROOPER MCGURRIN: Any discussions or any arguments or anything —
BRUNO ROCUBA: No.
TROOPER MCGURRIN: — before that happened?
BRUNO ROCUBA: No. There was nothing.
Sabrina Rocuba: He looked me in my face and said, “we walked in the house holding hands … there was no arguments that night.”
Jack Wilczewski and his wife Tonia were out to dinner with Bruno and Melissa that evening, and he says everything seemed fine.
Anne-Marie Green: No arguing?
Jack Wilczewski: No arguing. No nothing. They were fine that night.
The day after the shooting, Bruno agreed to a polygraph exam. According to police records, the results were inconclusive. Worried about her father, Chelsea says she suggested he speak with attorney Joe D’Andrea.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you wonder why he was calling you?
Joe D’Andrea: Well, I’m a fairly well-known criminal defense lawyer around … and, uh, police had talked to him … without my participation or knowledge. … I guess he was curious if there was anything he had to worry about.
Melissa spent several days in intensive care.
Sabrina Rocuba: I remember talking to … the neurologist, and I was like, there’s gotta be something you can do. … And they were just trying to calm me down and tell me that there’s no hope.
Three days after the shooting, Melissa’s family made the agonizing decision to take her off life support.
Joanne Swinney: We knew she was — she was suffering.
Sabrina Rocuba
It was Aug. 10, 2013, at 1:45 a.m., when Melissa passed away. Joanne says they were all in shock, and even though no one in the family wanted to believe Bruno had deliberately shot Melissa, they were surprised when he was never arrested.
Sabrina Rocuba: My grandfather said … if that happened in Bucks County where my grandfather was a police, he was like, your dad would have instantly been in cuffs. He was like, he didn’t spend a single night in jail, which is really weird.
Joe D’Andrea says the District Attorney’s Office felt they didn’t have enough evidence to charge Bruno with murder — and decided not to charge him at all.
Joe D’Andrea: They were convinced … that they couldn’t prove a case.
Melissa’s death certificate listed her cause of death as a gunshot wound to the head. The manner of death was left pending.
Anne-Marie Green: No one said to you, we’ve concluded, it was an accident —
Chelsea Cicio: No. It was just still an open — open case.
But as the family began to catch their breath and process Melissa’s death, they slowly started comparing notes about Bruno’s version of what happened and his behavior before and after the shooting — and a case for murder began to unfold.
Chelsea Cicio: I just couldn’t — I couldn’t justify any of his stories.
“IT’S LIKE HE WANTED HER ERASED”
The daughters of Melissa and Bruno Rocuba say they grew up believing they had the ideal family.
Sabrina Rocuba: So did all my friends. I remember my best friends were like … your family’s so loving and happy and you guys do everything together.
Joanne Swinney: I always wanted my sister’s life. She had the kids, she had the marriage, the good guy.
The couple met in the summer of 1988. Back then, Melissa, who was just 19, was a police officer. Bruno, 22, was enlisted in the Navy.
Anne-Marie Green: And what did you think of Bruno when you met him?
Joanne Swinney: I loved him. … He seemed to love my sister.
Sabrina Rocuba: She loved being a wife and she loved being a mother.
Chelsea Cicio: She was an amazing mom.
And Bruno was a great dad, says Sabrina.
Sabrina Rocuba
Sabrina Rocuba: My dad was wonderful. I mean, I can’t complain about him as a dad.
Chelsea Cicio: We went hunting together. We went fishing together. … When I was really young, I wanted to cut my hair to be like my dad, like that’s how close we were.
But as the girls grew older, and became parents themselves, they say they began to see flaws in their parent’s marriage.
Sabrina Rocuba: We had moved in there, me and my ex-husband, with my parents, when my daughter … was … about nine months old … And it was like all the time they were constantly arguing. … The breaking point was when they got really drunk one night … And my dad grabbed her by the back of the hair, and he whipped her into the wall. … It made a really loud thud, and she couldn’t breathe. … I was like, we can’t stay here anymore. This isn’t healthy.
Sabrina Rocuba: I tried talking to my mom … and she was just like, well, everybody has, like, disagreements, and, like, she downplayed, she never wanted to talk bad about our dad to us.
Two weeks before the shooting, Chelsea says her mother shared a startling secret about something Bruno had done to her.
Chelsea Cicio: She took me for ride in the car and told me, you know, that he had pulled a gun on her before.
Sabrina Rocuba: My mom told my sister … that my mom didn’t want to have sex with my dad one night. And my — my dad pulled a gun on my mother over this.
Chelsea Cicio: Why would she tell me this now? She’s never said a bad word about him before. And all of a sudden it was, “Chels, I just need you to know that like your dad’s not always who you think he is.”
Chelsea admits that she had a bad feeling about her mother’s shooting from the start but stayed silent for the sake of her father.
Chelsea Cicio: I didn’t wanna just say something that would’ve put him in jail if he really didn’t do it.
Joanne says she also had her doubts about her sister’s death, because just months before the shooting, Melissa told her she wanted out of her marriage.
Joanne Swinney: She was questioning things. … and asked … how she would be able to — to do it on her own.
Anne-Marie Green: Was Bruno controlling?
Joanne Swinney: Very … My sister couldn’t go anywhere without him knowing her every move.
Joanne says it wasn’t long after Melissa’s death, when her mind began to race.
Joanne Swinney: I started playing back everything. Everything that I could remember.
For starters, says Joanne, Bruno spent very little time by his wife’s side as she lay dying.
Joanne Swinney: He would come there, maybe stay like an hour … and then leave.
Joanne Swinney: When she died, he wasn’t there, he was at the house.
Chelsea says her father’s behavior began to haunt her as well. For instance, just hours after the shooting, Chelsea says her father asked her to bring him her mother’s cell phone, which had not been collected by police. She says her father wanted to erase a few text messages that he feared investigators might take the wrong way.
Chelsea Cicio: It was like, I don’t want them to think anything because of like a little like argument or something they had, maybe it was that week or day.
Anne-Marie Green: Did that strike you as odd at the time?
Chelsea Cicio: It did, but … you don’t want to believe it.
With their mother still in intensive care and with the police finished collecting evidence, the girls say their father had another strange request.
Chelsea Cicio: He asked us to get rid of the mattress.
Bruno asked his girls to clean his house and get rid of the blood-stained mattress.
Chelsea Cicio: He’s like … I can’t go home to that. … I don’t want to see all the blood. And here I am, 21, 22. … Now as an adult, I’m like, wow, I can’t believe he asked us to do that. … But I just kept going and I kept wanting to make sure he was OK.
Sabrina Rocuba: We were so concerned cause he kept making comments that he was gonna take his own life, that he couldn’t deal with this.
Anne-Marie Green: How did you get rid of that mattress?
Chelsea Cicio: We took it in the back of a truck … and we burned it in the woods.
Chelsea and Sabrina say that before their mother was even buried, their father asked for help purging all traces of her.
Chelsea Cicio: He wanted us to get rid of everything. It’s like he wanted her erased.
Joanne Swinney: All my sister’s clothes. We had to go down to the thrift store where they donated the clothes … and I had to get clothes for my sister to bury her in.
Bruno even got rid of Melissa’s dog, Zeus.
Melissa Rocuba/Facebook
Sabrina Rocuba: Mom loved that dog. And my dad got rid of him right after my mom died.
It wasn’t long before Joanne says she began to suspect that Bruno had another motive for erasing the memory of Melissa.
Joanne Swinney: My sister’s best friend … said that Bruno contacted her not too long after my sister had passed away and said, how long do you think it is before, you know, you could kind of like go public with dating someone? And she said, are you freaking kidding me? … And he was dead serious.
Bruno was talking about Tonia Wilczewski, Jack Wilczewski’s wife. The couple that Bruno and Melissa were out to dinner with on the night of the shooting.
Jack Wilczewski: We were together 15 years at that time.
Jack says he has no idea when the relationship began, but says he started noticing a big difference in his wife’s relationship with Bruno the day after the shooting — when he walked into Melissa’s hospital room and found Tonia and Bruno.
Jack Wilczewski: I thought they were kissing. … Of course, they said they were talking in each other’s ear, but they were embraced with each other.
Jack says in the weeks after the shooting, he would often come home from work and find Bruno’s car in his driveway.
Jack Wilczewski: And after a couple times I was like … why are you coming here? Why — can you wait until I get home at 5 o’clock or 4 o’clock?
Anne-Marie Green: And how did Tonia explain it?
Jack Wilczewski: Of course, they always made me out like I was the fool. I was seeing things I didn’t see.
Within months of Melissa’s death, Jack says his wife went missing from their home — and he knew exactly where to find her.
Jack Wilczewski: I woke up 2 in the morning and she wasn’t there. So, I’m thinking go to Bruno’s house. I went and … pulled out in front, and I blew the horn and she come walking out with her purse with barely any clothes on. … Got in her car, drove to our house … packed her bags and moved in with him right there.
Chelsea now had a new neighbor: Tonia Wilczewski.
Chelsea Cicio: I remember looking out my window and she was cooking Christmas dinner in my mom’s kitchen. I wasn’t invited.
Chelsea says she forced herself to accept what was, because she didn’t want her father to be alone. Then, about a year-and-a-half later, she says her father casually revealed an alarming new detail about her mother’s shooting.
Chelsea Cicio: I kind of always knew … and I didn’t want to believe it. But when I heard it come from his own mouth … I couldn’t get past it.
BRUNO ROCUBA’S CHANGING STORY
As the months ticked on, it was now 2015 — about a year-and-a-half since Bruno Rocuba had allegedly, accidentally, shot and killed his wife, Melissa. His daughter Chelsea says she was still struggling with her father’s relationship, with Tonia Wilczewski.
Chelsea Cicio: I had to live here. I had to see her. She cut her hair like my mom. She would go get her nails done like my mom. She sat on my mom’s front porch … in my mom’s chair.
With the passage of time, she says she finally had the courage to ask her father for an explanation about his actions on the night of the shooting, and says she got an astonishing answer.
Chelsea Cicio: He said, I didn’t mean to kill her. I just tried to scare her.
Chelsea says that Bruno changed his story and admitted that he and Melissa had been arguing the night of the shooting. The gun, he said, was just meant to frighten her. Then, Chelsea says her father abruptly changed the subject.
Chelsea Cicio: He said … he had groceries in the car, and he turned around and walked out like he hadn’t just said what he said to me. … That’s when I knew he actually held a gun to my mom on purpose. And I couldn’t ever look at him the same.
Chelsea says she spent months agonizing about what to do next and then told her father she was going to share their conversation with investigators.
Chelsea Cicio: And he … was like, go ahead, anything you tell them, I’ll ruin your credibility … and nobody will believe you.
Chelsea says she was now determined and went down to the state police barracks and filled out a report, which included information about the incident she says her mother shared not long before her death: about that time Bruno threatened her with a gun when she refused to be intimate with him.
Anne-Marie Green: It took a lot for you to go down there. What were you hoping would’ve happened?
Chelsea Cicio: I was hoping they would have reopened it …
Anne-Marie Green: And what actually happened?
Chelsea Cicio: Nothing happened.
Chelsea recalls being told that it was her word against her father’s and she says an investigator suggested that her coming forward could have been motivated by money.
Chelsea Cicio: And at that point I had no idea I was even entitled to my mom’s inheritance.
Chelsea Cicio
Melissa left behind a will and over $300,000, meant to be divided between her husband and daughters. But not long after Melissa’s death, Bruno had his daughters sign paperwork that gave him complete control of their mother’s estate.
Sabrina Rocuba: He had sent me a paper in the mail, said do not look at it. … go get this notarized and sign and send it back to me, which I did. I didn’t question; it’s my dad.
Sabrina says she knew she was signing away her rights to the money — but felt pressured to do it.
Sabrina Rocuba: He was so good at manipulating me and making me feel guilty.
Chelsea signed those same papers, but says she was in shock, and didn’t understand the consequences.
Chelsea Cicio: That hurt, that he would take from us. And especially from his grandson.
The sisters say they began to wonder if money had been a motive for their mother’s shooting. But without police action, they felt they had to move on.
Chelsea Cicio: So, I kind of started letting it go.
Chelsea says she even let her son Greg build a bond with his grandfather.
Chelsea Cicio
Chelsea Cicio: I hated him for taking my mom from me, but I loved how good he was to my son.
Four years later in 2020, Corporal Greg Allen was assigned to investigate open-cases for the Pennsylvania State Police and says this case caught his eye.
Anne Marie Green: What about this case stood out to you?
Cpl. Greg Allen: To me, it was the original 911 call.
911 OPERATOR: What’s the problem there?
BRUNO ROCUBA: A gunshot wound. My wife.
Cpl. Greg Allen: On the 911 call, I hear three different accounts of what happened.
911 OPERATOR: OK. Was it self-inflicted?
BRUNO ROCUBA: No, we were fighting.
Cpl. Greg Allen: He says, “we were fighting.”
When questioned, Bruno quickly changed his story.
911 OPERATOR: You said you guys were arguing?
BRUNO ROCUBA: No, we were — we were playing around with the gun when we were shootin’ it. We were gonna go shooting, and I – and I pulled the trigger, and went through my hand.
He also offered this version:
BRUNO ROCUBA (911 call): I was playing with the gun, and I let it go off.
Bruno knew his way around guns, says Allen. So, why would he have his finger on the trigger of a gun that was loaded?
Crime Unit Supervisor Corporal Dan Nilon was asked by Allen to examine all the evidence, beginning with Bruno’s police interview.
BRUNO ROCUBA (to detectives) : My wife was sitting on the bed on that side. I was on this side. I went to check the, um, chamber to see if there was a round in there.
TROOPER MCGURRIN: OK.
BRUNO ROCUBA: My wife leaned back toward me. Maybe she didn’t know I was doing it, and I pulled the trigger by accident or else I let the slide go and it discharged.
Cpl. Dan Nilon: There were so many red flags … that we knew he wasn’t telling the truth.
To begin with, says Nilon, if Bruno was really trying to clear the gun’s chamber, he would have ejected the magazine.
Cpl. Dan Nilon: The first thing you’re going to do when you unload the gun is drop the magazine out of it.
Pennsylvania State Police
There were also two safeties on the gun. Nilon showed “48 Hours” just how hard it is to discharge the weapon, accidentally.
Cpl. Dan Nilon: So, your grip, your hand would have to be on the grip. Additionally, there is a trigger safety. There is a small piece of the trigger that has to be depressed in order for the gun to fire. So, both things need to occur.
There were also questions about where Bruno and Melissa were sitting when the fatal shot was fired. Allen and Nilon reviewed Bruno’s walkthrough video with police with “48 Hours.”
BRUNO ROCUBA (to detectives): I went like this, and she was sitting on the bed there.
Cpl. Greg Allen: So, you see the way that he’s holding the gun? He is pointing it to the opposite side of the bed.
But Nilon and Allen say there was blood and ballistics evidence on the wall behind Bruno, not the opposite side of the bed.
Anne Marie Green: So, the evidence is here and here. (points to the wall behind the bed)
Cpl. Dan Nilon: Yes.
Cpl. Greg Allen: Everything is behind him right now.
Anne-Marie Green: But he says he shot this way. (points to the left of where Bruno was sitting in the video)
Cpl. Greg Allen: Correct.
They would need DNA testing and a forensic expert to confirm their suspicions that Bruno was lying.
But, in the meantime, Nilon found a key piece of evidence that he says no one had ever examined. Video and audio from the night of the shooting recorded on a home security system.
MELISSA ROCUBA (home security video, talking to Bruno): What is wrong with you?
Turns out that a security camera mounted to the front of the house, had recorded Melissa Rocuba’s last words.
MELISSA ROCUBA’S LAST MOMENTS CAUGHT ON TAPE
The final images of Melissa Rocuba were recorded on this the couple’s home security camera and saved to a DVR.
