Rebecca Fenton’s Story | Murder in Mind | Forensic Files

[grim music] [line ringing] - This is your, you know, classic whodunit. - Everything is just spiraling out of control.
- I had that feeling kind of deep down where you're like, something's not right.
- It was horrible, horrible. - This is the oddest thing I've ever heard in an interview.
[theme music] [ominous music] DALE GABBARD: A little before 5 o'clock on February 3, 2008,
a woman dialed 911 and called the Clearwater Police Department. [line ringing] CHRIS PRECIOUS: That particular day was Super Bowl Sunday.
It was-- it's my day off, but I'm always on call as a homicide detective because you never know when
a call is going to come in. [siren wails] - It's a very risky situation to drive towards because it's
the unknown. CHRIS PRECIOUS: From all we know, the person who did this could still be out there.
- And when the police arrived, they encountered Rebecca Fenton. She immediately informed the officer that her husband
was inside on the floor. CHRIS PRECIOUS: A patrol officer would go in with their guns drawn
and check every area where somebody could be hiding. It was just starting to get dark when I got there, noticed
it was a very nice house. It was a two-story house, which is not too common for Florida.
DALE GABBARD: They did not find any intruders or other individuals inside the home
or in the surrounding area. CHRIS PRECIOUS: When we got close to the victim, it was very apparent that he was deceased and deceased right
where he laid. There was a large amount of pooled blood in the area. - Mr. Fenton was pronounced dead in the home.
[gentle music] KAREN KENDALL: Larry Fenton was my son-in-law, married to Rebecca.
Very wonderful, nice, warm man. Very quick to smile. Rebecca was over the moon with her marriage to Larry.
He just doted on her constantly. He had bought her a lovely home. It was like a fairytale story for her.
Larry worked for a company that made hospital equipment. He was well paid for his job.
He loved what he did. He was very comfortable. - He seemed like the right thing.
He seemed like the best thing for her. [intriguing music] - Now, this is a marriage between somebody who is very,
very successful, a millionaire, and his wife Rebecca is a stay-at-home wife. What it means for her is that her husband has been very
brutally and very, very suddenly taken from her, and she's now alone in the world.
So suddenly, everything has changed. [grim music] - After police arrived, they immediately
start collecting evidence. CHRIS PRECIOUS: Once we methodically started going inside the house, that's
when you started to see evidence of a robbery or evidence of disarray. - In the office, the drawers were pulled out.
Things were just thrown on the floor. - So that set us off on kind of looking at what kind of crime
we're looking at, obviously murder, robbery, and we're kind of in our initial information
gathering stage at that point. As we came-- approached the body, Larry Fenton was kind of face down towards the front door.
DALE GABBARD: He had been shot multiple times. [gunshots] Three of the shots were in the back,
and there was one in the neck. [gunshot] - Also, we noticed a bullet hole above the front door.
Obviously his back was to the shooter. So he's looking towards his front door, so maybe he's trying to get away out his front door
when he was shot by somebody who was behind him back towards the kitchen. DALE GABBARD: Ms. Fenton was extremely distraught,
but of course, police would want to either rule her out or rule her in because she was there.
- At this point, anybody and everybody is a suspect. We just don't know until we gather enough information.
[grim music] - OK, I'm Kerri Spaulding. This is my partner, Detective Ruhlin. - How are you?
- I just want to get some general information from you, and then we'll talk about--
- Have you found anything else? - Not yet, no. - In the initial interview by the police with Ms. Fenton,
she was very cooperative. She never did ask to consult with an attorney prior to speaking to the police.
- When you guys first got up, anything unusual or strange happen in the morning?
- I'm going to break my anonymity. I'm an Alcoholics Anonymous, been sober for three years.
- OK. - And I do a lot of work with PAR and rehab. - Rebecca was quite open about the fact
that she had had prior addiction issues and that she had successfully conquered those,
and very active in helping other people attempt to overcome their addiction issues.
- I had to get up a little bit earlier than usual, because I was taking a girl that I--
again, you know, I have to tell you I'm in the program. I hate to break my anonymity, but it
has a lot to do with my life. - Mm-hmm. - And one of the girls that I sponsor is in the PAR program.
I had to pick her up to take her to a morning meeting. [intriguing music] KERRY DAYNES: What we see from Rebecca
here is very much impression management. So this isn't necessarily lying to anybody.
