Introducing Raynella Leath | "Married to Death" | "48 Hours" Podcast | Forensic Files

a quick note this six episode mini series revisits one of the most interesting cases I've ever investigated
the prosecution of reynella Leith for the murder of her husband David though this series first aired in 2017 the case
still lingers in my mind to this day every case has twists and turns every single case does but few cases have the
twists and turns that take you aback underneath that very respectable surface it seems like everything's rotting to
the core when you have success sometimes that makes people more interested in your downfall I'll just say we waited
for the autopsy and one of the autopsy said homicide I'm Aaron Moriarty 48 hours and this is
married to death get ready to hear about such an unusual gaze we need six episodes to tell it all
this is the story of raynella Lee and her case begins like so many others do with a call to 9-1-1
[Music] on March 13 2003 this frantic call came into the sheriff's office in Knox County
Tennessee but the death of 57 year old David Leith would turn out to be no ordinary suicide
[Applause] covered up with blankets and covers fingers are cold and turning stiff but I checked the
toes this is the voice of the lead detective Perry Moyers that day As He Walks Into the Dead Man's bedroom
ok here's another hoe he's fired more than once there has been more ones look right here right into the
bed right where the gun slinging there's also a shot into the bed which is a little suspicious in itself
another detective questions raynella who found him when when you when you open the bedroom door and you went in you
said you touched him um okay calm down it's okay all right take your deep breath
thank you I understand raynella was telling the police that he had committed suicide that's Beth
Roberts David's cousin but is it impossible I mean it's not uncommon for men in their 50s well I'll just say we
waited for the autopsy and one of the autopsy say homicide we're going to Knoxville to solve a
mystery that continues to baffle the best investigators and legal Minds in the state
this is a case that is pitted a daughter against her stepmother raised questions
about a County's judicial system and has forever tarnished the reputation of the
mysterious woman at its Center we begin in a Knox County Tennessee courtroom on a morning in May 2017.
um [Music] thank you please see the high profile trial is beginning 16 jurors are in the
courtroom but only 12 of them will end up deciding reynella's fate senior State judge Paul Summers
presiding I was an appointed senior judge by the Tennessee Supreme Court most every case that I try is somewhat
controversial and this one's controversial because of the woman sitting in front of him in the
defendant's chair this Leaf just like anybody else who's charged in a criminal case
is innocent until proven guilt reynella Leith is the one who made that frantic 9-1-1 call back in 2003
reporting her husband's suicide and now more than 14 years later she's in court on trial for his murder and what makes
the case interesting is that she is anything but the usual suspect she's a woman in her late 60s this
elegant tall gray-haired grandmother and mother the last person you would suspect
of being a diabolical murderer she was born reynella large she married a dosset and then she
married Elise so she's got a long name when you throw it all together such a southern name Diane Fanning who wrote a
book about reynella's life titled her deadly web is one of the dozens of writers and journalists drawn to this
trial like moths to a flame you can feel the Spanish moss dripping off the story and that's very much like
this there is the gentility of reynella dosset Lee so many of these people in the community that are
professionals and underneath that very respectable surface it seems like everything's rotting to the core it made
me want to learn more and every time I turned a page in this story there was something more to learn
the courtroom is packed with journalists like me Spectators and family members like Beth Roberts David Lee's cousin who
went to the trial every day and what was your first impression of raynella she fills up a room I mean
that's the first thing is that she was very pretty Beth told me that she first met raynella
24 years ago soon after she had married David I said to my mother I thought he'd
hit the jackpot with this girl because she was so pretty and so interesting and when she talked to you it was like you
were the only person in the room and she was terribly interested in what you had
to say both of them have been married before reynella's first husband Ed Dawson had died just six months earlier
and happened to be her new husband's best friend in a small town those details don't go unnoticed they
were happy to be able to have this little romantic Scandal to talk about and oh some of Dave's friends were
merciless they would not cut him any slack they gave him a hard hard time about it but it was more in a
good-natured way although that was accompanied by a little bit of concern that he was moving too fast
but by most accounts it was a love match David Leith was the Handsome Barber in town raynella the attractive Widow with
a large home and farm left to her by Ed Dawson she had her own thing going on it's not like she needed a husband I
mean she you know she was a very attractive very well-read uh woman I would imagine she would have been a
catch for any band unlike her two husbands reynella wasn't from Knoxville she grew up 25 miles away
in Oak Ridge Tennessee that's the town high up in the Smoky Mountains best known for the Manhattan Project larger
reactors were built at the Clinton engineering Works near Oak Ridge Tennessee she grew up among the children
of the elite group of scientists who developed the atomic bombster built a city eventually the
fifth largest in Tennessee and even among the elites Diane Fanning told me raynella stood out so she was well
educated and yet in this environment she still stood out as an excellent student
she was in the physics Club in the chemistry Club she was a student that teachers noticed and noted then I talked
to some people who knew her in high school who were absolutely shocked and the woman they knew in high school could
not have been where she is now it was at East Tennessee State University that reynella met Ed Dawson she was 21 years
old when they married in February of 1970. he brought her home to Knoxville where he went to law school and she
worked as a nurse in a hospital in town raynella was such a Confident Woman and she would walk into a room
and it was like you knew she was there she had presents and I think that Ed was really drawn to that
she was taller than the average woman she held herself with pride and there was something like having her
by his side that made him proud indirectly she just was exactly what he was looking
for even though he didn't know it till he found her they soon became Knoxville's power
couple they were successful her husband was elected district attorney he was respected she was the director of
nursing but Knoxville was and is at its heart an old-fashioned southern town she
has a strong personality and Josh Hedrick a 37 year old local defense attorney says reynella's Manor put a lot