Corporal Dan Nilon says when he first discovered the recording, he could see Melissa and her husband Bruno arriving home from their night out. But it was difficult to make out most of what they were saying.
CPL. DAN NILON: I remember sitting in our office with the door closed, headphones on … the office refrigerator unplugged, trying to get as many words as I could.
Corporal Greg Allen says that one thing was clear.
Cpl. Greg Allen: There was definitely an argument that happened between them.
MELISSA ROCUBA (home security video): What is wrong with you?
Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office
Allen says the original investigators told him they had no way to review the recording, because they didn’t have access to the necessary technology. But Allen’s team did — and could now see that the recording begins in the driveway, where you can hear the couple arguing.
MELISSA ROCUBA (home security video): What?
BRUNO ROCUBA: Next time you get your own f*****’ ride.
MELISSA ROCUBA: Whatever.
BRUNO ROCUBA: Yep, Whatever.
But it doesn’t seem to end there. Once inside the house, Melissa and Bruno are no longer visible, it sounds like they’re still arguing, says Allen.
Cpl. Greg Allen: That time of year, their … window was open, so you could also pick up sound, audio from inside … as well.
The sound was just much harder to hear. But with Bruno’s changing stories, and possible evidence of an argument, investigators were now treating Melissa Rocuba’s death as a possible murder.
Cpl. Dan Nilon (watching footage): This is the last time she’s ever seen…
Cpl. Greg Allen: Dan and I have been doing this a long time and we saw that and … the evidence speaks for itself.
Then-Lackawanna County District Attorney Mark Powell agreed.
Mark Powell: My gut reaction was this is probably a case that should have been charged back in 2013. … and I can only guess … that they thought it didn’t warrant charges because he shot himself through the hand.
Anne-Marie Green: Because who would purposely shoot themselves in the hand?
Mark Powell: Sure. Sure.
With Powell’s team now onboard, Melissa’s family was informed that the case was once again active.
Sabrina Rocuba: I was like, this is different … they are very, very sure about themselves. … That this was a crime. My dad did this on purpose.
Chelsea Cicio says she now had mixed feelings about her relationship with her father.
Chelsea Cicio: I live next door, so my son’s very close with him. It’s not black and white.
Investigators then sent a portion of the DVR recording to an FBI crime lab for enhancement.
Cpl. Dan Nilon: I remember thinking the chances of this helping us are probably slim because … this system is old.
DNA testing was also ordered on some of the blood evidence and a forensic expert was hired to help determine how the shooting took place.
Mark Powell: We retained the services of Dr. Wayne Ross. who is a highly respected forensic pathologist … and a blood pattern expert.
About a month later the enhanced DVR audio was back and Dan Nilon says it was clear the couple had been arguing right up until the moment the gun went off.
MELISSA ROCUBA (home security audio): F*** you.
Anne-Marie Green: What do you hear on that tape?
Cpl. Dan Nilon: Lots of curses back and forth, yelling, screaming …
MELISSA ROCUBA (home security audio): Shut up.
It’s still hard to make out every word, but the official police transcript notes that Bruno and Melissa can be heard cursing and calling each other names. The transcript also notes the sound of a “dog barking.” Then Melissa shouts, “I didn’t do anything.”
Nearly 30 minutes after they first pulled into the driveway, Melissa told Bruno that he had to leave because of something he’d previously done, “hundreds of times,” said Melissa.
A bit later, Melissa can be heard talking. Then, it’s sounds like things are being thrown. Just seconds later, the gun goes off.
Cpl. Dan Nilon: It was not an accident. They were fighting the entire time. And then a gunshot goes off.
Joanne says she hasn’t been able to listen to the recording but has read the transcript.
Joanne Swinney: I was horrified, of course I cried. … and I can picture my sister yelling at him and screaming and — and those very last few moments realizing that this is it.
Also horrifying is the sound of Chelsea screaming after her father called her over — and she first discovered her mother.
CHELSEA CICIO (home security audio): Mommy! Mommy! (Crying)
She says she doesn’t remember questioning her father that night, but she did.
And Bruno’s answer gave police yet another version of his story.
CHELSEA CICIO (home security audio): Dad, why did this happen?
BRUNO ROCUBA: We came home and she wanted to take the gun out and play, and I told her no, we’re not doing that.
He implied that Melissa had been the one holding the gun.
BRUNO ROCUBA (home security audio): She wanted to go shoot.
CHELSEA CICIO: No, no, this isn’t —
BRUNO ROCUBA: She’s alright. I know —
CHELSEA CICIO: This isn’t real.
BRUNO ROCUBA: I know.
A little over two weeks later, Powell says forensic expert Dr. Wayne Ross confirmed what Allen and Nilon had suspected about how all the blood got on the wall behind Bruno.
Mark Powell: It’s very clear that he was on top of his wife, that he was using his hand to hold her and threaten her with a gun.
Anne Marie Green: And so where do you say Bruno was at that time?
Cpl. Dan Nilon: Almost in the middle of the bed.
Cpl. Greg Allen: Turned around.
Cpl. Dan Nilon: Turned around, facing the headboard.
The theory is that Melissa tried to escape Bruno’s grip and there was a struggle.
Mark Powell: And through … a struggle … His hand gets loose. He fires the gun at the same time.
CBS News
Cpl. Dan Nilon (Watching video of Bruno Rocuba’s walkthrough with detectives): There’s blood evidence that starts here and travels in a right to left pattern … and that is … Bruno’s blood. … And the only way that that could be explained is if Bruno did a motion like this (demonstrates sweeping motion) with his hand after the bullet struck it.
Mark Powell: I don’t know how you have an accidental shooting when you’re standing over your wife with a gun threatening to shoot her and you discharge a bullet by pulling the trigger. So, I — in my world, that’s not accidental. That’s murder with malice.
Anne-Marie Green: What do you think your sister would say about all of this?
Joanne Swinney: Oh, um … If she was here, she would say lock his ass up and get away from my kids and my grandkids.
On June 2, 2022, a warrant was issued for Bruno Rocuba’s arrest. Chelsea says her father was well aware and well prepared.
Chelsea Cicio: He had guns all over … his nightstand was all pictures of my mom. They were never there.
JUSTICE FOR MELISSA ROCUBA
On the morning of June 3, 2022, two Pennsylvania State Police troopers followed Bruno Rocuba on his way to work. Corporal Greg Allen says they weren’t taking any chances with Bruno’s arrest.
Anne-Marie Green: Chelsea said he had a lot of guns. Were you concerned something … could go wrong?
Cpl. Greg Allen: Whenever … you have an arrest warrant in your hand … you try to take every precaution that you can.
In the end, they pulled Bruno Rocuba over in a traffic stop on his way to work.
TROOPER (dash cam video): Who got your license plate out here?
BRUNO ROCUBA: Where? What?
TROOPER: Yeah.
TROOPER: Alright, hold up, right here. Hey, you have a gun, or any guns on you?
BRUNO ROCUBA: No, no, no.
TROOPER: Alright, put your arms behind your back.
BRUNO ROCUBA: OK.
Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office
It was June 3, 2022, nearly nine years after Melissa’s death, and Bruno Rocuba was charged with her murder. There was also a charge of theft, for the money prosecutors say he took from his daughters.
Cpl. Dan Nilon: And he — he lawyered up.
Anne-Marie Green: Lawyered up right away?
Cpl. Dan Nilon: Within … Couple minutes –
Cpl. Greg Allen: — within a few minutes.
Chelsea, who was still feeling conflicted, decided to help her father pay his legal bills.
Chelsea Cicio: I loved him. I still, I – I didn’t want it to be worse.
Bruno Rocuba once again hired Joe D’Andrea and pleaded not guilty.
Anne-Marie Green: Is Bruno still telling you the same story?
Joe D’Andrea: He never wavered from his story … that it was an accident.
But D’Andrea says he was now seeing and hearing the evidence for the first time — and says there was a lot to explain to a jury. Like the various versions of Rocuba’s all captured on tape.
TROOPER (police walkthrough video): Any discussions, or any arguments, or anything?
BRUNO ROCUBA: No.
TROOPER: Before that happened?
BRUNO ROCUBA: No.
The most challenging, says D’Andrea, was that police walkthrough.
Joe D’Andrea: If Bruno didn’t make a statement — he probably would never have gotten charged.
Also concerning to D’Andrea was how a jury would feel about Bruno Rocuba’s relationship with Tonia Wilczewski, and the question of when it began.
Anne-Marie Green: Possible motive?
Joe D’Andrea: Oh, clearly. … if not a motive … the jury sure wasn’t going to like him for doing it.
Tonia Wilczewski declined “48 Hours”‘ requests for an interview, but sent a text saying, “there was never an affair.” Bruno Rocuba never responded to our requests for an interview.
But D’Andrea says he was most concerned about how a jury would react to Melissa’s final moments.
Joe D’Andrea: When you hear screaming and … somebody’s shot, the jury could conclude you shot her on purpose. … I didn’t want … to … take any chance of being, uh, found guilty of first-degree murder and spend the rest of his life in jail.
D’Andrea says he spent the next two years building his case around his best evidence: that bloody wound to his client’s hand.
Joe D’Andrea: Who would … put a bullet through their hand to — to kill somebody?
But in May 2024 — two years after his arrest — as Bruno Rocuba’s trial approached, both sides agreed to a plea deal: third-degree murder and no charge of theft.
Joe D’Andrea: It wasn’t that he intentionally killed Melissa … his actions were reckless.
Anne-Marie Green: Having a gun, drinking, bullet in the chamber, safeties off, in a pretty passionate argument?
Joe D’Andrea: That’s a prescription for some bad stuff to happen, which it did.
MELISSA ROCUBA (home security video): What is wrong with you?
Anne-Marie Green: It may very well be your sister’s own voice that ultimately put him behind bars.
Joanne Swinney: I never really thought about it like that. Yeah.
On Jan. 8, 2025, Joanne attended Bruno’s sentencing hearing and read him her victim impact statement.
Joanne Swinney: I looked at him first and made him look at me, cause I know it’s like seeing a ghost, because I look like my sister.
Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom, so Joanne shared her statement during our interview.
Joanne Swinney (reading): Through all of this you have never shown an ounce of remorse. … As far as what you did to your daughters, Bruno, you killed their mother. … You tried to erase her existence, but you cannot erase her memories.
Anne Marie Green: If there was a trial, would you have testified against him?
Chelsea Cicio: Yes.
Anne Marie Green: You said that quickly.
Chelsea Cicio: Yeah, I would’ve. … you know, my mom deserves justice. And my mom — she should be here.
Bruno Rocuba was sentenced to 12 to 40 years behind bars. With time served, he will be up for parole starting in 2035.
Joanne Swinney: Now that he’s gone, we can breathe a little bit better … but it doesn’t change the hurt or the pain, or what we have to work through as a family. … And we’ll revisit this in 10 more years because … every single time he comes up for parole, I will be there to protest it.
Chelsea and Sabrina both say they have very mixed feelings about their father — and what justice looks like.
Sabrina Rocuba: He took someone’s life … And it wasn’t an accident. He doesn’t deserve to get out. … I want him to get out at the same time because I love him and miss him.
Chelsea Cicio: Everybody’s like, oh, we finally get justice. Good for you. … I got justice for my mom, but now I just lost my father, my son lost his grandfather. … and it’s hard on my son. That’s who I have to protect.
CBS News
Anne-Marie Green: How are you keeping your mom’s memory alive?
Sabrina Rocuba: I have all of her pictures all over my fridge. … And I tell my daughter how wonderful her grandmother was and … how much — how much my mom loved being a grandmother.
Chelsea Cicio: She cared about my son more than anything. She loved that little boy.
Chelsea Cicio: And I think she wouldn’t want my son to hurt the way this has hurt him.
Chelsea Cicio
Just weeks after “48 Hours”‘ interview, on March 10, 2025, Chelsea says her son Greg was out riding his All-Terrain Vehicle, when he collided with an SUV and died. He was just 13 years old. Another tragic loss for a family that had already lost so much.
Joanne Swinney: It’s something that you read in a book or see on TV, not your own life … it just doesn’t feel like this should be our story as a family.
Produced by Judy Rybak. Emily Wichick Hourihane is the field producer. Michelle Sigona is the development producer. Michelle Harris, Diana Modica, Michael Baluzy and Jake Day are the editors. Anthony Batson is the senior broadcast producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
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The Batman Intruder
Morgan Metzer is attacked in her home by a masked intruder disguising his voice to sound like Batman. Her ex-husband comes to her aid, but is he a hero? “48 Hours” contributor Nikki Battiste reports.
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The Gaslighting of Hannah Pettey
When a young woman nearly dies from poisoning, investigators focus on the two people she trusted the most. “48 Hours” correspondent Anne-Marie Green reports.
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It’s About Danni
When 15-year-old Danni Houchins is found dead in a swamp, her family says they were led to believe she drowned. 24 years later, Danni’s sister learns the terrible truth. “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.
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An Alabama mom was near death from lead poisoning. Who was trying to kill her, and why?
In January 2022, the pain coursing through Hannah Pettey’s body for six months was hitting her harder than ever.
Hannah Pettey: It was unbearable … I was in the bed at this point for probably like a week straight.
Anne Marie Green: Were you even able to care for your kids?
Hannah Pettey: I did as much as I could.
Hannah’s son Lincoln was 3, and her daughter Gracie had just turned 2. But Hannah was too sick to attend Gracie’s birthday party.
Hannah Pettey: I was so weak that I couldn’t hardly walk. I had a little office chair that I would roll around in our house because I really didn’t get out of the house …
Hannah says her husband Brian Mann was there when she needed him the most.
Hannah Pettey: When I really started getting sick is when he was the sweetest to me …
Hannah Pettey
Brian was a chiropractor, but he says he could not diagnose what was wrong with Hannah.
Brian Mann: I had no idea … that’s out of my forte. Um, that’s someone that I would refer out, refer to a specialist, which is what I wanted to do.
On Jan. 18, 2022, Hannah checked in with her mother Nicole Pettey. After they hung up, Nicole says she was haunted by something she heard in her daughter’s voice.
Nicole Pettey: Just know that feeling, I knew something was wrong.
Nicole Pettey: I called and called and called and texted … Hannah called me finally … but she wasn’t able to speak. … So she just kind of gasped … and then she’d asked me, she said, “Mom, can you take me to the hospital?”
What was making Hannah Pettey sick?
Brian was at work, so Nicole rushed over and drove Hannah to UAB, the hospital at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. While there, Nicole took several photos and videos.
Nicole Pettey: The doctor … said, obviously she is very sick … I wanna keep her, but there’s … no way that they’re gonna let me keep her. Her, um, vitals are stable … I said … “if you send her home, she’s gonna die …”
It was right then that Hannah suffered a terrifying seizure, and, in the frenzy, she ripped off her hospital gown. For Nicole, that moment is frozen in time.
Nicole Pettey: … she was skin and bones … they told me that she was actually starving to death when we got there, they said she was, had hours to live …
Nicole Pettey
One doctor directed her anger at Nicole.
Nicole Pettey: She’s like, does she live with you? Like obviously someone should have seen that this person was dying, you know. This person was starving to death. … She said, “who is responsible for her?”
Anne-Marie Green: What’d you say?
Nicole Pettey: And I said, she’s married and they said, “she’s married?”
The seizure was so severe Hannah lost consciousness. Doctors wanted to talk with Hannah’s husband, so Nicole says she texted Brian:
“Hey Brian, Hannah had a seizure about 2 hours ago. She still has not come to yet…they said she could be out all day long, so I wanted to let you know if she’s not texting you that is why…”
Nicole Pettey: And I, of course, didn’t get a response from him …
Anne-Marie Green: So you don’t get … a text back — from Brian …
Nicole Pettey: No, never.