It's simply showing somebody the parts of you that you want them to see, and what
she really wants them to see is how good a person she is. So she's talking about her voluntary work, the work
that she does with AA, the work that she does in the community. It's not strictly relevant to the investigation.
So the question is, is this important to Rebecca Fenton because she is somebody who likes to portray herself
as having this perfect facade? Or is it important to her because she wants the police to be misdirected?
[grim music] - Rebecca was born April 27, 1967. When I met Rebecca's father, I'd
just got out of high school, you know, no college or anything. But my favorite thing, what to do
was I was a go-go dancer, which meant that I was up on the stage and, you know, all the makeup and the glitter and stuff.
I had no clue about being a mom. I knew how to dance, and I knew how to drink. I don't know any other nice way to say it.
I had Rebecca for three years. I was wrapped up in drugs, and it was affecting her.
Then an incident happened, and I took her to the hospital. And they said I was an unfit mother,
so they took her from me. I didn't contest that because I knew I was in a wrong place
to be raising a child. I would like to say it was devastating, but I hardly remember those days.
- Unfortunately, when Rebecca was born, she was born addicted. This is a tough start to life.
Now, by virtue of the fact that her mother is involved in drug use and involved in alcohol use,
the first two years of her life are characterized by neglect. Nobody who is using drugs can be consistently there
for an infant. This can leave you very, very vulnerable to having relationship difficulties in the future,
and also it can leave you vulnerable to emotional dysregulation. - She was adopted by a lovely family in northern Arizona.
They adopted two other kids a little after her-- very loving, taught Rebecca a lot of etiquette
and just a warm, good family. - Rebecca, although she was taken into care at a very young age, she was put into a really stable home
where she experienced love, she saw what healthy relationships looked like. And so as much as that transition
from being with her biological mother to being in care would have been massively destabilizing and
probably quite formative, whether or not that is going to have long-term negative consequences,
largely then also depends on what happened next. KAREN KENDALL: She stayed with them until she left home at 18
and then went to Florida. - I think she saw them as very small-town people. She wanted much more for herself.
She wanted a much more glamorous life. KAREN KENDALL: I hadn't had any contact or information
regarding her all those years until we met again when she was 31. [sweeping music]
I wanted to find her because I knew that her biological father was diagnosed bipolar,
and it can be genetic. Also, I was having my issues with my alcoholism, and I felt that she should be able to know
about these things. - My mom had hired an investigator to track her down. KAREN KENDALL: I didn't know what to expect.
I didn't know if she was going to like me, hate me, you know, none of that. STEPHANIE KINGMAN: I remember talking
to her on the phone the very first time, and she just-- she sounded like a movie star.
I mean, she just sounded so bubbly and so full of life. She had a plan to come to Arizona very, very quickly.
KAREN KENDALL: She jumped out of the pickup truck of her dad and come running up to me, and it's
just like she had this blonde hair and this personality. And the whole evening was just, like, monumental.
STEPHANIE KINGMAN: I was 15. I was young. I just enjoyed having an older sister.
She'd always want to treat us for dinner and, you know, take us places and buy us stuff,
and then, whoosh, she'd be gone again, you know. And it was like this whirlwind of a little blonde tornado
that would come into our lives, you know. - It's amazing, isn't it, to meet with your birth mother,
to really understand your identity and where you come from? It's both a wonderful thing, but
it's also a potentially very destabilizing thing. There's bound to be some, you know, possible resentment.
Why did you neglect me? Why was I taken away from you? And adjustment to that new relationship.
So here comes a great opportunity, but riding a dangerous wind in terms of instability.
[intriguing music] - When I told Rebecca the reason I was looking for her was for the bipolar diagnosis
of her biological father, she totally disregarded it. It was always, I don't have a mental illness.
There's nothing wrong with me mentally. I might have a little problem with alcohol.
And that was as far as it would go. KERRY DAYNES: What we've got here is somebody who may have a genetic predisposition
towards mood swings, because Rebecca's father was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which is one of the more hereditary
mental health conditions. Now, add to that her very early experiences. She's been neglected during those first two years of life,
and may very well have attachment problems that have seeped into her adult life.
It really isn't a good recipe for any kind of emotional stability. [upbeat music]
STEPHANIE KINGMAN: It was pretty quick after I turned 16. I got my license, and Rebecca had called and
told us that she had lost her license because she had gotten too many speeding tickets.
She needed our help. She needed me to come to Florida and drive her around. I was going to be her chauffeur,
and I was going to be her assistant, and she was going to pay me money to do it.