of people off when you have success sometimes that makes people more interested in your
downfall they want to see a successful person fall Diane Fanning agrees people are looking for a crack or a flaw when
things are suspicious it sticks with them harder and they hold on to it the resentment towards raynell
is simmered even more after Ed does it suddenly died on his farm in 1992 investigators concluded he had been
traveled by his own cattle after they found him in a field with puff marks on his clothes
and reynella's marriage to his best friend David Leith just six months later didn't help matters
and then on March 13 2003 there was that call to 9-1-1 [Music] gentleman's laying in a bed covered up
with blankets and covers fingers are code when the first officer comes in he finds David Lee deceased in the band he
is covered by the bed clothes the the comforter and the sheet this is Stephen crop he's the district attorney
general Prosecuting reynella Lee where's the weapon the weapon was a cult revolver a six shot revolver a police
type weapon very common weapon and it was laying with the hammer inside the hand of David Lee how soon did
investigators start questioning this story of suicide I think it was probably immediate because there were three shots
there was more than one shot three shots one bullet was found in the headboard another in the mattress one in
David Lee's forehead and and while that's not unheard of well it didn't look like a suicide scene
and so I think from the beginning Perry Moyer who was the detective really started looking this and saying I don't
know that this is exactly right maybe this is a suicide but it doesn't look like one isn't it possible that David
was trying to shoot himself missed and then just try it again I mean no it's not
when when you when you open the bedroom door and you went in you said you touched him
Stephen Crump wasn't on the case back in March 2003 but he has listened to all the audio tapes from that day and he's
troubled by what raynella Lee said she did when she found her husband she's a nurse
she says she talked to him and he didn't answer and she said she looked at him and realized that something wasn't right
there was an enormous pool of blood around him and she was a nurse and she said she immediately calls 9-1-1 she
grabs 9-1-1 she doesn't attempt to roll him over she thinks she covered him up she doesn't give him CPR no she doesn't
touch him there's no blood found on her she doesn't try CPR she doesn't she doesn't even check to see if he's dead
just 24 hours after raynell Elite reported her husband's suicide a medical examiner ended the autopsy and reached a
very different conclusion so the medical examiner determined it was a homicide yes what do you believe happened to
David Lee right now Elite killed it she shot him she missed with the first shot it's a
scary proposition to take a human life she missed with the first shot she scored with the second shot
he ended his life for that second shot and then an attempt to cover up he fired that third shot to get gunshot residue
on him that's what I think you're describing a pretty cold-blooded killer yes that's what I think she is
but as you were about to hear believing in a case is one thing proving it in court has been something
else entirely can you connect reynella to that weapon fingerprints anyone see her pick up the
gun no can you connect raynella to any of the bullets that were used in that gun no
no that's a problem isn't it in this case if a jury's looking for that then yes back in 2003 could have predicted what
it would take to get to this day in court or the fact that it would take more than 14 years and this is actually
raynell Elise third trial for the murder of David Leaf she was first tried for his murder back in 2009 but the jurors
were deadlocked 11 to 1 so the judge declared a mistrial prosecutors were much more successful the following year
reynella was convicted and sentenced to life in prison she spent six years behind bars when that conviction was
vacated the reason as it turns out the judge who had handled her trial had a serious drug addiction so raynella was
sent home to wait until the state could try her again this time around it's Stephen crump's job
prosecutors know the term snake bit Yeah because what can go wrong will go wrong
in a case sometimes but this one tortured from a procedural standpoint something that we don't normally see a
hung jury followed by a guilty verdict followed by the case being upheld on appeal then set aside and back for a
third trial so it's it's really an unusual unusual scenario Crump tells me he's determined to make a
conviction stick especially because he believes this is not the first murder she committed Crump suspects she also
killed her first husband Ed and Trump wasn't the only one who had those suspicions so the ambitious woman from
Oak Ridge Tennessee made a name for herself all right a name no one would want the black widow
that's life in a small town attorney Josh Hedrick says story that's being told regardless of accuracy is Juicy
it's interesting you know people are discussing it they have opinions about it they're weighing potential theories and
you know I think this is what happened and I think this is what happened and you know what I heard she yelled at some
guy one time down at the co-op about moving his truck or whatever you know and it it gets its own it has a life it
becomes a a thing it becomes a living thing those stories rumors whirling around
reynello leave worry attorney Hedrick because he's now defending her along with an out-of-state attorney Rebecca
Legrand they believe reynella Lee has never killed anyone she's not a kill nope she's not a black
widow she is a woman who had a hard life and the justice system treated her wrong
is it possible that reynello Leith is just a very unlucky woman yeah of a coincidence make me itchy
[Music] this podcast series Married to death is developed by 48 hours in partnership
with CBS News Radio Judy Tigard is executive producer Nancy Kramer is our executive story editor Mike Valle and
Alan Pang are the series producer editors this episode was produced by Josh Gainer Lisa freed Louise Geraldo
and edited by Mike McHugh Dwayne Tolleson and Meghan Marcus thanks to composer Richard viocca for his original
scores Gabriella de mergen and Morgan Canty RR associate producers Kayla Kettle is our
production associate thank you to Craig swagler the vice president and general manager of CBS News Radio and finally a
shout out to all of you our fans we owe it all to you the millions of fans of 48
hours in the U.S and all around the world don't forget to join me online I'm at EF Moriarty on Twitter and we are at
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In May 2017, then 68-year-old Raynella Leath went on trial for the third time for the murder of her second husband David Leath in a Knox County, Tennessee, courtroom. She has always claimed David committed suicide. How did Raynella Leath, who had been amongst the elites of Knoxville as a hospital nursing director and wife of a county District Attorney General, end up here? Join “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty as she revisits the murder investigation of Raynella Leath.