It had been that way for years, she said; all through his marriage to Hannah, Brian ignored Nicole.
Nicole Pettey: … never seen him the whole time they were married … never … any interaction with him whatsoever.
Anne-Marie Green: Never for any family gatherings, any holidays, he just never came?
Nicole Pettey: Never.
Anne-Marie Green: Brian didn’t like you.
Nicole Pettey: No.
That night, Brian never got back to Nicole, but he had learned about Hannah’s condition from his mother, who was in touch with Nicole. He arranged for childcare and began driving.
Nicole Pettey: He got to the hospital around 9:30 that night …
Under COVID restrictions, the hospital was allowing only one visitor at a time and with Nicole inside, Brian was kept out.
Brian Mann: I was very irritated that Nicole was not switching out with me, um, letting me in, because I stood outside of that hospital for a long time, trying to get in that room with Hannah.
But eventually, Nicole did come out and Brian was allowed in.
Anne-Marie Green: It must have been shocking to see her in that hospital bed like that?
Brian Mann: Yes … but I was glad that she was there … and — and people were trying to figure something out.
When Mann left to go to work, Nicole went in. Hannah was still unconscious and had been that way for nearly 48 hours. Nurses had just finished checking on her when Nicole bent over her daughter.
Nicole Pettey: I kissed her head, and I said, “I love you” … Her eyes just popped open. And then she said, “I love you too.”
Nicole says nurses were amazed and rushed to her side.
Nicole Pettey: I just started crying and Hannah said, “have I not been talking?”
But Hannah’s ordeal was far from over. Days after Hannah was admitted, Nicole says doctors put her in a medical coma while they drained the excess fluid from within her brain.
Nicole Pettey: … and then they had to paralyze her because even being in a coma, um, there was just so much fluid in her brain that any type of movement … she would’ve died…
Anne-Marie Green: But, Nicole, it’s like things are going from bad to worse.
Nicole Pettey: Yeah, yeah.
Anne Marie Green: Did you ever give up hope?
Nicole Pettey: No. Oh no. No. Never. Not one time …
Brian says he was wondering why Hannah’s health had gone downhill so quickly the day Nicole had picked her up and drove to the hospital.
Brian Mann: … that is curious how bad she got from getting in the car with her mother to being admitted to the hospital.
His dislike and distrust of Nicole boiled over.
Brian Mann: … she is a cruel person … she was not happy with the fact that Hannah seemed happy being with me …
Hannah Pettey’s body was “packed with lead”
Eight days after Hannah was admitted to the hospital, her neurologist told Nicole that doctors had figured out what was causing Hannah’s symptoms.
Nicole Pettey: Her exact words were, “she has an astronomical amount of lead inside of her.”
Lead. It was an unusual finding, and Nicole says doctors told her they had never seen a patient like Hannah.
Nicole Pettey: They said her colon was so packed, full of lead … it was almost 100% lead. … there was no room in her stomach to hold anything. It was just complete lead plus there was lead just in her bones, just everywhere …
Hartselle Police Department
Doctors told Nicole there was no way Hannah could have ingested all that lead by accident — it had to be deliberate, and they told her exactly what they thought.
Nicole Pettey: They let me know that this is an attempted murder …
The hospital reported Hannah’s case to the Department of Human Resources, the state agency that protects vulnerable adults. Hospital administrators immediately put Hannah in a secluded room with someone at the door to keep all visitors out. Nicole says she and Brian were told to leave and were no longer allowed to see Hannah because they were considered possible suspects.
CBS News
Nicole Pettey: I was beside myself … because I had to leave her … they had to send me away from the hospital.
Brian Mann: I immediately started thinking this is Nicole. … This has to be Nicole pointing fingers … I didn’t really think it would get anywhere because I thought it was, again, just Nicole making waves to make waves.
Brian Mann: Hannah’s mom just caused so many problems and not so much directly at me, but she was just awful to Hannah …
Brian says Hannah told him that Nicole could be critical of her.
Brian Mann: Why don’t you put makeup on, um, are you sure you should eat that? Just stuff like that all the time.
Brian Mann: I would say … why do you want this woman in your life? And it always all she could come back to, “she’s my mom.” … “She’s my mom.” And that’s really the only defense she had for her, “she’s my mom.”
Hannah denies Brian’s allegations. She did move away from Nicole and got her own apartment in June 2017, the month she turned 18 years old. She had just graduated from high school. That’s when she met Brian, a 29-year-old chiropractor with his own business.
Hannah Pettey: He was very, very sweet in the beginning and you know … he’s very charming, good looking. (Laughs) And yeah, I really liked him.
Anne-Marie Green: Sounds like it was almost sort of instant attraction.
Brian Mann: Yes … it was head over heels. … umm everything was just working right.
Within weeks of Brian’s first date with Hannah, his friend Walker Snyder says Brian told him Hannah was “the one.”
Walker Snyder: And I’m like, man, you just met her like a week ago or she’s 18. (laughs) she doesn’t know what she wants. … She doesn’t even know what she doesn’t want. And he was like, “No, we both know what we want” …
It wasn’t long before Hannah told friends she was pregnant.
Anne-Marie Green: How long were you guys dating … before you proposed?
Brian Mann: We started dating in November. I believe I proposed after Valentine’s Day … so not — not too long.
Anne-Marie Green: Were you nervous?
Brian Mann: I was … I take marriage very seriously. And, so, yeah … I was, I was definitely nervous about it.
Hannah was nervous, too. She says she had noticed that Brian could be controlling but she plunged ahead — at least until her wedding day in May 2018. Hannah’s friend, Alyson Holmes.
Alyson Holmes: Right before we were all about to walk down the aisle … Hannah expressed to us that she was, you know … very nervous. She had cold feet …
Nicole Pettey: We told her a hundred times over. You don’t have to do it. … if this is cold feet, you know, it is what it is. But if this is un — uncertainty, walk away, it’s not too late to walk away.
In the end, Hannah smiled through her ceremony, and married Brian.
Anne-Marie Green: When you walked up to the altar and you looked at him, you had no questions?
Hannah Pettey: I mean, I did. … I mean, deep down I did. I was like, I don’t really know if I’m making the right decision and everything …
Chelsea Vaughn Photography
The couple moved into Brian’s home and started their lives together.
Anne-Marie Green: How was he as a husband?
Hannah Pettey: For the most part, he was really good as a husband … I mean, it was good and bad.
Hannah Pettey: We got in a lot of physical fights … so that’s a bad thing, but it wasn’t … all the time though, so …
Anne-Marie Green: You know, like, as I’m listening to you talk, you know, it sounds almost a little bit like —
Hannah Pettey: Mm.
Anne-Marie Green: — you’re explaining away –
Hannah Pettey: Mm-hmm.
Anne-Marie Green: — the bad stuff. Do you think you did that in the marriage a bit?
Hannah Pettey: Uh, yeah, I definitely did, I think …Yeah. Yeah, my mom tells me that, too.
Even their son’s birth was a minefield of emotion.
Hannah Pettey: You know, I was nine months pregnant, and I had started, um, bleeding. And so, I went to the hospital, and he came in and he got so angry at me … and he was yelling at me … and “you shouldn’t have been out walking like in this heat” … like, “that was so stupid and irresponsible”
Alyson Holmes: … he was acting so just outrageous that the nurses … even told her … if you need us to do something, then you say this specific word and we’ll know … that we need to step in and intervene in what’s going on …
Hannah never used that “safe word” but as time went on, Brian says the couple came to an understanding.
Brian Mann: I would say, Hannah, talk to me. I am on your side…. I’m your biggest fan, your biggest supporter … one day she said … I’m going to trust you. And I want to do this with you. And I want to build this with you. … from then on, it just got better and better.
Hannah Pettey: … that’s when I started to really fall in love with him.
The couple had another child, a daughter, and life was good, they say, until Hannah began to feel sick and went to the hospital emergency room in January 2022. She was left fighting for her life, and doctors were trying to help her, but they told Nicole they had to know more.
Anne-Marie Green: They said the only way she gets this much lead in her system —
Nicole Pettey: Is to ingest it. Is to ingest it. They said she had to have ingested it.
Nicole Pettey: I remember them saying, we don’t care if you give her crack … we just want to know about it. We have to know everything she’s taken.
And that’s when Nicole remembered something that she’d completely overlooked: Hannah told her that Brian had given her special supplements – capsules — each and every night.
In search of evidence
Doctors kept asking Nicole what Hannah had been eating in the months leading up to her hospital stay.
Nicole Pettey: From what they can see, it looks like someone has gave her lead every single day for, at least … three months.
Was Hannah eating something that contained lead? Nicole says she had no idea because she hardly ever visited her daughter in the months before the seizure. And never if Brian was home.
Nicole Pettey: I could only go when he was working … and I would have to leave before he got off work. … I never actually ran into him.
Anne-Marie Green: Whoa.
Nicole Pettey: Yeah, He didn’t come home until I left.
As doctors pressed her for information, Nicole remembered Hannah telling her about special supplement capsules that Brian placed on her nightstand every night. Nicole says it didn’t strike her as unusual because Brian was a chiropractor, but she told doctors anyway.
Nicole Pettey: I told ’em that I know that they were big on supplements.
Nicole says doctors repeatedly asked Brian to bring in the capsules described by Hannah, but he never did. Instead, he gave them a photo of common over-the-counter supplements.
DHR investigators, who were getting information from Hannah’s doctors, contacted Lt. Alan McDearmond of the Hartselle Police Department.
Lt. Alan McDearmond: They said that I needed to go arrest somebody for attempting to kill their wife. And I’m like, well, hold up. I mean, we can’t just go arrest people. What are you talking about?
Investigators told McDearmond that doctors suspected Brian had given Hannah some type of lead-filled capsules over and over again.
Lt. Alan McDearmond: … you can take a capsule and open it up, empty the contents and then put the lead in …
McDearmond told Brian about the hospital’s allegations.
Brian Mann: McDearmond … said … your wife’s been lead poisoned. … And they think it was intentional. And they said, you’re the number one suspect … So, I was kind of dumbfounded … I didn’t know what to think about that.
McDearmond asked Brian if the police could search his house, and he agreed.
Brian Mann: So, I took him all through the house. I let him search my house … And we went through and tried to figure out what she was eating, pills, make-ups and — and things like that.
McDearmond says Brian provided a bottle of supplements and a laxative that he said Hannah had taken.
Anne-Marie Green: Hannah says you made her take supplements.
Brian Mann: That is not true …
Brian blamed all his problems on Nicole.
Brian Mann: I immediately started thinking this is Nicole …This has to be Nicole pointing fingers.
Investigators removed the children from Brian’s home. They were placed with his parents. He had supervised visitation.
Brian Mann: Nicole had just done so much over the years and Hannah had told me so much about her that I just had no doubt … Nicole was somehow stirring this all up.
Brian said he remembered something Hannah had told him that now seemed to hold more significance. In second grade, in a story that Hannah confirms, she recalled being so sick for so long that she visited the school nurse dozens of times.
Brian Mann: … and she eventually got really bad, and her mother took her to UAB. She says she remembers staying there about a week.
Hannah Pettey Facebook
Flash forward to 2022. Hannah was back at UAB Hospital. On January 29, McDearmond went to see Hannah for himself, but she was in a coma.
Lt. Alan McDearmond: I had no idea the condition she was in until I went to the hospital and saw her for myself …
Doctors showed him Hannah’s X-rays.
Anne Marie Green: What did you think?
Lt. Alan McDearmond: Oh, gosh, I was just floored. I mean, her whole insides was lit up from the — the lead reacting to the X-ray … I mean It was crazy.
McDearmond asked Brian to come in.
Lt. Alan McDearmond: And at that point is when he refused to further cooperate with the investigation.
On February 1, McDearmond cleared Nicole, and she was once again allowed to visit Hannah.
Anne-Marie Green: How were you able to clear Nicole?
Lt. Alan McDearmond: You know, just through conversations … whether you could tell that she was very concerned about Hannah … she was the person that was caring for Hannah …
Anne-Marie Green: It sounds to me like you just like Nicole’s behavior. She acted the way you expect a concerned mother to act. … And Brian didn’t act the way you expected a concerned husband to act.
Lt. Alan McDearmond: That’s correct.
Anne-Marie Green: Is that evidence?
Lt. Alan McDearmond: That’s not evidence. No … and the problem with this case was there was not a lot of evidence.
Within days, McDearmond received the results of the tests done at Brian and Hannah’s home.
Lt. Alan McDearmond: Everything was negative.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you ever find any capsules?
Lt. Alan McDearmond: Um, no.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you ever find any supplements that were tainted?
Lt. Alan McDearmond: Um, no.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you ever find evidence of lead being ground down or scraped, or turned into little particles that could go into a capsule?
Lt. Alan McDearmond: No.
Anne-Marie Green: So, isn’t that kind of a big hole in the theory?
Lt. Alan McDearmond: Well, he sold supplements.
McDearmond says he kept looking for the source of that lead. In mid-February, Hannah began to rally and McDearmond went to see her again.
Lt. Alan McDearmond: I told her in a very nice way, you know, why she was in the hospital and … asked her, you know, do you have any idea who may have given you some substance? She said, “No.”
Lt. Alan McDearmond: Do you have any thoughts of self-harm? I mean, did you put yourself here? And she said, “No.”
McDearmond said Hannah was coherent one minute and not the next. She said she saw “people coming out of the walls.”
Lt. Alan McDearmond: When I first started talking to the medical staff, I mean, they didn’t give her any hope … they said if she came out of this, that, uh, she would really not have any cognitive functions … they didn’t suspect that, that we would be able to even talk with her.
Anne Marie Green: Wow.
Lt. Alan McDearmond: They basically told us that we needed to do everything that we could, because we didn’t need to rely on her as a witness because they didn’t think she would ever make it to that point.
But Hannah surprised everyone by getting stronger each day with the help of a team of dedicated nurses.
Nicole Pettey: They were all kind of close to her age … they knew she had kids, and they would say to her, “you’ve got your babies, you’ve got your babies.”
Nicole Pettey: And I remember she just always got a life in her when you mentioned the kids. She was like … I’m gonna get better. I’m gonna get out here and get better, you know.
Nicole says Hannah did get better and stronger — strong enough that Hannah’s neurologist told her the whole story.
Hannah Pettey: She grabbed my hand and she just kind of started giving me a heart to heart about why they have strong reasons to believe that it was Brian.
Anne-Marie Green: And what’s the conversation like after that, between you and Hannah?
Nicole Pettey: Oh, it was horrible. That was horrible. Sorry, of everything that she went through, the heartbreak … The heartbreak was terrible … She just would sit there and cry.
On March 3, after nearly two months, Hannah was well enough to leave the hospital. She went to her mom’s house, reunited with her children, and filed for divorce. But friends like Kyle Golden were worried.
Kyle Golden: We did know that Hannah was still in contact with Brian —
Alyson Holmes: Yeah.
Kyle Golden: And that did upset us … It was scary.
Alyson Holmes: Yeah.
Kyle Golden: Knowing that she could potentially go back to this guy that we believe tried to kill her.
Hannah Pettey goes back to Brian Mann; Considers halting her cooperation
In the days after Hannah got out of the hospital, Hannah says she felt vulnerable and confused.
Hannah Pettey: I was on so many different medicines, so many different psych medicines the doctors had me on …
Despite the risks, Hannah had made up her mind to sit down with Brian face to face. Just one week after being discharged, she met him at their former home.
Hannah Pettey: I just had to figure it out for myself. Instead of everyone telling me this is what happened.
Anne-Marie Green: And so you sit down with him.
Hannah Pettey: Mm-hmm.
Anne-Marie Green: And did you ask him outright? Did you do this? Did you try to poison me?