And so off I went. And that was definitely the first trip that I took that I saw the different side of Rebecca.
[grim music] It starts off like everything else. Everything's very glamorous. Everything's very fun.
I'm driving her to all these fancy places. And then the next week, I was a few minutes late picking her
up, and she just got so angry and just so animated and was just screaming and yelling in the car,
and I didn't even know this person. I'd never seen this person before. And we get to the house, and it continues.
She just smashes everything off of the top of the TV stand. All these expensive plates, just smash against the floor.
And just-- it was just the wildest scenario to be a part of. And, you know, then the next morning, she comes out
and she apologizes, and she's sorry about that. She never quite admitted how crazy that got.
- Someone who rapidly denies that there's anything wrong with them, whether it's drinking or
drug use or mood swings or other issues, I think that is someone who maybe isn't empathetic about how their behavior, their emotions
are affecting others and is someone who is less likely to seek help when they need
it and instead blame others. In some ways, you can create a really nice life for yourself
because you're living in this happy world. But the other problem is that if it's not true,
then you're going to occasionally be faced with reality, and those moments are going to be a shock to you.
[grim music] - Did your husband have a problem with anybody? Was anybody angry with him?
- No. Absolutely not. Larry is a nice guy. - Rebecca initially said that, you know,
her and Larry kept to themselves. They didn't have any enemies. - And your relationship, there's no infidelity?
- None. None. None. We are madly in love with each other. We're still on our honeymoon.
- I have known her long enough, and I have gotten many stories from her that she doesn't give
you all of the information. KAREN KENDALL: I lived with them for a while. We did a lot of drinking, Rebecca and I. Did
a lot of drinking, and with drinking comes cordiality and fun and, you know, all the glitz and glamor.
I would see things going on even while we were drinking that I thought was inappropriate towards Larry.
STEPHANIE KINGMAN: We could see maybe some of those early cracks in their foundation.
[grim music] - So a lot of the questioning of Rebecca is kind of, you know, what kind of life,
what kind of relationship her and Larry had. Was she happy? - No marriage is perfect.
I wasn't-- - Nothing major? - No. - Any financial problems? - Not at all. We're doing-- we're doing very well financially.
- Larry is a successful businessman, was able to financially support her and give her a-- you know, a very
happy and comfortable life. - This is a relationship that is based on inequality, really.
There's a clear difference of power. Larry holds the power because he holds the purse strings.
Put that together with somebody who is volatile and struggles to maintain her emotions,
and I can't imagine that this is the perfect marriage. - As far as work goes, are you currently working?
- I do a little bit of modeling right now, but I wouldn't consider it work. - OK.
- I do a lot of charity work. [mysterious music] STEPHANIE KINGMAN: All the things
were secret with Rebecca, and Rebecca was always controlling the narrative when it came to herself.
I think Rebecca struggled to keep any sort of a normal job. She had tried her foot in nursing
and maybe home health care. KAREN KENDALL: Well, she told me she was an interior decorator, but that didn't last long.
Pretty soon afterwards, the truth came out that she was an escort. STEPHANIE KINGMAN: I have sympathy for her.
I look back and I think we all just kind of do the best with what we got, you know.
KAREN KENDALL: Rebecca has a tendency to glamorize everything in and around her life.
This was a way for her to have nice conversations with a fluent gentlemen. She knew About wine.
She knew about good food. - She definitely minimalized, you know, any kind of maybe uncomfortableness or
pain or sort of anxiety that comes with those sorts of things. - Rebecca Fenton seems to have very, very
strong psychological defenses. The reality of Rebecca Fenton's work behind the seemingly
glamorous places that this takes place is that she has got to give men that she probably
doesn't like, isn't sexually attracted to, regardless of their hygiene, regardless of their sexual preferences,
their fetishes, regardless of whether they are violent towards her, she has to give
them access to her body. That is psychologically traumatizing. STEPHANIE KINGMAN: Towards the end
of her sort of run of this job, when she did meet Larry, she was looking for an out.
She was looking for a reason to stop doing this work. [flames crackling] REBECCA FENTON: I don't remember what time I got home.
Larry-- he was in the living room. He said that he wanted to take a nap so that he could try
to stay up for the Super Bowl. I said I think I'm going to work out at the gym. - Rebecca was going to go out to an outbuilding,
which was set up as a gym. REBECCA FENTON: I was in the gym, in our gym, when this happened.