Listen to "Married to Death" from "My Life of Crime with Erin Moriarty" on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts: https://link.chtbl.com/MTDYTE1

Crime. Social justice. Impact. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

Brief Summary

Raynella Leith's murder trial reveals twists in her husband's suspicious death and her controversial past.

Key points

The Unusual Case of Raynella Lee. This series revisits the complex murder case of Raynella Lee, who was accused of killing her husband David. "Every case has twists and turns, but few cases have the twists that take you aback."
The Autopsy Revelation. The autopsy revealed a shocking conclusion: homicide, not suicide, leading to a deeper investigation. "One of the autopsy said homicide."
A Frantic 9-1-1 Call. On March 13, 2003, Raynella Lee made a frantic call to report her husband's death, which would lead to a controversial investigation. "This would turn out to be no ordinary suicide."
The Courtroom Drama. Raynella Lee's trial began in May 2017, with a packed courtroom and intense scrutiny. "This is a case that has pitted a daughter against her stepmother."
The Black Widow Accusation. Prosecutors suspect Raynella Lee may have committed multiple murders, earning her the nickname 'Black Widow.' "Crump suspects she also killed her first husband Ed."

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This case still lingers in my mind to this day.

Reflecting on the enduring impact of the case.

0:18WatchJun 14, 2023

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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