Hannah Pettey: No, I was so emotional. I mean I didn’t stop crying that night. I remember I cried all through the night.
Hannah Pettey: I wanted him to say … like there’s no way that I could have, you know like what … or like, are you crazy? Like this is crazy … And I was expecting him to go out and say that to everybody. I don’t care if he even made a Facebook post about it or just anything.
Hannah says Brian never told her what she needed to hear. But then, incredibly, she changed her mind about the divorce.
Hannah Pettey: I called my attorney. I was like, I don’t want to go through with the divorce … like I don’t think he did it. I said there must be something else.
Anne-Marie Green: Hannah told you not to sign the divorce papers?
Brian Mann: Yes.
Anne-Marie Green: Because why?
Brian Mann: Because she knew her mother had made up this whole thing and it was just another crazy Nicole episode.
When Hannah’s family doctor heard what was going on, Nicole says he wanted to have Hannah involuntarily committed because he feared Brian would kill her. And Hannah’s next move caused even more consternation: she asked McDearmond to drop the investigation.
Hannah Pettey: I said, “he’s a family man.” I said, “he loves me. He loves the kids.” … It just doesn’t make sense.
McDearmond knew without Hannah’s help, the criminal case against Brian would likely collapse. But he understood what Hannah was feeling.
Lt. Alan McDearmond: It’s typical of domestic violence … to forgive your abuser …
McDearmond asked Hannah to sign a specific form that he’d prepared.
Lt. Alan McDearmond: And she said, well, what do I have to sign this for? … And I said, well, if … Brian were to kill you in the future, and somebody from your family … comes and says that we didn’t do our due diligence in the investigation, then I can show them that you didn’t want to pursue it. … So, if you want to go ahead and sign that, then we’ll close it up. And she said, “No, I’m not going to sign that.” … She said, “I want you to keep going.”
Ultimately, she decided to proceed with the divorce and cooperate with the criminal investigation.
Anne Marie Green: What do you learn from Hannah?
Lt. Alan McDearmond: … more than anything insurance policies.
Hannah told McDearmond that Brian had taken out life insurance policies on her while they were still dating. McDearmond learned that when Hannah was in the hospital fighting for her life, Brian tried to take out even more policies. If they were approved, Brian would have collected more than $5 million upon Hannah’s death.
Anne-Marie Green: And that gave you what?
Lt. Alan McDearmond: Well it gives you motive … money’s a motive, money’s a huge motive.
At that point, McDearmond felt he’d collected enough evidence to move ahead and so did prosecutor Garrick Vickery.
Garrick Vickery: We knew Hannah had been poisoned, that it was intentional and that it was ingested.
Anne-Marie Green: You don’t have any capsules with lead. You have a theory, you have a suspect, and you have what you believe is a motive. Why were you confident that this was enough to put in front of a grand jury?
Garrick Vickery: Nothing else made sense … In this case, the evidence was clear that lead was getting into her system. So, then you rewind the tape, you back up, and you see how that lead could have gotten into her system. … And Brian Mann was the only person who had access to Hannah.
Morgan County Sheriff’s Office
The grand jury agreed and in September 2022, Brian Mann was arrested and pleaded “not guilty” to attempted murder. He was freed on a $500,000 bond but was required to report to jail every weekend.
Anne-Marie Green: Can I see the ankle monitor?
Brian Mann: Sure.
Anne-Marie Green: What’s it like having to wear that?
Brian Mann: … I mean, it’s definitely annoying.
Police still had nothing connecting Brian to any form of lead. But then, they got an unexpected call. Turns out Danny Hill thought he knew exactly where the lead came from.
It all began when Brian asked Hill, a contractor, to line his X-ray room at his chiropractic office with, you guessed it: lead. Hill had recognized Brian from a newspaper article about his arrest and got in touch with McDearmond.
Danny Hill: You do an X-ray room, the walls have to be lined with lead … for the protection of the people outside the room. … We did it with rolls of soft lead that we just covered the walls with and then put drywall all over the top of that.
“48 Hours” asked Hill to obtain a sample of the same type of lead he installed in Brian’s office.
The lead was heavy but surprisingly soft and malleable. Hill showed us how easy it is to scrape the sheet of lead into tiny shavings — just like pencil shavings —and how easy it is to put those shavings into an empty pill capsule.
CBS News
Danny Hill: … that’s just the shaving of the lead.
Anne-Marie Green: Oh.
Danny Hill: This soft.
After Hill was done with the V-ray room, he asked Brian if he should dispose of the remaining lead.
Danny Hill: And he said, I’ll take care of it …
Hill’s information sent cops directly to Brian’s office. Prior to Hill’s revelations, the Hartselle Police Department did not have probable cause. Now they did.
Lt. Alan McDearmond: And we got a search warrant. We went in and we took a section of that out …
Hartselle Police Department
Lt. Alan McDearmond: The lead that we recovered from the office was very thin … it would be thin enough that it could be shaved or whatever.
Anne-Marie Green: Tell me about how important that phone call was from the contractor.
Garrick Vickery: It was vitally important. It’s always necessary … to put your murder weapon into the hands of a defendant.
But Brian insists the state’s case is weak, and so he got himself a strong advocate — bodybuilder and defense lawyer Chad Morgan.
Chad Morgan: There’s no reason that any of their evidence should be able to get into a courtroom …
Going into the trial in June 2025, Brian had been forbidden any visitation with his children for more than two years. He says it was just unfair.
Brian Mann: I should have never been separated from my kids. … I’m going to be back in their lives. … I’ve just been waiting for my chance.
The trial of Brian Mann
Anne-Marie Green: How does it feel to know that someone tried to kill you?
Hannah Pettey: … at night I get really creeped out thinking about that someone poisoned me for a long, long time …
BEN HOOVER [ Local news report]: The state started its case today against a Morgan County chiropractor charged with attempting to kill his wife … Mann maintains his innocence …
In June 2025, defendant Brian Mann walks into a Decatur, Alabama, courthouse, facing a possible life sentence. No cameras are permitted inside the courtroom during the trial.
Anne-Marie Green: What was your working theory as to what happened in this case with this crime?
Garrick Vickery: It really begins months before Hannah ever appears at UAB Hospital …
Lead prosecutor Garrick Vickery.
Garrick Vickery: In terms of a — a theory, it mostly was that he made a decision to slowly poison her, to gain this life insurance, to rid himself of a sweet, sweet person …
Brian’s defense attorney Chad Morgan tells the jury that police never found any lead-filled capsules in Brian’s home, office or anywhere else.
Chad Morgan: … they searched the entire house top to bottom, never found one piece of lead.
Garrick Vickery: One of the issues we had was that Brian Mann had months and months … to execute his plan and then to get rid of the evidence. …
But the state does have Hannah, and prosecutors make her the first witness.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you look at Brian when you walked into the courtroom?
Hannah Pettey: I did …
Anne-Marie Green: … was that the man that you had fallen in love with?
Hannah Pettey: No, I mean, I saw someone totally different …
Hannah tells the jury how Brian supplied her with vitamin capsules each night even when her pain was so intense she could barely swallow.
Hannah Pettey: I remember, um, being in bed one night and I was in so much pain, and I was so nauseous … and Brian was like … I put your vitamins on your nightstand. … And he was like, “you need to take ’em.” And I was like, I just can’t tonight. I do not think I can keep anything else down. … and he was like freaking out about it. Like he was like, “you gotta take it” …
Anne-Marie Green: How easy would it have been to put lead in those capsules?
Garrick Vickery: Tremendously easy … Anyone that’s sharpened a pencil could see how easy it is to get lead shavings. … And once you have that and you have two hands to separate a pill and put it back together, you’ve got all the instruments you need to try to murder your spouse.
Brian’s attorney alleges Hannah’s own mother Nicole could have been the one poisoning Hannah.
Chad Morgan: I’m suggesting they’re looking in the wrong place.
He claims Nicole gave Hannah milkshakes that could have been laced with lead.
Chad Morgan: … tell me why her mom was coming to her house every day for almost a year, giving her a milkshake.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you look into her mother?
Kelly Cimino: The thought was considered … you — you don’t want to rule anyone out before.
Assistant District Attorney Kelly Cimino.
Kelly Cimino: And Nicole just didn’t have that kind of access to her daughter.
Anne-Marie Green: Did your mom bring you milkshakes?
Hannah Pettey: No, not that I recall …I don’t even like milkshakes. I really don’t even like milkshakes … I don’t drink milkshakes.
Hannah tells the jury how the pain affected her. Her body, in a sense, the crime scene and her brain scans, blood work and X-rays are discussed in open court. But there’s something she’s been holding back until she takes the stand.
Hannah Pettey: It is kind of emotional to talk about the fact that I can’t have children anymore.
On the day she was discharged, Hannah was smiling but, inside, she was heartbroken. Doctors had just told her she could no longer have children. She was only 22 years old.
When it’s Nicole’s turn to take the stand, she thinks she knows what’s coming from Brian’s defense attorney.
Nicole Pettey: I know … that he was gonna try to say that, possibly say that I had did this. … And I wasn’t really concerned about that because … I didn’t do it …
Cimino explains why prosecutors believe Brian used lead-filled capsules instead of mixing the lead into her food.
Kelly Cimino: … she would have tasted it. … And so that’s where … the … theory of the capsule comes in because it’s the only way that she would’ve willingly put it in her mouth and swallowed it and not noticed anything different …
After a day-and-a-half and seven witnesses, the state rests its case. And then so does the defense. Chad Morgan calls no witnesses.
Hannah Pettey: I was shocked that they’ve had three years to put this together and then it comes out that he has no defense at all.
Brian’s lawyer says he did his job and maintains that the lack of evidence in the state’s case is the best evidence of all.
Chad Morgan: There was a lot of assumptions about this is lead and that’s lead, but there was not one person that testified to anything that they actually saw him do, touch or even begin to believe that … she ingested something he gave her.
The jury gets the case on a Wednesday afternoon, and the next day returns a verdict: guilty.
Jeff Sollee: There was a — about a second of shock … I don’t think he was expecting that.
Juror Jeff Solee.
Jeff Sollee: That guy’s a monster.
Anne-Marie Green: Why do you say that?
Jeff Sollee: The arrogance it takes to essentially watch somebody waste away … And then not only watch during the poisoning, but also watch during, you know, the downfall. … I think that takes a very special person.
Hannah Pettey: … it took me a few seconds for it to — to … sink in that it was a guilty verdict. …I just immediately started feeling the tears well up because it was just this build up and I just had to step out.
Lt. Alan McDearmond: This is a great win for all domestic violence victims, especially those that are scared to come forward.
McDearmond is now chief of the Hartselle Police Department. And after a lot of reflection, Hannah allows herself to consider a hard truth.
Anne-Marie Green: Do you think he ever loved you?
Hannah Pettey: No, I truly don’t think that he did … I just don’t think any of it was real.
Anne-Marie Green: It’s gotta be hard to say.
Hannah Pettey: Yeah.
Anne-Marie Green: Cause it was real for you.
Hannah Pettey: Yes. It was very real for me.
Now it’s very real for Brian who was sentenced to life in prison in August 2025. And Hannah, who was once feared to be so brain-damaged that she would never be able to testify, graduated from college with a teaching degree.
Carly Humphries Photography
Anne-Marie Green: And what does Hannah’s new life look like?
Hannah Pettey: You know I’m a teacher, so I’m starting at a new school this year. So, I’m just gonna focus on being the best teacher that I can be and … being the best mother I can be.
Life got even sweeter for Hannah when she and the children moved back into their old home, the one they used to share with Brian.
Hannah Pettey: I’ve repainted … I redecorated everything, cleaned it up really good. … I got all my stuff moved in there and just pictures of us three all in there. So now it feels like ours.
Hannah and Brian remain married. The next court date for the divorce proceedings is December 2026.
If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
Produced by Paul La Rosa. David Dow and Tamara Weitzman are the development producers. Charlotte Fuller is the field producer. Wini Dini and Greg Kaplan are the editors. Dena Goldstein is the field producer. Nancy Bautista is the associate producer. Peter Schweitzer is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
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Unexpected twist in Texas cold case murder probe: Victim was a bridesmaid in killer’s wedding
This story originally aired on Nov. 9, 2024.
For Texas Ranger Brandon Bess, almost everything about the Mary Catherine Edwards case was different.
Ranger Brandon Bess: The thing that really got me about the case was, you don’t expect to have this beautiful, young, single, schoolteacher be murdered in her own home …. She was such a great person, came from such a great family.
Ranger Brandon Bess: It was an unusual crime scene. She’s over the bathtub and she’s obviously been sexually assaulted and handcuffed behind her back.
Natalie Morales | “48 Hours“ contributor: Were they … police-grade handcuffs?
Ranger Brandon Bess: Yeah. … Handcuffs have always been a key piece of this.
Texas Department of Public Safety
Jan. 14, 1995. It was a Saturday. Catherine, as most people called her, didn’t show up for a family lunch and she wasn’t answering her phone. When her mother and father went to check on her, they had to see what no parent ever should.
911 OPERATOR: What happened ma’am?
MARY ANN EDWARDS: We came over here and found her. … Please send someone over –
911 OPERATOR: OK, we’re sending someone ma’am. Is she — was she shot or what?
MARY ANN EDWARDS: Ah … we can’t tell.
Catherine was 31. Dianna Coe remembers hearing the news.
Allison Edwards Brocato
The sisters, both schoolteachers, looked so much alike everyone had trouble telling them apart — especially their young students.
Heleniah Adams: Ms. Edwards … was my second-grade teacher.
Heleniah Adams remembers being in her classroom.
Heleniah Adams: Most of us grew up in … a pretty tough environment. … And being around Ms. Edwards was a joy.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Originally, they believed that she might’ve been drowned, but there wasn’t enough fluid in her lungs, so then it kind of became a suffocation by compression.
Heleniah Adams: I just remember being told that our teacher wouldn’t make it to class that day … Everyone just crying.
Jefferson County D.A.’s Office
Dianna Coe: My mom is the one that told me … And so she said, “have you not heard about Catherine?” … and I go, “my Catherine?”
She had been friends with Catherine and her twin sister Allison since middle school.
Dianna Coe: I was new to the area. … so I knew no one. … and they … just started talking to me … asked me my name … and we were friends from that point forward.
The sisters, both schoolteachers, looked so much alike everyone had trouble telling them apart — especially their young students.
Heleniah Adams: Ms. Edwards … was my second-grade teacher.
Heleniah Adams remembers being in her classroom.
Heleniah Adams: Most of us grew up in … a pretty tough environment. … And being around Ms. Edwards was a joy.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Originally, they believed that she might’ve been drowned, but there wasn’t enough fluid in her lungs, so then it kind of became a suffocation by compression.
Heleniah Adams: I just remember being told that our teacher wouldn’t make it to class that day … Everyone just crying.
Early investigators could not piece together what happened, but those police-grade handcuffs were a big clue.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: It was almost talked about like a ghost story around a campfire.
Aaron Lewallen is a detective with the Beaumont Police Department.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Maybe it was somebody in law enforcement or somebody in security. … Could it have been somebody that we knew?
In the weeks after the murder, police focused on tracing the serial numbers of the handcuffs but came up empty.
They also zeroed in on an old boyfriend — David Perry.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: They focused on him early on because … there was no forced entry.
But Perry was out of town that night. He gave a DNA sample and it was not a match.
David Perry: I wasn’t there. It’s not me.
The crime scene DNA stayed well preserved and the years dragged on and on — until forensic science changed.
FINDING THE KILLER’S RELATIVES: DNA LEFT BEHIND AT THE CRIME SCENE IS TESTED
By 2018, there was a way to take the DNA left at a crime scene and search for biological relatives. A program — Gedmatch — scarfs up all the DNA from people who agree to share it with law enforcement and upload it when they use sites like Ancestry.com and 23andMe.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Ranger Bess approached me … and he asked if I thought we had a case that would fit the bill for that type of investigation. I said, “absolutely. I know the perfect case for this.” And it was the Catherine Edwards case.