I was sitting on the ball when I heard a noise. - Mm-hmm. - But it didn't sound like a pop.
It sounded like somebody dropped something. I just was, let me just go see him again.
- OK. From the gym, what route did you take? - I went through the back door. - OK.
REBECCA FENTON: My husband was laying in the foyer. KERRI SPAULDING: OK. - So at this point, we were taking her at face value.
Rebecca is a wife who just saw her dead husband in her house, so she's a victim.
We're treating her as such. REBECCA FENTON: I realized that my house had been ransacked.
I ran upstairs. When I saw how bad it was, my first thought was I better get out of here.
- Some of the information that she was saying to the interviewing detectives was being passed along to me to see if it
corresponded with the scene. JOE RUHLIN: OK, so you came in, you saw him-- REBECCA FENTON: Saw my husband.
I felt for a pulse. - And then you went upstairs? - Yes, I did. - What'd you go upstairs for?
- Because when I turned the corner and saw the living room had been ransacked, I went upstairs to see
what the hell had happened. - OK. - And I yelled. - I can't answer why she would say or do that.
Putting myself in that situation of seeing a loved one deceased on the ground right there,
I wouldn't be running upstairs or checking to see how bad my house was messed up.
- I ran back down. I checked my husband again for a pulse. - Did he have a pulse the first time?
- I couldn't tell. - What about the second time? - I didn't feel one, but I didn't know if I was
feeling in the right place. CHRIS PRECIOUS: Some of what was being told to us, they weren't aligning with, you know,
what we were finding at the scene. JOE RUHLIN: When you checked him, you just checked his pulse?
- His eyes were open. I checked here. CHRIS PRECIOUS: There was a perfectly filled-in
pool of blood around his body. There was no smudge marks, smear marks, drag marks, footprints, or anything
else in that pool of blood. So we knew confidently that the area around the victim's body
had never been disturbed or nobody had ever walked towards it or been near it at all.
REBECCA FENTON: I checked his neck. When I came back down the stairs, I checked his arm.
- Either she's confused of what she's saying, that she actually went up there, or she's just outright lying that she
went up there near the body and checked for a pulse. - Was anything ransacked on the first floor?
- Yes, the living room. All of my self-help books had been pulled out - I'm inside the house asking, why are books
just knocked off a bookshelf? Why are drawers pulled out of a dresser and then just neatly set on the ground and the contents inside
of them not gone through? We couldn't get any rationale as to why this scene was like this.
- You didn't try CPR? You didn't try to revive him? - No, I didn't. I didn't think it was a good idea to touch anything.
I just-- - What did you think happened? - Because I've just watched too much TV and it's like, don't touch, don't bother.
- What kind of TV would tell you that? - Just-- I don't know. Um, "CSI," I guess.
- If anybody sees their loved one down there, that's the last thing they're going to think about is
incriminating themselves. They're not going to worry about getting blood on them
or disturbing the body or the scene or anything like that. KERRY DAYNES: There is something
that seems a little bit off with Rebecca Fenton, and I think that we as human beings
tend to be really quite good BS detectors at times. And I think that that would certainly
have raised some interest and maybe raised some eyebrows, but it's not evidence.
[grim music] - As far as firearms in the house-- - Excuse me? - Guns, firearms. - We did own a gun.
We bought one very, very recently. - You just have one gun in the house? - Yes. - She acknowledged that there was
a gun in the house, what kind of gun it was, where it was usually kept, in a safe place.
- Is it registered to you or your husband? - Don't quote me. I think Larry told me that it was legal for both of us
to use. - She is sharing a lot of information, but in doing so, she's got this illusion of transparency
and this illusion of cooperation. She also says, don't quote me on this. And then she tries to excuse herself
so that if the story changes or if they find information that contradicts her statement,
she's got a way out. - Do you have a life insurance policy? - I think Larry does, yeah.
- For how much? - I don't know. - Who's the beneficiary? - I think I am because I'm his wife.
- Rebecca was close to, I think, coming away with close to a million if Larry was to tragically pass away.
[grim music] [flames crackling] DALE GABBARD: One of the things that police discovered
was that Mr. Fenton's vehicle, a white Jeep, was gone from the home. At some point during the investigation,
the Jeep was located-- not a great distance from the home. CHRIS PRECIOUS: The car didn't seem damaged.
It wasn't hotwired. But the key wasn't found at this time. The house is a mess. The car is stolen.
