Atlanta reporter retraces the night of Diane McIver's death | Forensic Files

you're listening to the season 5 reboot of breakdown the MacGyver murder case September 2016 I'm bill Rankin legal
affairs writer for the Atlanta journal-constitution have you been surprised at just the
enormous popularity of the podcast and how much interested it generated in this case I'm very gratified yes I've been
surprised it's been great previously on breakdown the interesting thing about the podcast is you think
this is a uniquely Atlanta story but I hear from people all over the world it's a murder mystery people love murder
mysteries right I think people want to know if he's going to be convicted or acquitted welcome back
before we plunge back into the story of text MacGyver I want to tell you about something that recently happened to me I
agreed to retrace the MacGyver's route on the night of the killing with a TV crew being TV they rented a white Ford
Expedition just like the one in which Tex McIver shot his wife first of all the SUV this was the biggest damn car
I've ever climbed into I mean big the TV people had asked me to drive I declined
this is almost at about the same time it's almost at about the same time so they would have been coming from
Covington mm-hmm which is about 20 miles away from the restaurant from the Longhorn restaurant and now they're
coming up to the connector which is i-75 I 85 is where it merges mm-hmm and that's where during rush hour is one of
the worst bottlenecks you can imagine and I'm sure when they're driving down here on a Sunday night they're thinking
they got it made there's gonna be no problem whatsoever and then they run into it so we're
driving down the expressway in downtown Atlanta and we exit down the ramp and onto Edgewood Avenue as Texan Diane did
that night they're gonna go down this ramp here and according to Tex he had been asleep at this point but when they
go down this ramp he wakes up it's been said that Tex had worried that the people milling about down there were
maybe black lives matter protesters that's when Tex asked Diane to hand him his gun our reconstruction was pretty
authentic as we sat at a light off the exit ramp the homeless man began shouting at us that he was hungry
I mean shouting so there's a person next to us who's you know asking for money and asking for food is this a common
thing that happens it's not unusual okay and the more we ignored him the more he
screamed and flailed his arms the TV reporter made note of the guy he's being pretty aggressive yeah as well I notice
he's being very aggressive I mean you often see homeless people in downtown Atlanta but you don't often see them
behaving so aggressively what should we do grab a gun no he didn't seem truly threatening and we didn't have a gun
actually we just drove off when the light changed if he'd started beating on the windows which he didn't we probably
would have pulled away before we got the green light end of adventure

Update: Tex McIver won his appeal for a new trial in 2022, the Georgia Supreme Court ruling that jurors should have been able to consider the lesser charge of misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter. On Jan. 26, 2024, he pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in exchange for a prison sentence of eight years. With credit for time served, he could be released by mid-2025.

Legal affairs reporter Bill Rankin hosts a podcast called "Breakdown" about the Tex McIver case for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is a "48 Hours" consultant on this case. Using a similar SUV, Rankin and "48 Hours"' Maureen Maher drove the route Dani Jo Carter and the McIvers took the night Tex shot Diane. Rankin chronicled that drive in an episode of "Breakdown."

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Brief Summary

Bill Rankin discusses the MacGyver murder case and a TV crew's reenactment of the night of the shooting.

Key points

The Popularity of Murder Mysteries. The podcast has attracted global interest, showcasing a universal love for murder mysteries.
A Big Adventure in a Big Car. The host humorously describes the massive SUV used for the case reconstruction.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

People love murder mysteries!

Discussing the appeal of the podcast.

0:34WatchApr 27, 2018

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