So, in April 2020, the DNA from Catherine Edwards’ crime scene went to Othram, a lab outside of Houston, for testing.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: There, they would give us familial matches. And from there, we would start trying to build a family tree to get us closer to our suspect.
But the number of names to pursue was overwhelming.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: When the family tree began to grow beyond my computer screen, (laughs) I started to get a little bit confused. And that’s when … Tina jumped on board.
Det. Aaron’s Lewallen’s wife, Tina Lewallen, an auto crimes detective, began using her off hours to help sort through it.
Det. Tina Lewallen: The matches were all Cajun.
Natalie Morales: Cajun … ancestry –
Det. Tina Lewallen: Yes.
Natalie Morales: — coming from the Louisiana area.
Det. Tina Lewallen: Yes.
Natalie Morales: Specifically.
Det. Tina Lewallen: … particularly Kaplan, Louisiana.
So Det. Tina Lewallen went back to Catherine’s journals looking for clues.
Det. Tina Lewallen: … to see if I could see a Cajun name that jumped out to me. … I did find a few French names and they were quickly eliminated and nowhere in our tree.
And as she was building out the branches, one of the names on the family tree kept coming up: LaPoint.
Det. Tina Lewallen: I’m researching the matches and building my trees and you’re researching other people’s trees … I kept noticing Shera LaPoint — had built that tree, and then I’m working some more, I do some more research. Well, Shera LaPoint built this tree. And I’m like, is she related to our suspect? … I had no idea who she was.
And when they called her, they found out LaPoint had been building her family tree.
Shera LaPoint: It was my family’s DNA kits that I had uploaded to GEDmatch.
And then they found out something that changed the course of the investigation. LaPoint was known professionally as “The Gene Hunter” and already skilled at working these cases. She’d identified one of the women buried along Interstate Highway 45 in the Texas killing fields case.
And she agreed to lend her expertise.
Shera LaPoint: I told him that I was willing to help.
Even if it meant taking a hard look at her own relatives.
Shera LaPoint: It was kind of scary because I’m putting my own second cousins in this tree and I’m thinking, oh my gosh, you know, could one of my grandfather’s sister’s grandchildren have — have done this, they lived here in Texas.
It was a complicated, multilayered process using publicly available DNA, birth and death records — finding parents, siblings and cousins.
Shera LaPoint: As you build those trees, you look for information that … is pertinent to the case that you’re working on. We had a tag for people who were in Beaumont … She was a teacher. As you build tree, you look at people who are in education.
The tree grew up and down and sideways – there were almost 7,500 names.
Shera LaPoint: That’s a lot of hours, a lot of work and a lot of people in a family tree.
All the while, Det. Tina Lewallen hardly slept, working through most nights — knowing there was a killer still out there.
Det. Tina Lewallen: Every day counted; every day mattered … I needed to get it solved.
THE FAMILY TREE PAYS OFF: IDENTIFYING A SUSPECT WITH A SURPRISING CONNECTION TO MARY CATHERINE
Hunkered down at their computers day after day, constantly back and forth on the phone, Det. Tina Lewallen and genealogist Shera LaPoint are quickly becoming great partners.
Det. Tina Lewallen: She was a team player from jump. Never had met me. … we talked so often that we became friends.
Natalie Morales: Best buds.
Shera LaPoint: Best buds. I don’t know what else to say.
And when they needed DNA, they turned to Det. Tina Lewallen’s husband, Det. Aaron Lewallen, and Texas Ranger Brandon Bess.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: So, from that point, me and Brandon Bess would drive around Texas and go talk to these people.
Ranger Brandon Bess: Convincing someone … to give their DNA up, to give a piece of themselves up to you in a homicide investigation can be very difficult.
Ranger Brandon Bess: When we would sense, um, anxiety in someone, Aaron would immediately tell them, “hey, who do you want to play you in the movie …”
Ranger Brandon Bess: And they would look at Aaron like he was crazy … and say, (laughs) um, “what are you talking about.” “Well, this guy’s a Texas Ranger, everything they do turns into a movie. Who do you want to play your role in this movie?” (laughs) That calmed them down every time … and I of course threw out there, “hey, I’ve already got Brad Pitt. So, you know, you can’t — you can’t be Brad – cause Brad’s playing me.”
Natalie Morales: Was there ever a time though that somebody actually thought … my uncle may actually be a killer. Who knows?
Ranger Brandon Bess: In every one of these cases that I’ve worked using DNA and genetic genealogy, you have at least one person, usually two or three that says, you know what, I had that weird Uncle Joe …
Once the uploads were compared to the killer’s DNA, if the amount of shared genetic material was low, they knew it was a dead end.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Cause there were times when we would come across a name and I’m like — you get that that butterflies in your stomach … like, “hey, maybe this is our guy” … And then … turns out it’s not our guy.
After almost three month of ups and down and nearly nonstop work, LaPoint hit paydirt.
Shera LaPoint: It was about 10:30 at night.
She was working a family line very distantly related to her own.
Shera LaPoint: It was a very common Cajun name, Thibodeaux. … I got to a couple who were in Beaumont … I was able to see from, uh, records that they had two sons.
This was a major lead: a family, in Catherine’s town, with two sons who went to Forest Park High – the same school Catherine did — at around the same time.
Shera LaPoint: I put the names in the tree and I messaged Tina and I said, um, “there’s a couple in Beaumont.”
Shera LaPoint: I’m tired, I’m going to bed. And I turned my cellphone off and I fell asleep on the sofa … and when I woke up the next morning, my phone had just blown up.
Natalie Morales: And it was you on the other end?
Det. Tina Lewallen: Yes.
Natalie Morales: What were you saying?
Det. Tina Lewallen: This is them. We found them. Just didn’t know which one.
Natalie Morales: OK … it’s either Michael Foreman or Clayton Foreman. What did you do to — to figure that out?
Dianna Coe
Det. Aaron Lewallen: The first name I ran was Clayton … And when I came across his prior conviction for the sexual assault, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I’m like, “this is our guy.”
In 1981, a 19-year-old woman told police that Clayton Foreman bound her hands and raped her. She had also gone to Forest Park High School where Clayton was the manager of the football team. Clayton Foreman was convicted but was given probation and paid a fine.
Natalie Morales: But he did not have to give a DNA sample at that time.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: No. This was back in the early ’80s. We didn’t have sex offender registry, uh, no DNA database.
And then they found another connection: it went all way back to Dianna Coe, Catherine’s friend from middle school.
In high school, Coe fell madly in love. Her boyfriend had graduated three years ahead of her, and they got engaged.
Dianna Coe: He was so kind. … He had the most wonderful personality.
And when she started planning her wedding, she immediately turned to her old friends Catherine and Allison.
Dianna Coe: And they were one of the first ones I thought of as, uh, bridesmaid and — and I asked them and they said yes.
And the groom? The man Coe married back in 1982? Now he was their number one suspect: Clayton Foreman.
Natalie Morales: She in fact did know him.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Yes.
In hindsight, there were signs. When Coe found out about Clayton Foreman’s legal troubles, the wedding was less than three months away.
Dianna Coe: … and … the wedding invitations had already been mailed out.
Dianna Coe: And I said, “rape?” I said, “oh, there’s no way.”
Dianna Coe
But she never got any details and her fiancé explained it away.
Dianna Coe: … he kept telling me, it — it was a big misunderstanding … And so in my mind, I thought, well, he must be telling the truth because if he got arrested, he’s not in jail.
Natalie Morales: But you didn’t really believe it was rape?
Dianna Coe: Right.
Coe’s sister, Anne Anderson, and her brother, Scooter Daleo, were not so sure and neither were their parents who wanted her to call it off.
Scooter Daleo: And I said, well, “Dianna, why don’t you just wait?” … And she didn’t wanna wait. She wanted to marry Clay. She was in love with him.
Anne Anderson: … she’s believing him and she’s wanting to get married, then — then we have to support as a family.
Dianna Coe: And he was like, I’m so, so sorry. … I love you. I want us to be married. I want us to have a family. … And so, I was like, OK, you know. So I went — I went through with it.
Dianna and Clayton Foreman stayed married for a little more than 11 years and they had a son. The relationship began to fray over Foreman lying about their finances and it ended after he had an affair. And looking back, Coe can see that he had an unhealthy fascination with police officers and the tools of their trade — like handcuffs.
Dianna Coe: I remember that he had ordered those handcuffs. … Well, he had ’em hung over the rearview mirror … And I — I didn’t think anything of it.
When Catherine was killed, they were divorced, but Coe remembers calling her ex-husband to talk about it.
Dianna Coe: I think I was, you know, crying and I said, “oh, my God,” I said, “somebody has murdered Catherine.” And — and he goes,” oh, really?” Just like no emotion … When we hung the phone up, I can remember ’cause I was like kind of squinting and kind of like going, God, that’s kind of odd.
With all the mounting evidence, Foreman needed to be found. He was 60 and no longer living in Beaumont. They quickly tracked him to Reynoldsberg, Ohio.
Natalie Morales: What was he doing there?
Det. Aaron Lewallen: He was an Uber driver at the time. … I was able to send a lead, uh, to a field office up there … and basically did what we call a trash run.
Natalie Morales: You need to collect a piece of DNA so that you can ensure that it’s the — the right guy, right?
Jefferson County D.A.’s Office
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Correct. Uh, so, that’s what they did. … They surveilled his house … and then went and snatched a bag of trash … and sent it to me.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Uh, so, I brought that stuff to Houston, to the DPS crime lab. And from there they tested it.
The likelihood that the DNA belonged to Clayton Foreman was a big number — 461 septillion. It doesn’t get better than that, says LaPoint.
Shera LaPoint: I mean, you can’t fight those odds. You cannot fight those odds.
And that was all they needed.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: And I got a text from a — a DPS lab technician. And she said, “go get his ass.”
Det. Aaron Lewallen and Ranger Bess were about to hop a plane to Ohio, ready to face the man they felt sure had killed Catherine.
And while they’re doing that, Det. Tina Lewallen pays a visit to Coe.
Natalie Morales: Did they tell you we had — they had DNA, though? Tina told you that?
Dianna Coe: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Dianna Coe: And I just went (gasps) “Oh my God, please don’t tell me it was Clay –”
Dianna Coe: I almost fell to the ground. … I was just like, “oh, my God.” Like, “oh, God, I can’t believe he’s done this.”
CONFRONTING CLAYTON FOREMAN
When Ranger Bess and Det. Aaron Lewallen arrive at the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office to confront Clayton Foreman, they have a cover story – it’s about a lost item from one of Foreman’s Uber rides.
Ranger Brandon Bess: We go in under the — uh, under the ruse of someone had left, uh, a purse in his car. So he came in — voluntarily to talk about a purse that was in the car.
It was April 29, 2021 — 26 years after Catherine Edwards was murdered, and they are sure they are sitting in front of the man who murdered her.
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): We’re asking you to visit with us about a crime that we’re investigating. OK?
Natalie Morales: Did he immediately go, uh-oh, you know —
Det. Aaron Lewallen: No, he didn’t
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): So, the crime that we’re looking at is the murder of Mary Catherine Edwards. … and she was murdered in 1995.
Natalie Morales: I guess he pretty quickly realized he wasn’t there to give up a purse.
Ranger Brandon Bess: He did …
Dianna Coe
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): And we found a picture of — a wedding picture that she and her sister, uh —
DET. AARON LEWALLEN: Allison.
RANGER BESS: — Allison were actually in your wedding.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Right.
RANGER BESS: And —
CLAYTON FOREMAN: 1982.
RANGER BESS: — 82. OK.
RANGER BESS: Do you ever remember anyone ever coming to you — about that crime?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No.
RANGER BESS: Were you aware of the crime even?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No.
RANGER BESS: You didn’t know the crime occurred?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No, sir.
RANGER BESS: OK.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: … we backed him into a bunch of hard corners. He claimed that he didn’t even know that she was dead.
Jefferson County D.A.’s Office
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): You didn’t know that, um, Catherine Edwards was murdered?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No, sir. Did not.
RANGER BESS: Do you remember them from school? Do you remember the girls from school?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Not really. Because they were freshmen.
RANGER BESS: When you were a senior?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Yes, sir.
RANGER BESS: OK.
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): So, on Mary Edwards, Mary Catherine Edwards. Um, didn’t know her well? Did you ever visit with her at all?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No.
RANGER BESS: Um, did you ever go in her house at all? Any house that she ever lived in?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No.
RANGER BESS: OK.
David Perry
Det. Aaron Lewallen: You know, “did you know where she lived?” No. Had no idea.
Natalie Morales: So, and he’s denying, denying …
Ranger Brandon Bess: He is denying … you know, in these DNA cases, when you — whether you’re gonna get a confession or not, you wanna build up that background of, “hey, did you know them?” Number one.
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): Did y’all have much acquaintance with them or was it just like a high school friend thing?
RANGER BESS: How did you know them?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: I think they were bridesmaids for my — my ex-wife.
RANGER BESS: That’s right.
RANGER BESS: Did you ever go on a date?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Never dated.
Ranger Brandon Bess: All the way up to, “did you ever have sex with this person?”
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): Never obviously had sex with her.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: No.
RANGER BESS: Never?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Never.
Ranger Brandon Bess: Did you go to college together? Did you do all — everything was a no,
Det. Aaron Lewallen: And we had those denials several times. And then, so, towards the end of the interview, we asked him, well, if all those things are true, can you explain how your DNA ended up on her and on her bed?
RANGER BESS (Foreman questioning): Do you understand DNA?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Mm-hmm.
RANGER BESS: And do you understand how DNA works? You understand you’re made of DNA?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Right.
RANGER BESS (referencing Det. Aaron Lewallen): He’s made of DNA. I’m made of DNA.
Ranger Brandon Bess: I think that Foreman knew enough about DNA that he thought he would’ve been caught already. He knew that he had never submitted his DNA —
Ranger Brandon Bess: He had no clue that he was going to be arrested that day.
RANGER BESS (Foreman interview): Clay, I’mma level with you. Right here and now, I want you to hear me real close.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: All right, sir.
RANGER BESS: That crime scene was processed really well. … and your DNA was on Catherine’s bed and was inside Catherine.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: OK. I mean, I don’t know how it got there, but, if you say it was there.
RANGER BESS: There’s only one way for it to get there.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: OK.
RANGER BESS: Um, and that’s by you putting it there.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: OK.
RANGER BESS: Do you understand that?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Uh —
RANGER BESS: Do you understand the implications of that? The day that she died, the night that she died, your DNA is in her and your DNA is on her bedspread. … Now I don’t want you to say anything right this second. I want you to think about the next words that come out of your mouth. I want you to think very hard about that. … OK?
RANGER BESS: There’s two people that know that story. … You’re one of them and she’s the other. And she can’t talk.
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Mm-hmm.
RANGER BESS: What I ask you is now to be honest with us completely and tell us, you know, how did that happen?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: I’m not going to say anything. I probably need an attorney now, I think.
RANGER BESS: You probably need one or you do need one?
CLAYTON FOREMAN: Well, if you’re saying I did that, then I’ll probably need an attorney to talk to.
RANGER BESS: Well, that’s all we got then. We’re going to let you walk out of that door just like we told you.
Ranger Brandon Bess: It’s a grainy video, but you can probably see us grinning at each other — that he thinks he’s walking outta here, he thinks he’s fixing to leave here.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: So, as he got out, down the hallway, headed towards the elevator, we stopped him and arrested him for the murder of Catherine Edwards.
And after all those years and all that work, Aaron Lewallen and Brandon Bess had one thing left they needed to do.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: Uh, if you remember back when we were talking about the crime scene, she was handcuffed. … So, we had talked to the DA’s office beforehand and got permission to use those handcuffs.