But the car's now just found a block away. So whoever did this had a conscious all of a sudden
and said, I'm going to leave the car and walk away. That made no sense at all. - All right, the other thing that we're going to do
is just do forensics. - They swapped her hands for what they call gunshot residue, which
is basically something that a gun emits when it's fired. [gunshot] - And when it was done, she was released.
[grim music] DALE GABBARD: Ms. Fenton's vehicle, a Hyundai Sonata, was still at the home, and during the course
of the police investigation, they went through that vehicle. - By just sticking your hand under the front passenger seat,
you could feel the handle of what was clearly a gun. And then we found the key to the Jeep
that was driven a block away right next to the gun. There were only five bullets inside
the cylinder at the time. Going back to where the victim was, he had four gunshot wounds and then the bullet hole
above him, so there was five shots. So we believe that we had found the gun that was used
to kill Larry at this time. [grim music] Rebecca was the prime suspect the whole time.
It was just that we needed one or two more items to bring it all together. DALE GABBARD: All of the forensic testing done
by the police was negative as far as Ms. Fenton was concerned. There was no DNA of any kind of Ms. Fenton on the gun.
There was absolutely no gunshot residue on MS Fenton. CHRIS PRECIOUS: There's a little bit of frustration.
You just want to see this case through to the end to court and you get a conviction.
DALE GABBARD: Although she was a suspect in the beginning, once all of this forensic evidence came back,
she's not involved, and the investigation pretty much came to a stop. [birdsong]
[mysterious music] - We had no choice but to 100% believe Rebecca. She was the only source of information for us.
Like, you talk about sort of that gut instinct and, you know, that feeling kind of deep down where you're
like, something isn't right. But we did not want to ask too many questions if police weren't asking those questions,
you know. We wanted to ask questions like, well, why was his car only two blocks away?
So we felt like we could go back home and she would be OK, you know, until we heard more.
And we definitely thought that we would hear more much more quickly than we did.
[grim music] CHRIS PRECIOUS: In the meantime, Rebecca, I believe, is just living her life.
STEPHANIE KINGMAN: After Larry died, Rebecca continued to live in the home that she owned with Larry.
- And as time is going on, Rebecca develops some type of a relationship with a man named Alfred Nolan.
STEPHANIE KINGMAN: He was the complete opposite of Larry. CHRIS PRECIOUS: Alfred was in jail multiple times,
had multiple arrests. STEPHANIE KINGMAN: Her life was just so 180 different than anything we were used to.
She didn't have any luxuries. She didn't have any of the fancy stuff. She didn't have any of the lifestyle that we were used to,
and it just wasn't normal. - So life after Larry, whatever support existed within that relationship,
whether it was emotional or financial, is no longer there. Alfred is somebody with a long criminal history.
This is somebody who is a drug and alcohol abuser. And of course, things start to spiral for her.
She starts to burn through her money. This is when she's likely to lose control of her emotional state again.
CHRIS PRECIOUS: Rebecca and Alfred Nolan are in a relationship for a certain period of time
before they break up and go their separate ways. KAREN KENDALL: There was no funds
available to keep up the house payments or anything else that she needed taken care of.
She had moved somebody into her home. Was taking care of this veteran for a little bit
of extra money. [grim music] TV PRESENTER: Developing at this hour in Clearwater,
two people are homeless this afternoon after fire practically destroyed their house overnight.
REPORTER: Take a look inside. The fire just ripped through this place, gutting it.
- There was a fire on June 14 at the Fenton home. REPORTER: The two people who were inside--
they were lucky to get out alive. This video was shot by one of her neighbors as the fire raced through and gutted her house.
Before it got to this point, though, Rebecca, who cares for an 80-year-old veteran,
had to get him out. - Assist me to walk back. I said, no. I turned him around, and out the door we went.
- Whoever holds the insurance policy could benefit from a fire at a house. Fire investigators work to determine if it was accidental
or not. - How fast does the house go up. - Just gone. Three minutes, four minutes.
It's that quick. - It was of an undetermined nature, as far as the fire was concerned.
REPORTER: A total loss, but that has not been the only loss at this address, 1051 Nokomis.
- My husband died tragically. REPORTER: Rebecca didn't want to talk about it, but back in February of 2008, her husband, Larry Fenton,
was found shot to death on the front porch. That murder has still not been solved.
- But it's just a house, and we're OK. And, uh-- yeah, it's just a house. KERRY DAYNES: When Rebecca is interviewed by the media
about the fire, she's smiling. She's smiling at times when you wouldn't expect it,
particularly when she says, oh, well, you know, it's just a house. She's absolutely right.
It is just a house. But it's a house that's been absolutely devastated. And these little flashes of smiles--
we call them microexpressions-- this is either characteristic Rebecca Fenton used to smiling through all
of life's problems or this is somebody who is experiencing duping delight. What duping delight is is the pleasure
that one feels when somebody is telling a lie and they feel that they're getting away with it.
- When I saw that there was a fire at Rebecca Fenton's house where she was living, I didn't think
it was a coincidence or an accident in any way, shape, or form. [grim music] - After the fire at the Fenton home,
police reopened the investigation regarding Mr. Fenton's death. CHRIS PRECIOUS: I think her mindset was that she
had gotten away with this. It just tells you that you have to work that much harder.
At this point, Alfred Nolan comes forward with this information saying at some point,
there was some kind of a argument or confrontation, where Rebecca makes a threatening and incriminating
statement towards Alfred Nolan about she would kill him the way she killed Larry.
DALE GABBARD: Mr. Nolan, who was a multiply convicted felon, who was in jail at the time when all of this was coming out
and was receiving a much lighter sentence for his testimony and cooperation, this man would probably say anything about anyone
if it benefited him. [intriguing music] On March 21 of 2014, police, again, questioned Mrs. Fenton.
- I just had a question. - Sure. - Why am I here? - OK. I started investigating an unresolved case in Clearwater,
and it's your husband. And I just want to lay this out for you so that you can--
- --what happened to him? - I just want you to listen, and I-- OK, we're going to get-- we're going to get to all this.
- Obviously, she was totally distraught over this. It had been over six years since her husband's death.
- I just want to let you know up front my position-- - And I appreciate that. - --and where I'm coming from.
- OK. - When Rebecca Fenton was brought in for another interview, well, the line of questioning
is different. It's now more confrontational. - This-- - This was found in my car.
- This bag is right there. This is a handgun, a revolver. - You are 100% the suspect, so now we're
going to confront you on we found the gun that was used to kill Larry under your car.
- These are the keys to the Jeep. - You're not being honest with me. - I'm absolutely being--
I have no-- just listen. I have no benefit to lie. - I agree. - This interrogation, they needed, really,
a confession, because a confession was going to be the most powerful piece of evidence,
especially given that the other evidence was all circumstantial. They've got this statement from her partner, who
said that she threatened him and that she said that I'll kill you like I killed Larry.
But there are also questions that I'm sure the police had, which are, how reliable are you, really, as a witness?
- At this point, I've laid out this case, and I want to give you the opportunity
to respond to any of this. - In almost all cases, the police look at the forensic evidence, and quite
frankly, the forensic evidence clearly showed Ms. Fenton was innocent. - What I've learned about you is that you are a good person.
You have given up hours and hours and hours of your own time trying to help others.
I don't know-- I never met Larry, so there's a lot of time, just in the house, where it's only Rebecca and Larry and nobody else.
And only those two people know and have truly a full understanding of their relationship.
- When you commit the crime of murder, whether you confess to it or not, this gives you the opportunity to maybe
enlighten detectives as to the reason why you did it. - What sometimes people on the outside don't know
is what life is really like privately. So what I don't know, because I don't know Rebecca and Larry--
- Our life was good. - I don't know Larry at all. - We were having a good day. - Rebecca continued to just steadfastly deny
that she was the one who did it and not giving any reason why she might have done it.
- Larry and I did not have problems. DALE GABBARD: She was taking it very hard. And through the testimony of a person
who would have very high unreliability, she was arrested. - Rebecca, will you stand, please.
Remember Officer Kanicki? - Yeah. - Rebecca, you're under arrest for the murder of Larry Fenton.
You were indicted this morning by a grand jury for first-degree murder. - When Rebecca is told she's under arrest
for murdering Larry Fenton, I think she did not see that coming. - Rebecca has a choice, and she absolutely sticks to the fact
that no, she had the perfect marriage and there's no evidence to say otherwise. What goes on behind closed doors between two people,
only two people really know what happened and what that marriage was like. But Rebecca isn't going to say that there were any problems.