Brandon Bess
The very handcuffs that bound Catherine the night she died.
Natalie Morales: How did it feel to put those handcuffs on him?
Ranger Brandon Bess: Very good … it’s a moment I’ll never forget … you feel like you got to do something for Catherine there .,.. you know, like physically got to do for her, is take those cuffs that bound her when she was murdered and put them back on the guy that murdered her. It’s — you know, it may seem small to some, but it was a really big deal to us, and it felt good.
Even though they’d had their suspicions about him, when Det. Tina Lewallen broke the news to his ex-wife Dianna Coe that Clayton Foreman was arrested for the murder of Catherine Edwards was still a shock.
Scooter Daleo: … she calls me … And she says, “Clay murdered Catherine.” And I said, “do what?”
Anne Anderson: Your brain doesn’t — because it — it knows him as a person, as a — as — as somebody that you — you know, your brother-in-law or your brother.
Dianna Coe: That was — that was — that was hard. … I thought of Allison … And I just — I — I just couldn’t believe it. … my — my thought immediately went to Allison and I just said … “Allison. … oh, my God, she’s gonna hate me.”
But Det. Tina Lewallen assured Coe, on the contrary, that Allison was very concerned for her.
Dianna Coe: And — and she said, she’s – “she’s worried for you.” And she said, “do not — do not think that.”
THE TRIAL OF CLAYTON FOREMAN
On March 12, 2024, nearly 30 years after Mary Catherine Edwards was found dead in her town house, Beaumont prosecutor Patrick Knauth and his colleagues Mike Laird and Sonny Eckhart are ready for trial.
Mike Laird: This is not going to be easy, uh, for a lot of people, cause it’s been a long time coming. … you gotta remember this happened in 1995.
MIKE LAIRD (in court): You’re gonna get to learn a lot about DNA.
And they are extremely confident about their case against Clayton Foreman.
JUDGE JOHN STEVENS (in court) : Mr. Burbank, do you wanna make an opening statement at this time?
TOM BURBANK: No, your honor.
Tom Burbank Is defending Foreman.
Patrick Knauth: He didn’t really have anything. And he knew it.
The prosecution calls Catherine’s twin sister Allison.
Patrick Knauth: We wanted to remind everyone, this is about Catherine and her family. And that’s the way we wanted to start off with …
KFDM/Pool
Here at 60, sitting before them, was the spitting image of what could have been.
ALLISON EDWARDS BROCATO (in court): That is a picture of my sister Catherine.
Reliving the day she lost Catherine.
ALLISON EDWARDS BROCATO (in court): … and then the next thing we know, you know, my mom and dad drove up (crying) and told us what — I mean, they — there were no words. She was dead. That was all that mattered. … I didn’t know how, what or anything. … I didn’t know what happened to her, it was just that she was gone was all I knew.
The pain and the loss still so palpable.
ALLISON EDWARDS BROCATO (in court): Four years later, I had a daughter, and her name is Catherine (crying), Catherine Ann after my sister and she never got to know her. … That’s the hardest part …
Heleniah Adams, Catherine Edwards’ student when she was 7, is now 37 and sat in the courtroom nearly every day.
Heleniah Adams: It was times … when they would show photos or when they showed the videos of her on the floor … it was as if your heart was breaking all over again.
Detective Tina Lewallen and genealogist Shera LaPoint, along with other crime lab technicians, walk the jury through the process of the genealogy and the DNA match.
Ranger Bess and Det. Aaron Lewallen go through the final stages of the investigation. All carefully coordinated to make the chain of evidence airtight.
And on the last day, the prosecution calls all the women who had been scarred by Foreman – and were alive to say so.
TOM BURBANK (in court): He was your supervisor?
KRISTY WEIMER: That’s correct.
An old co-worker.
KRISTY WEIMER (in court): Whenever I opened up the drawer, there was a pair of handcuffs.
A former fiancée who found pictures of young girls.
TERESA BREWER (in court): He said to me that he had them so that he could fantasize about taking their virginity.
His ex-wife, Dianna Coe, who agreed to testify.
TOM BURBANK (in court): Did you think at the time you were in love with the defendant?
DIANNA COE: Yes.
Natalie Morales: When you saw him at trial … How hard was that for you?
Dianna Coe: That was very hard … And uh — it was very embarrassing to me and — and I do feel ashamed.
And it was during the trial that Coe learned about what really happened to that 19-year-old woman in the months before she and Foreman married.
Dianna Coe: … it was the most horrific thing that I could have ever heard. … I couldn’t imagine what she went through and was so brave to get up and say what she said.
She was the final witness, returning to the night her car got stuck and Foreman — falsely claiming he was a policeman — offered to help.
PAULA RAMSEY (in court): First he — he tied my hands back.
MIKE LAIRD: He tied your hands behind your back?
PAULA RAMSEY: Yes.
MIKE LAIRD: Did he threaten to cut your throat if you didn’t?
PAULA RAMSEY: Yes.
MIKE LAIRD: This whole thing took a while, didn’t it?
PAULA RAMSEY: Yes, sir. I’m sorry.
MIKE LAIRD: What happened then?
PAULA RAMSEY: He — he took me home.
MIKE LAIRD: Did he say something that — that you felt was odd?
PAULA RAMSEY: Yes. He said three things. He said, “stop crying. I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
And there was another women who did not testify but went on the record. An alleged victim of Foreman’s violence — also a high school friend of Dianna Coe who did not press changes. She told investigators Foreman attacked her from behind and put a gun to her head.
Pat Knauth: She had indicated back in ’85 or ’86 that he had, uh, come to her apartment and knocked on the door and told her that he was having financial and marital problems with Dianna, and he needed somebody to talk to. And so … she let him in.
Prosecutors suspect Foreman used a similar ruse the night he appeared at Catherine Edwards’ door.
Pat Knauth: That’s the way we thought he got to Catherine, ’cause Catherine was very, very Christian, very giving, very naïve … And that’s a wonderful thing to be, except when you’re faced with Clayton Foreman.
Dianna Coe: I’ve always wondered, did he say something about me? Hey, it’s Clay and, you know, I need to talk to you about — something about Dianna. It’s always — I’ve always wondered, but I thought I’ll never know.
After seven days of prosecution testimony, the defense calls no witnesses, and attorney Burbank closes.
TOM BURBANK (in court): You heard different things in reference to sex things and stuff like that, okay, still doesn’t make him a murderer.
TOM BURBANK (in court): You may not like him cause of what people said, but I submit to you, they have not proven murder beyond a reasonable doubt.
The prosecution wraps up its case.
PAT KNAUTH (in court): And it’s so easy to believe that evil doesn’t exist … It is here in this courtroom here today.
PAT KNAUTH (in court): These are things I wish I didn’t know exist and I’m sorry I had to talk to you about it, but I didn’t bring us here, he did.
Now it would be up to a jury to decide Clayton Foreman’s future.
Knauth wants them to remember Catherine Edwards didn’t have one.
PAT KNAUTH (in court): And I do pray that Mike and I and Sonny have done a good job for Catherine, and you. I hope we’ve done our job.
THE AFTERMATH: LOOKING BACK
It takes less than an hour for the jury to come back with a verdict.
Clayton Foreman is found guilty and sentenced to life for the murder of Catherine Edwards.
Larry Delcambre: It didn’t take long ’cause all the evidence was there, … once it got into the DNA …more or less sealed it for him.
Larry Delcambre, juror No. 2, says he and his fellow jurors had very little to talk about.
Larry Delcambre: He had no defense that it wasn’t him … there’s no denial there.
Heleniah Adams: It felt like, hey, this thing does work.
For Heleniah Adams – finally some justice for a favorite teacher after all.
Heleniah Adams: I wanted to close that door, finally. She meant so much to me.
Natalie Morales: And when you heard those words guilty, what was that like for you?
Det. Aaron Lewallen: We did it.
Natalie Morales: Was it — was it an emotional, we did it?
Det. Tina Lewallen: This whole case was emotional.
For detectives Tina and Aaron Lewallen, genealogist Shera LaPoint and Ranger Brandon Bess, it was the ending they’d all worked for, but it left lots of room for reflection.
Shera LaPoint: And I think the justice system has worked and he’s where he needs to be. … But to say that that’s honestly justice for Mary Catherine, it’s frustrating to know that he lived a life … and she should have been able to — to live a life and have children and go on. That is frustrating.
Det. Tina Lewallen: I never used the word closure. I never used the word justice.
There’s no justice. He got to live 26 years that he got to get married. He got to have kids. She did not. There’s no justice.
Ranger Brandon Bess : I don’t — I don’t believe there is such a thing as closure. … Not on this earth.
Bess always wanted a confession, they all wanted to know why.
Ranger Brandon Bess: 70% of the time you’re not gonna get that and — and 100% of the time you’re not gonna get the whole story anyway.
Det. Tina Lewallen: We all wanted those answers and because he was spineless and didn’t talk to us or give us any information, we’ll never know the details behind it.
And everyone was still reeling, asking themselves how it was that Clayton Foreman walked among them and no one saw his monstrous core — all those years hiding in plain sight.
Det. Tina Lewallen: So, when we identified him, I actually have mutual friends with him that were in shock. … They could not believe it was him because they knew he was such a nice guy. He had fooled so many people for so long.
Det. Aaron Lewallen: I personally believe that there are more victims out there. We just hadn’t found them yet.
Dianna Coe: I find it hard to believe that he has not … assaulted other people. I — I really feel with — all my — with all of my being, I feel that there are others.
Scooter Daleo: I believe that.
Anne Anderson: I believe it ,too.
Natalie Morales: And how do you think he was able to conceal this darker side?
Anne Anderson: That’s the part I cannot — I can’t — figure that out.
Dianna Coe: I can’t — Uh, I — I don’t understand it. I don’t know how he could. Like I always say, it’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Larry Delcambre: I have my own speculations. I think somebody — I think some people are demon-possessed or — or demon-influenced, cause that’s pure evil. There’s nothing else you can explain. That’s just evil.
Dianna Coe: I was married to a monster is what I was married to and didn’t know it.
Anne Anderson: And didn’t know it.
Dianna Coe: I think if he would — if he wouldn’t have married me, she’d still be alive.
Allison Edwards Brocato
But in the wake of the trial, it was time to turn away from Foreman and remember Catherine Edwards as she was and in her own words.
Det. Tina Lewallen: Wow, I didn’t realize the timing on this one. December the 11th 1994. She was murdered a month later. (Reading from Catherine’s journal): “I have given my life to God and I will follow his path for me. That gives me a feeling of great relief and peace.
Det. Tina Lewallen (reading from Catherine’s journal): “The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.”
The vibrant beloved schoolteacher in her prime, gone far too soon.
Natalie Morales: If you could talk directly with Mary Catherine Edwards, what would you wish to tell her?
Shera LaPoint: Oh my gosh. (crying) Um, I think I would say I love her and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry this happened to her. … And, um, I was honored to be given the privilege to help give answers, very honored, very honored. She was a very special person. She really was.
Heleniah Adams: Unfortunately, it introduced me to real loss — to trauma, to fear, to grief, to heartbreak. To all the feelings.
Heleniah Adams: A podcast I watched, they — they would always ask aspiring lawyers, “when did you fall in love with law?” And I think that’s when I fell in love with law, in the second grade, when Clayton Foreman took my light from me.
Adams is a student once again. She is studying for her master’s in criminal justice and plans to apply to law school — a tribute to her teacher.
Clayton Foreman is eligible for parole in 2061. By then, he will be 101 years old.
“48 HOURS” POST MORTEM PODCAST
“48 Hours” contributor Natalie Morales and producers Jenna Jackson and Mary Murphy examine the DNA technology that cracked the cold case of Mary Catherine Edwards’ murder. They discuss a detective and genetic genealogist who sifted through nearly 7,500 names on a family tree to identify a single killer, Clayton Foreman, and how police and a Texas Ranger arrested him. They also discuss how the Smith & Wesson handcuffs used to bind Mary Catherine came full circle and the revelation that she had been a bridesmaid at the Foremans’ wedding.
Produced by Mary Murphy. Jenna Jackson is the development producer. Doreen Schechter is the producer-editor. Shaheen Tokhi is the field producer. George Baluzy, Grayce Arlotta-Berner and Chris Crater are the editors. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
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Police-style handcuffs on Texas murder victim made investigators fear the killer was among them
On Jan. 14, 1995, Mary Catherine Edwards, 31, a beloved elementary school teacher, was found dead in her townhouse in Beaumont, Texas.
Her parents found her. It was a terrible scene: she was in her bathtub, handcuffed, and had been sexually assaulted. There were no signs of forced entry, which made investigators think she must know her killer. The police-grade Smith & Wesson handcuffs were always a big clue, but when detectives tried tracing the serial numbers, they came up empty. Early investigators questioned various law enforcement officers and came up with nothing either.
The case went cold, but as Beaumont Police Det. Aaron Lewallen told “48 Hours contributor Natalie Morales, “Could it have been someone that we knew?… It was almost like a ghost story told around the camp fire …” Morales reports on the search for answers in an encore of “Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards,” airing Saturday, Jan 10 at 9/8c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
Texas Department of Public Safety
Thanks to carefully preserved DNA from the crime scene and the advent of genetic genealogy, Det. Aaron Lewallen, his wife Tina Lewallen, also a detective — along with Brandon Bess, a Texas Ranger in the cold case division, and Shera LaPoint, a professional genealogist — spent almost three months working together in a nonstop push to finally solve the case.
After all the early leads and the suspicion that someone in law enforcement had been involved, the family tree they constructed revealed someone else. Their chief suspect turned out to be not a law enforcement officer, but a man who went to the same high school as Edwards: Clayton Foreman.
And then they learned that Edwards and her identical twin sister Allison had been bridesmaids in Foreman’s first wedding. The sisters were good friends with his first wife, Dianna Coe, who also went to the same high school.
Coe remembers them fondly, telling Morales how kind they were to her when she moved to a new town and started a new school.
“I was new to the area … so, I knew no one. And they … just started talking to me and asked me my name … and we were friends from that point forward,” Coe said.
The sisters were the first people Coe thought of to be bridesmaids at her wedding. She and Foreman stayed married for 11 years. They were divorced by the time of the murder, but in hindsight, Coe began to see things in a different, darker, light. She remembered her ex-husband’s fascination with the police officers and their tools of the trade, like handcuffs and billy clubs. As Coe told Morales, “He had a billy club that he kept…by the bed. You know, said it was for protection. And I remember that he had ordered those handcuffs … Well, he had them hung over the rearview mirror.”
Coe also remembered a disturbing conversation with her ex-husband when she heard Edwards had been murdered and called to talk about it.
“I think I was, you know, crying and I said, ‘oh, my God,’ I said, ‘somebody has murdered Catherine,” Coe told “48 Hours.” “And — and he goes, ‘Oh, really?’ Just like no emotion, which I thought that was odd.”
Jefferson County D.A.’s Office
A DNA match quickly established that Foreman had indeed been at the crime scene. And when Det. Aaron Lewallen and Ranger Bess went to question Foreman, they had an arrest warrant. They also brought something with them — something very symbolic.
Together, they had taken the time to work out an arrangement with the prosecutors so they could use the handcuffs taken as evidence at the crime scene. When they arrested Foreman for the murder of Edwards, they did so with the very handcuffs that had bound her the night she died. He wasn’t one of them, but in the course of the investigation, they learned Foreman had been falsely claiming to be a police officer.
The handcuffs — such a focus in the beginning — came full circle at the end. Bess will never forget how it felt. As he told Morales, “It’s a moment I’ll never forget … you feel like you got to do something for Catherine there … You know, like physically got to do for her, is take those cuffs that bound her when she was murdered and put them back on the guy that murdered her … It may seem small to some, but it was a really big deal to us, and it felt good.”