Maybe there weren't any problems. I doubt it. STEPHANIE KINGMAN: Once we heard that she had been arrested, albeit on charges of murder,
I wish I could say that sadness was my first feeling, but unfortunately it was more relief
that there was going to be some sort of a conclusion. [grim music] - Rebecca Fenton's trial began on November 25, 2015.
- We're pretty convinced that she was responsible for both the murder and the fire
at that time. - I can't say that I've led a sheltered life or anything like that, but the life I have lived
has not quite prepared me for the trial. - The state put on an admirable case, quite frankly,
of what I would call almost character assassination of Ms. Fenton. They used Mr. Nolan as somewhat of a star witness.
- So the prosecutors said Rebecca killed Larry to financially benefit from it. DALE GABBARD: I don't believe there was any reason Rebecca
would want her husband dead. Clearly, Ms. Fenton's life went down after Larry passed,
and there's no way someone could do this and be forensically as clean as she was.
CHRIS PRECIOUS: I wasn't worried about the lack of forensic evidence. You have almost a direct line between where the victim was
found, where the shots were fired, and where Rebecca claims to be the entire time,
so she puts herself at the scene. - The verdict was guilty of first degree murder.
Rebecca was sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. - It's always rewarding in the end
when you get a conviction and all the work that you put into this pays off. [grim music]
KAREN KENDALL: The telephone calls from jail give us a glimpse inside her mind. REBECCA FENTON (ON PHONE): And I've done nothing wrong,
and that's how I'm feeling. And the truth is going to come out. - She would just talk in circles
and go round and round and round. She would repeat things over and over again. REBECCA FENTON (ON PHONE): I'm tired of being accused
of things that I haven't done. - I think she has told the narrative that she is innocent so many times that she is
now convinced herself of it. REBECCA FENTON (ON PHONE): When detectives know it would such a big fad, people
have a tendency to believe them, and it doesn't make it true. - And I think that's her ability to sort of separate
herself from the negative. It probably did her well to have that ability in her line of work,
you know, when things got crazy and things got uncomfortable. REBECCA FENTON (ON PHONE): I'm horrified that I can
be behind bars based on that. It's like, you've got to be kidding me. - She is my sister, and I do have
unconditional love for her. I certainly don't have any objective to, you know, try to teach her that, you know,
that she needs to know that she did this. It doesn't-- it just doesn't seem to matter very much, you know.
[solemn music] KERRY DAYNES: I think that Rebecca Fenton was somebody with a troubled mind and somebody who
didn't have control or mastery over their emotions and somebody who had a degree of trauma in her life,
and I think it sought solace through wearing a mask rather than actually facing up to her difficulties
in some form of therapy. And that's very sad, because now she's in jail and there's an innocent man has lost his life.
JULIA SHAW: There's so many unanswered questions in this case. Surely, Larry would have been a provider
and would have been there for her in life better than in death. There's that question, and there's
questions around, really? Is this kind of financial payout enough to motivate someone to commit this kind of crime?
And I think there's a big question mark there. And it feels like it could have been that there's
something else going on in their relationship, or maybe there was something else about Larry
that she knew that she could use to rationalize this kind of extreme violence against him.
STEPHANIE KINGMAN: I don't think it's because she was adopted or because our mother was
an alcoholic or because she didn't meet us till later in life. I believe that she made choices and
decisions as an adult that ultimately led to her downfall. KAREN KENDALL: I'm sorry about the drugs and the alcohol
before she was born. I have to live with that. I have times when it keeps me from sleeping,
but I am the mother of a murderer. [theme music]

A double-life wife stages a home invasion to hide the cold-blooded shooting of her husband.

Murder in Mind explores the psychological forces that drive people to murder.

Brief Summary

Rebecca Fenton is convicted of murdering her husband Larry after a complex investigation reveals inconsistencies in her story.

Key points

The Day of the Incident. On Super Bowl Sunday, a woman calls 911, setting off a chain of events.
Rebecca's Life Before Larry. Rebecca's past reveals a tumultuous upbringing and a search for stability.
The Aftermath of Larry's Death. Rebecca discovers her husband dead, leading to a tense investigation.
Rebecca's Gun Ownership. Rebecca acknowledges owning a gun, raising questions about its role in Larry's death.
Discovery of the Murder Weapon. Police find a gun linked to Larry's murder in Rebecca's car, intensifying the investigation.
Rebecca's Arrest. Rebecca is arrested for the murder of her husband, Larry, after a lengthy investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She seemed like the right thing.

4:17WatchOct 26, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.