The jury in Foreman’s murder trial deliberated for less than an hour before finding him guilty of the murder of Edwards. Foreman was sentenced to life in prison.
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Indiana H.S. softball coach orchestrated murder of ex-fiancé with the help of former player, says prosecutor
On Sunday, Jan. 12, 2020, when 31-year-old Shea Briar didn’t show up for church, Pastor Angela Smiley knew something was wrong. She had just seen him the night before.
Pastor Angela Smiley: We served at a noodle dinner. … He’s there walking the old ladies out. … We were last ones in the church. He said, “I’ll beat you here in the morning.” … And when I came up over the hill and didn’t see his truck, I’m like, this isn’t good. … For weeks and weeks and months and months, he was always the first one at the church. Always. … Shea Briar was not late.
In Jay County, Indiana, word travels fast. It wasn’t long before Briar’s aunt, Tiffany McLaughlin, and his grandmother, Sharon Taylor, heard Shea was missing.
Sharon Taylor: I started calling the hospitals, the sheriff’s departments, everybody, and nobody would give me any information. Nobody.
But then Briar’s roommate called McLaughlin letting her know police were there. When McLaughlin arrived at Briar’s home, an officer told her the unthinkable.
Tiffany McLaughlin: He said that Shea had been shot. (crying) And I said, “well, is he OK?” And he said, “no, he died on the operating table.” (crying)
Briar’s mother, Tracy Hoevel, was living all the way in Hawaii at the time. Her sister and mother called her to deliver the news.
Tracy Hoevel: I’m like, no. I mean, I think I must have screamed so loud … I mean, we’re in shock.
Sydney Hoevel, Briar’s half-sister, was only 17.
Sydney Hoevel: I remember my mom just fell over on the couch, basically, like crying and screaming. … I still can’t believe it to this day. … It doesn’t even seem real.
Anne-Marie Green: At that point, did anyone have any idea what happened to Shea?
Det. Ben Schwartz: No. We had no idea what happened to Shea.
Ben Schwartz was one of the lead detectives assigned to the case.
Det. Ben Schwartz: Jay County is a very rural farming community. … It’s certainly not like working in a big city where it’s back-to-back calls. … And as soon as this happened, it was a — it was a pretty big deal. … It’s isolated where he was found. … We wondered how he got there. … We just had to start from ground zero.
Who was Shea Briar?
Ground zero meant digging into who Shea Briar was and what he had been up to. He was born in Indiana but was raised in Hawaii by his mom and stepdad.
Tracy Hoevel
Anne-Marie Green: What sort of kid was Shea?
Tracy Hoevel: A little rascal. (laughs) … He was very polite. He would open doors. … he was fun. … He loved his G.I. Joes. … He always wanted to be in the military from a really small age.
So, it was no surprise when, after high school, Briar joined the Navy. And it was also no surprise when, after he was discharged, he returned to live in Jay County.
Sydney Hoevel: Shea was always an Indiana boy. … He loved the tractors. He loved all the land.
And that’s where he wanted to put down roots.
Tiffany McLaughlin: He really wanted to have a girlfriend … get married and have a family.
But things didn’t quite happen in that order. In 2018, Tracy Hoevel got a phone call from her son.
Tracy Hoevel: He’s like… “Hey mom, guess what? … you’re gonna be a grandma.” I was like, “What? I didn’t even know you had a girlfriend.” (laughs)
The future mother of his child was Esther Jane Stephen, a local high school softball coach who also ran a day care, and went by the name E.J.
Tiffany McLaughlin: I don’t think they were boyfriend and girlfriend, you know. I think it was just one of those things.
In January 2019, Shea and E.J.’s daughter was born. It was only after her birth, that the two decided to start dating. They soon were engaged. But Briar’s family felt it was forced.
Tiffany McLaughlin: They weren’t all lovey-dovey for, you know, the lack of a better word.
Sharon Taylor: I tried to tell him, is this how you wanna live your life with someone that’s really not who you’re meant to be with?
Anne-Marie Green: You felt that?
Sharon Taylor: Oh, definitely, because they did not have a connection …
They must have sensed something because in September 2019, just weeks before the wedding, E.J. called it off.
Anne-Marie Green: Was he disappointed?
Tiffany McLaughlin: Yes. Because … he wanted a family.
It was around that time that Smiley says Briar began coming to church.
Pastor Angela Smiley: He needed God. And he needed a friend … He started hanging out with … men in our church that were active fathers. … And he wanted that for his daughter.
But Smiley, and Briar’s family, say for reasons unbeknownst to them, E.J. made it difficult.
Anne-Marie Green: After the engagement is broken off, what sort of access does Shea have to his daughter?
Sharon Taylor: He doesn’t.
Tracy Hoevel: None.
Sharon Taylor: No. …
Tracy Hoevel: He went quite a long time without seeing her. …
Anne-Marie Green: And he was trying to see her and —
Tracy Hoevel: Yeah.
Tiffany McLaughlin: That’s why he finally got a lawyer.
Briar told his mother that when E.J. found out, she wasn’t happy.
Tracy Hoevel: He told me, she said to him, “if you go through with this, you’ll be sorry.”…
But that didn’t stop Shea. In November 2019, he filed a court document seeking to “establish paternity” … “and to provide custody, support, and parenting time.”
Tracy Hoevel: He wanted to provide for her … and he just really wanted to have some visitation …
He also wanted his daughter to have his last name — something E.J. had decided against.
Anne-Marie Green: Why was it important for Shea to be in his daughter’s life? …
Tracy Hoevel: Shea really did not know his dad. … He just did not wanna be his biological dad. … He wanted to have a good relationship with his kids and be a good role model.
But two months later, before the case made its way to court, Shea was murdered. And Tracy Hoevel and McLaughlin suspected E.J. may have had something to do with it.
Tiffany McLaughlin: ‘Cause there wasn’t anyone else.
But as it turns out, there would be other suspects.
Friend of E.J. Stephen Shares Concerns With Detectives
Less than 24 hours after Shea Briar died, Detective Ben Schwartz and his partner called E.J. Stephen, Shea’s ex-fiancée and the mother of his child, into the sheriff’s office.
Det. Ben Schwartz: We talked to her and told her about what happened to Shea.
DET. MITCH SUTTON: Unfortunately, this morning we were called out … because Shea had sustained some injuries. … They were life-threatening injuries, and he did not make it.
E.J. STEPHEN: OK.
Det. Ben Schwartz: She really didn’t have a whole lot to say.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you find her reaction curious?
Det. Ben Schwartz: Yeah. …I would’ve expected … a little bit of emotion out of her. Uh, but that didn’t happen. And I would’ve expected a lot more questions, but she really didn’t ask too many questions at all.
And Detective Schwartz says that wasn’t the only thing that stuck out.
Det. Ben Schwartz: She said that the last time she talked to Shea would’ve been the week prior.
But he knew she was lying. Shea’s phone records revealed she was the last person to call him at around midnight, within hours of him being found on that bridge.
Det. Ben Schwartz: That was a huge red flag. …
A red flag, but not proof she committed murder. Detectives chose not to confront her about the phone records that day.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ (to E.J. Stephen): I’ll give you my card. And uh … If there’s something you hear that you might think will spark our interest, give us a call.
There was still a lot of work to be done, a lot of questions to be answered. And the next day, a call from a woman would help investigators out.
Det. Ben Schwartz: She unloaded and told us a lot of interesting stuff.
Kristi Sibray has known E.J. Stephen for years. She used to umpire softball games that E.J. played in and took her kids to the day care that E.J. ran out of Fairview United Methodist Church in Portland, Indiana.
Anne-Marie Green: How would you describe her?
Kristi Sibray: Very quiet … great with kids … she’s very involved in the community activities …
Over the years, Sibray says she became a mentor of sorts to E.J.
Kristi Sibray: She always would just stop by here and there. … say hi, or just stop in if something was bothering her …
Sibray had never met Shea Briar, but she knew he was the father of E.J.’s daughter. And when she learned he was murdered, she started to panic.
Kristi Sibray: I just dropped everything, and I just started screaming. I was like, oh my God. Oh my God.… And then I contacted a friend that was still in the city police department. And I said, “I need to talk, pick me up now at work.”
Sibray, a former police officer, soon found herself inside a Jay County Sheriff’s Office interview room.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ (to Kristi Sibray): Start at the beginning and share with us uh what you want to get off your chest.
She began by telling Schwartz and his partner that she received a call from E.J. a few days prior to Shea’s death. She said E.J. asked her to babysit that weekend — something she had never asked her to do before.
Kristi Sibray: And I’m like, yeah. Not a problem. …So, all day Saturday I’m like, OK, what time am I getting her? I had not heard anything. … We were, like, getting down for the night. (laugh) About 10, 10:30, here she comes with the child. …
It was Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020, just hours before Shea was found shot.
Kristi Sibray: She goes, OK, I’ll be back in a little bit. And I’m like, OK, what are you doing? And she goes, oh, we’re just — just going out. … She came in by herself.
Sibray says E.J. didn’t return until around 1 a.m.
Kristi Sibray: I had heard her open the back door. So, I got up and I met her there … And I said, “E.J., what were you doing?” She goes “nothing.” And she was real standoffish. … I said, come on E.J., what were you doing? … And she goes, I can’t tell you. But I’m sure you’ll hear about it in the paper in the next couple days. And she left. …
Anne-Marie Green: You must have been thinking about that all night.
Kristi Sibray: Yes.
But that was just the beginning of what Sibray told police. She said that in the months leading up to Shea’s murder, E.J. came over a lot and she wasn’t alone.
Kristi Sibray: Shelby was always in the car with E.J. …
Jay County High School yearbook
Shelby is Shelby Hiestand. She was 18 years old. E.J. was 29 and used to be her high school softball coach. After Shelby graduated, she became E.J.’s assistant coach — at another nearby high school just over the border in Fort Recovery, Ohio. Shelby also worked at the day care with E.J.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you think it was odd … that here’s E.J. hanging out with Shelby?
Kristi Sibray: Mm-hmm.
Anne-Marie Green: There’s a good 10 years between the two.
Kristi Sibray: Mm-hmm. I think everybody thought it was odd.
Det. Ben Schwartz: From what I have been told, they were pretty well inseparable.
Detectives had heard Shelby’s name before. Shea’s family had mentioned her.
Tracy Hoevel: Shelby was always around in the picture. I think there was some major jealousy between Shelby and Shea. … You know, he never came out and said it, but he kind of insinuated things.
Anne-Marie Green: What did he insinuate?
Tracy Hoevel: He thought maybe there was something more going on.
Anne-Marie Green: More than a friendship?
Tracy Hoevel: Possibly. …
And Shea wasn’t the only one who suspected something.
Kristi Sibray: I just assumed that maybe they were a couple. …
E.J. and Shelby would later deny being anything more than friends. Sibray told investigators that the two began stopping by shortly after Shea filed that court document to establish paternity.
Kristi Sibray: Shelby pretty much stayed with the child and E.J. would sit with me at the kitchen table …
And she said E.J. wanted advice.
Kristi Sibray: She just asked me what do I do? ‘Cause I have been divorced … She didn’t want to share the baby. That was her baby. That was her child. … Some of the conversations at the table would be … how can we get rid of him so we don’t have to go to court? And I’m like, how do you get rid of him? You’re not going to get rid of him.
Sibray insists she didn’t think anything at the time.
Kristi Sibray: Anybody who goes through a breakup, don’t think they didn’t say, oh, I wish he was gone, or I wish he was dead. But do we act on it? And that’s why I’m thinking I’ve been divorced twice. I’ll tell you. I — I probably said it.
And Kristi says she had that same mindset when, over time, the conversations grew more detailed and various methods were discussed.
Kristi Sibray: I just really thought she was venting. I did not think this was for real.
But when Kristi heard Shea was murdered, she says she immediately viewed all those conversations in a different light.
Anne-Marie Green: At that point, do you think E.J. is involved in this somehow?
Kristi Sibray: Yes.
And she knew she had to go to police.
Kristi Sibray: I didn’t even think about it. … But as a police officer standpoint, I felt like I failed because how did I miss this? How did I miss these signs? … I could have prevented this. … And I didn’t, ’cause I didn’t think she could.
Anne-Marie Green: And this was your opportunity to do something.
Kristi Sibray: Yeah. Sorry. (crying)
Det. Ben Schwartz: It was just kind of unbelievable …
After Sibray was done talking, Schwartz says there was one thing on his mind.
Det. Ben Schwartz: We’ve gotta get E.J. back in here …
Anne-Marie Green: So, you say, come on in, E.J.
Det. Ben Schwartz: Yup. … We just want to know the truth and what happened to Shea.
A Turning Point in the Investigation
On Jan. 14, 2020, just two days after Shea Briar was murdered, E.J. Stephen was back inside the Jay County Sheriff’s Office. Detective Ben Schwartz and his partner first confronted her about those phone records, which revealed she called Shea shortly before he died — something she had previously been dishonest about.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: Midnight, you called his phone. We’re just kind of wondering how that conversation went.
E.J. STEPHEN: I did not talk to him. I didn’t make that call. I butt-dialed him.
Det. Ben Schwartz: She said that she butt-dialed Shea …
Anne-Marie Green: Did you believe her?
Det. Ben Schwartz: No. … We kind of pressed her on that a little bit. And then finally, she said, OK, yeah, we talked, but it wasn’t for very long.
E.J. insisted she didn’t see Shea that night, but detectives didn’t believe her.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: You know a hell of a lot more than you’re telling us. And we will find out. …
And soon, they told her her friend, Shelby Hiestand, was also being questioned.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: This is not a game.
Det. Ben Schwartz: Her demeanor kind of changed a little bit. … It was a turning point.
In a cool and calm tone, E.J. cracked and began to tell detectives what happened that night. Starting with how she dropped her daughter off at Kristi Sibray’s. She told them Shelby was in the car waiting. From there, “48 Hours” retraced their steps based on E.J.’s account.
Jay County Sheriff’s Office
Anne-Marie Green (in car with Schwartz): How does she tell you the night unfolds? …
Det. Ben Schwartz: From there, they came to the church. … At the time, it was a day care also …
It was the day care where E.J. and Shelby worked. E.J. said they had to move furniture before church the next day and that another friend, 18-year-old Hannah Knapke, met them there. Hannah also sometimes worked at the day care, and E.J. used to coach her in softball, too.
Det. Ben Schwartz (outside of the day care): So, this is the day care …
Anne-Marie Green: What do they do here after they move that furniture?
Det. Ben Schwartz: After they move the furniture … they were planning on how to get rid of Shea, basically.
E.J. STEPHEN: … We were all kind of joking about it.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: OK.
E.J. STEPHEN: Like it wasn’t a full-blown serious conversation, you know?
She said earlier that day, she had picked Shelby’s rifle up from Shelby’s house. And that while in the day care parking lot, Shelby got the gun out and fired a round.
E.J. STEPHEN: We just wanted to see how loud it was.
According to E.J., after Shelby fired that shot, all three of them got into Hannah’s parents’ van with the rifle in the back.
Jay County High School yearbook/Instagram
Anne-Marie Green (in car with Schwartz): So where did they go from the day care?
Det. Ben Schwartz: From the day care, they … drove around … still discussing whether or not they should follow through with killing Shea. … And somewhere along the line … E.J. called Shea. …
E.J. STEPHEN: We asked him, “Do you want to come for a ride with us?” And he came.
After they picked Shea up, with Shelby driving, E.J. said they headed to that bridge.
Anne-Marie Green (at bridge): So about what time do they get out here?
Det. Ben Schwartz: I think it was right around one o’clock in the morning … They stopped the van right over here. … E.J. and Shea get out of the van.
E.J. STEPHEN (interview with detectives): And then the next thing I know —
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: What happened? E.J., we’re right there. We are right here.
E.J. STEPHEN: I know, oh my God.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: Finish it.
E.J. STEPHEN: I’m trying to remember. …
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: Who shot him? Did Shelby shoot him?
E.J. STEPHEN: Yes. …
Det. Ben Schwartz: There was no tears or any remorse that I saw.
Anne-Marie Green: She’s talking about the father of her child being shot in the back next to her.
Det. Ben Schwartz: Right. Yeah. It was shocking.
E.J. told detectives she didn’t know Shelby was going to shoot Shea despite conversations they had had earlier.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: … You or her?
E.J. STEPHEN: Like we talked about a hammer. Like we talked about beating him. …
E.J. STEPHEN: I mean, we talked about it, and then it was just like, “OK, let’s just do it.”
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: Yeah.
E.J. STEPHEN: Jokingly, obviously. And then, the joke became way too real.
But detectives believe E.J. knew exactly what was going to happen that night. They believe she cold heartedly planned it, and that the cruelty continued after Shea was shot. Because when police located Shea, his cell phone was nowhere to be found.
DET. MITCH SUTTON: Where’s his cell phone at?
E.J. STEPHEN: I really have no idea.
DET. MITCH SUTTON: OK. …
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: Is Shelby going to tell us the same thing, that she doesn’t know where the phone is? Because the phone is somewhere. Did she throw it in the river? Who threw it- who threw it in the river?
E.J. STEPHEN: I did.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: You did?
E.J. STEPHEN: Yeah.
E.J. said that after they began driving away from the bridge that night, they turned around.
Det. Ben Schwartz (at foot of bridge): They drive right past him … and they stop right there where my car’s sitting. And E.J. and — and Shelby get out …
E.J. STEPHEN: I was going to call 911, and I got scared, and then I threw his phone in the river. …
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: You were scared that he could call 911?
E.J. STEPHEN: Yeah.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: OK.
E.J. said she knew Shea was still alive. He would lay on that bridge — helpless — for about an hour before he was found, clinging to life.
E.J. Stephen was arrested and charged with murder. Down the hall, only after being confronted with what E.J. told police, Shelby Hiestand admitted pulling the trigger.
SHELBY HIESTAND: I wasn’t going to do anything. I really wasn’t. … Honestly, I feel like I just blacked out and it just happened …
Shelby was arrested and charged with murder. Later that day, detectives flew to Iowa, where Hannah Knapke had returned to college. She too eventually admitted involvement.
HANNAH KNAPKE: I didn’t want to be there at all. I don’t even know him. I know I couldn’t even tell you his first name …
Hannah told detectives she didn’t know what she was getting into when she met up with E.J. and Shelby that night, but that the conversation took a turn.
HANNAH KNAPKE (interrogation): They talked about shooting him. …
DET. MITCH SUTTON: At what point was the decision made to — to take your van?
HANNAH KNAPKE: Um, basically they didn’t want to take E.J.’s because it was too suspicious … I was scared to tell them no. I — I was just nervous.
Hannah was also later booked on a murder charge. The case soon hit the news.
NEWS REPORT: A third person has been arrested in the fatal shooting of a 31-year-old Jay County man.
And even though Shea’s family had suspected E.J.’s involvement, they were horrified to learn the details.
Jay County Sheriff’s Office
Tiffany McLaughlin: To find out that there were two other people that were involved, it was like, what? …
Tracy Hoevel: It was shocking. I think it really did shock the community.
But despite those three taped interrogations, the case was far from over because E.J., Shelby, and Hannah would all plead not guilty. And it would be up to prosecutors to secure convictions — starting with E.J.
Tiffany McLaughlin: I felt like going into it, that it was OK. She — you know, she’s guilty. She’s gonna be found guilty. And then I’m like, wait a second. What’s happening here? … I was scared.
The Blame Game
In March 2021, E.J. Stephen was first to go on trial for Shea Briar’s murder. Wes Schemenaur and Zec Landers prosecuted the case.
Wes Schemenaur: It was intense. … It was standing room only most days. … We had lots of interested folks just wanting to come and … see what was going on.
Shea’s mom, Tracy Hoevel, traveled from Hawaii to attend.
Tracy Hoevel: That was my first time really ever being in a courthouse.
It was also her first time hearing and seeing much of the evidence, including that dashcam video.
Tracy Hoevel: It was horrible. It was just this long car ride. … I think I had bruises on my legs ’cause I just was squeezing my legs so bad. And then when he pulls up there to the bridge … I could hear him. …
Jay County Sheriff’s Office
OFFICER AARON STRONCZEK (dashcam video at crime scene): Briar, what happened to you?
SHEA BRIAR: (Moans)
Sharon Taylor: I would love to have been there and hold his hand, you know, I wish. (crying)
Even though E.J. didn’t pull the trigger, prosecutors sought to convince a jury that she orchestrated Shea’s murder.
Wes Schemenaur: This was all for her benefit … I think she saw this as a way to eliminate a problem in her life.
Tiffany McLaughlin
They told the jury about that court petition Shea filed. And they argued it infuriated E.J. — so much so that she and her friend, Shelby Hiestand devised a plan to kill him. They pointed to E.J.’s own words. The jury heard her interrogation in full.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ: Why did Shelby shoot him?
E.J. STEPHEN: We talked about it, and it drove me mad. I was like, like things would just be easier if he was gone …
Wes Schemenaur: She didn’t want Shea involved in her life or in her daughter’s life
The prosecution’s star witness was Kristi Sibray. She testified about those visits she said E.J. and Shelby made to her house. One discussion, she said, was particularly alarming in hindsight.
Kristi Sibray: I go … you couldn’t shoot somebody. I think that’s what I said to E.J. And Shelby goes, oh, I could.
And Sibray testified about another conversation that she had also shared with police.
Kristi Sibray: They did talk about how they one time did put pills in his tea and tried to OD him … They crushed up ibuprofen, I believe … And he did drink the whole glass, but nothing happened to him.
Anne-Marie Green: Did you say to her, “what are you doing?”
Kristi Sibray: Yeah. I’m like, “are you serious?” … I didn’t even … believe her. … because I just could not see her doing that. …
Wes Schemenaur: They’ve discussed it … they’ve even maybe tried to kill him before … This wasn’t just a … thing that happened on a whim, without, you know, E.J.’s knowledge.
But the defense countered that prosecutors had it all wrong and put E.J. on the stand. She declined “48 Hours”‘ request for an interview, and her trial attorney has since died.
Anne-Marie Green: What did she tell the jury?
Wes Schemenaur: That she was essentially shocked and surprised that Shelby did this, that all of this talking and planning had been done as a joke …
As for those pills in Shea’s drink? E.J. testified that it was Shelby’s idea — and that she only went along with it because she thought it was an innocent chemistry experiment.
The defense placed all the blame on Shelby and alleged that unbeknownst to E.J., Shelby wanted the baby and E.J. all to herself, and that Shea was in the way. Shelby had told detectives how much she disliked him.
Jay County Sheriff’s Office
SHELBY HIESTAND (to detectives): … I do not want her to be with him at all. … I was like that little girl would be just fine without him …
The defense claimed E.J. had no reason to want Shea dead and said that E.J. and Shea were talking about getting back together that night on the bridge. Prosecutors rejected that.
The defense claimed E.J. had no reason to want Shea dead and said that E.J. and Shea were talking about getting back together that night on the bridge. Prosecutors rejected that.
Wes Schemenaur: She’s the one who went and got the gun from Shelby’s house. … They took the gun with them to the church. They test fired the gun at the church. … To me, you can say … you thought it was a joke all you want … In my view of it, the minute you take that gun out and you fire it to see how loud it’s gonna be … that’s like, OK, now this is real, right?
But E.J. offered an explanation. She said Shelby would often go hunting, so she didn’t think anything of it when Shelby fired that round in the church parking lot. But what about what E.J. did after the murder?
Wes Schemenaur: E.J. retrieved this guy’s cell phone and threw it in the creek for the sole purpose of him not being able to call for help …
Remember, she admitted that to police.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ (interrogation): You were scared that he could call 911?
E.J. STEPHEN: Yeah. …
Wes Schemenaur: His only lifeline was that cell phone, possibly. Who knows whether he could have had the wherewithal to call for help at that point? And you left him there to die in the cold.
But on the stand, E.J. said she only threw Shea’s phone in a moment of frustration after being unable to unlock it to call 911. She told the jury her own phone was dead.
Zec Landers: It’s just nonsense. There were two other girls with her. …You’re not gonna convince me that their phones were dead. You’re not really gonna be able to convince me that Esther’s phone was dead either. And on top of that … they passed so many different places that were open, that they could have stopped in and called for help. …
As the defense wound down, E.J.’s attorney maintained E.J. had no idea Shelby planned to shoot Shea —and drew the jury’s attention to where E.J. told police she was standing at the time.
DET. BEN SCHWARTZ (interrogation): You were standing there face to face with him?
E.J. STEPHEN: (Nods yes)
The defense argued if E.J. knew Shelby was going to shoot Shea, why would she put herself in the line of fire? Shea’s family worried jurors would be swayed by E.J.’s testimony.
Tiffany McLaughlin: I thought we were going into this and it’s a no-brainer, I mean, she did it. She’s gonna be found guilty. And yeah, I mean, it was scary.
The trial spanned three days, and then the case went to the jury.
Wes Schemenaur: Nerve-wracking is an understatement … We were in the office … Monday morning quarterbacking ourselves, you know, like you always do …
One hour of deliberations passed; then two.
Wes Schemenaur: The longer the jury is out … the more of that second guessing comes into play.
Then, they received a call: a verdict was in.
Wes Schemenaur: The heart rate goes up … to about a million … The palms start sweating … you’re just on pins and needles …
Tiffany McLaughlin: We were all three holding hands and just holding our breath … to see what was gonna happen.
Seeking Justice for Shea Briar
Wes Schemenaur: As a prosecutor, you grow close to these people … You see just the unbelievable amount of suffering that they’re going through as a family, and you want to do your best for them … You want to get them justice for Shea …
After nearly two and a half hours of deliberations, Shea’s family finally heard the word they were waiting for: guilty.
Anne-Marie Green: What is that feeling like?
Tracy Hoevel: Like a big relief.
Sharon Taylor: That it — that much is over. …
E.J. Stephen was later sentenced to 55 years in prison, the recommended sentence for murder in Indiana. Shea’s pastor, Angela Smiley, was there when the sentence was handed down.
Pastor Angela Smiley: You would think that … you would see some kind of repentance. I didn’t see it — at all. Nothing. …
Three months after that, in August 2021, Shelby Hiestand went on trial. Shea’s mom, Tracy Hoevel, was in court again — sitting through all the evidence for a second time, including the dashcam video.
Tiffany McLaughlin: Tracy sat right there and watched it again.
Sharon Taylor: And didn’t cry. She said she didn’t want them to have the satisfaction that they had hurt her so badly.
Anne-Marie Green: You were really thinking that?
Tracy Hoevel: Yeah. … I was — no, they’re not gonna — I’m not gonna let my head hang. I’m … holding it up as high as I can — this is for Shea. … It was hard … but — (crying)
Anne-Marie Green: This is the boy you gave birth to.
Tracy Hoevel: Yeah. (crying) … It just makes me so mad. He didn’t do anything wrong. (crying)
At Shelby’s trial, the defense called no witnesses but argued Shea’s death was unintentional. Shelby, her parents, and her attorney chose not to speak with “48 Hours.”
Wes Schemenaur: Her defense was more of a — it was a mistake. It was an accident … that … her intent to kill wasn’t there. …
Anne-Marie Green: How did they go about trying to prove that?
Wes Schemenaur: Well, if — if you look at what she said in her interview … they tried to keep pointing to this … I blacked out … type of language.
SHELBY HIESTAND (interview with detectives): Honestly, I feel like I just blacked out and it just happened …
Wes Schemenaur: They tried to just essentially characterize what she said as … not — not technically admitting to murder, not technically admitting to shooting at Shea, but simply just pulling the trigger.
Anne-Marie Green: Is there any way that this could have been an accident? .
Zec Landers: No. … You don’t take out your gun and point it at anybody if you’re not intending to kill them.
And to prove this was no accident, prosecutors pointed to this text message that Shelby sent E.J. about a month before Shea’s murder. It reads, “… I’m killing that bastard with my own two hands.”
Wes Schemenaur: They’ve talked about this together for a long time. …
Zec Landers: And one of the things that was odd to me, if you look at that text message is E.J.’s name in Shelby’s phone is “Bay.”
Anne-Marie Green: “Bay” as in a term of endearment.
Zec Landers: Right. …
Anne-Marie Green: Why do you think Shelby was willing to do this? …
Wes Schemenaur: You know, it’s speculation. … She had a lot of animosity towards Shea as evidenced by what she said in her interview about him. …
SHELBY HIESTAND (interview with detectives): … I do not want her to be with him at all.
Wes Schemenaur: And she was very angry at Shea over his attempts to interfere with — or — or insert himself into the daughter’s life. And so, um, you know, I think that that sort of fed into that maybe power dynamic with E.J. …
Anne-Marie Green: What do you mean by that?
Wes Schemenaur: Well, there’s a huge age difference, you know, between E.J. and Shelby … I think it’s clear that Shelby looked up to E.J. and … wanted her approval … I think she had her own feelings. I think she had maybe some manipulation there as well.
At the end of her three-day trial, Shelby Hiestand was also convicted of murder. At her sentencing hearing, unlike E.J., she apologized to Shea’s family.
Sharon Taylor: Shelby was looking right at me, and she said she was sorry, and I believed her. I mean, didn’t change anything (laugh), but I believed her. … You know, she had the chance. She had the chance. …
Shelby Hiestand received the same sentence as E.J. Stephen: 55 years in prison. For Shea’s family, the thought of a third trial was too much to bear.
Tiffany McLaughlin: I didn’t wanna go to another trial.
Tracy Hoevel: — she didn’t — well, we I — don’t think my mom could have handled another one.
Tiffany McLaughlin: I don’t think any of us could have. I mean, it was awful.
They approached prosecutors and, ultimately, a plea deal was reached. Hannah Knapke and her attorneys also declined “48 Hours”‘ request for an interview. In September 2021, she pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in exchange for a sentence that could see her released as early as July 2026. At her sentencing, she also apologized to Shea’s family.
Tiffany McLaughlin: I remember telling her in my impact statement that, you know, you weren’t the mastermind, you weren’t the shooter, but you were still involved in it. You were still involved in Shea’s murder.
Sharon Taylor: And I said, you could have made a difference. You could have said, no. You could have said, let’s get out of here.
Tiffany McLaughlin: But for not one person … but three people made the decision to murder him.
Anne-Marie Green: Right. Three opportunities for someone to do the right thing.
Tracy Hoevel: Say no. Yes.
Tiffany McLaughlin: Yeah.
Anne-Marie Green: And none of them took that opportunity.
Sharon Taylor: Very well put.
Tracy Hoevel: Yeah.
Sharon Taylor: Very well put.
Tiffany McLaughlin
Shea Briar’s grave sits next to the little white church that he loved. His gravestone says “daddy,” a role his sister says he was so looking forward to fulfill.
Sydney Hoevel: My brother wanted to be there for his baby … He loves her so, so much. (crying) … And he has the best view right now of her. … Even though he’s in Heaven, he is laughing. He’s probably giving her wind tickles and he’s keeping an eye out on her.
Shea Briar and E.J. Stephen’s daughter is in the custody of E.J.’s family.
Shea’s family gets to see her once a month.
Produced by Stephanie Slifer. Sara Ely Hulse is the development producer. Michael Loftus is the field producer. Elena DiFiore is the development producer. Marlon Disla, Phil Tangel and George Baluzy are the editors. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.