The Devil in the Details | Fatal Fraud | Forensic Files

[audio logo] [unsettling music] JAMES BALDWIN (ON PHONE): I need your help. My wife, I don't think she's breathing.
Oh, God. NARRATOR: Every fraud begins with a promise. CANDICE LIVELY: Howard patrol was
immediately suspicious that this horrible accident was not an accident. NARRATOR: A quick fortune, easy money, or
a life transformed overnight. - She's bleeding profusely. Can't get the bleeding to stop.
NARRATOR: But behind these illusions, lie calculated deceptions. Carefully hidden in plain sight.
- There absolutely were whispers in the community about her death. NARRATOR: Sometimes these criminals
are backed into a corner and feel their only way out is to kill. - He wanted his wife.
He wanted a girlfriend. And when those things were threatened, he was unwilling to lose it.
[exhilarating music] [unsettling music] 911 DISPATCHER (ON PHONE): Chester 911. JAMES BALDWIN (ON PHONE): We ran off of the bridge.
911 DISPATCHER (ON PHONE): You ran off the bridge? JAMES BALDWIN (ON PHONE): Yes, ma'am.
I need help. My wife, I don't think she's breathing. 911 DISPATCHER (ON PHONE): All right.
Is she trapped in the vehicle? JAMES BALDWIN (ON PHONE): No, ma'am. I have pulled her out.
Please help me. Oh, God. CALVIN RIKARD: We work thousands of cases, and then there are certain in cases that
just stick with you forever. Ms. Judy is going to be one of those cases that I don't think anybody in this area has ever forgotten.
[unsettling music] TRAVIS JENKINS: Chester is a community where for the most part, people still know each other.
People know their neighbor and know their neighbor's neighbor. I'm Travis Jenkins.
I grew up in Chester. I've worked at Chester News & Reporter full time since 2003.
So 22 years. NARRATOR: In the tight knit community of Chester. Judy Orr was a much loved figure.
TRAVIS JENKINS: Judy loved her family. She was a very kind and giving person and just
a very sweet natured lady. - I'm Candace Lively, I'm the deputy solicitor in Chester County.
Judy was a very important woman in the community because she was involved with her church.
She knew a lot of important people in the community just because of her kindness,
she would volunteer. She was just someone that most people knew. Judy did have quite an affinity for the motorcycle groups
that she was involved with. NARRATOR: In 2004, tragedy struck when Judy's husband, Todd was killed
in a motorcycle accident. CANDICE LIVELY: Her husband when he unfortunately passed away, she really missed that part of her life of being
connected with that community. NARRATOR: After the death of her husband, Judy continued playing a part in the Christian biker group.
And around 2011, she met 52-year-old fellow biker James Baldwin. CANDICE LIVELY: James Baldwin is someone
that Judy met when he was a dispatcher for Chester County Sheriff's Office, and he had also had some experience
as a police officer in a neighboring county, that would be York County. - My name is Dr. Vicky Thakordas-Desai,
and I am a consultant forensic psychologist. Judy became a widow. It's only natural for somebody to want
companionship and someone to love again in their life. And she made the decision to move on
after a substantial period of being single. She was loving and caring, and she wanted to be able to share that with a partner.
She wanted to be able to enjoy companionship once again and felt like she could move on from her loss.
NARRATOR: While Judy was financially secure after the death of her husband, Todd,
James Baldwin was an ex-deputy and local 911 operator. - Judy was definitely better off financially.
Whenever she met James Baldwin, she had the house that her husband left her. She had plenty of money from everything
she received from the proceeds of her husband's passing. Jamie is not financially in the same situation.
He's always filing insurance claims. He was always looking for ways that he could make money
because he just didn't make much money doing what he was doing as a dispatcher. VICKY THAKORDAS-DESAI: James Baldwin
was somebody who was looking for opportunities, opportunities to further themselves
and their own wealth. There is evidence of him trying to defraud insurance. CANDICE LIVELY: He's actually waiting for financial money
to come in from some motorcycle accident he had, where he was claiming that the Department of Public Safety
was at fault for having electrical box in the wrong place on a street, and he ran into it
and damaged his bike and he was hurt. - My name is Fiona Hotston Moore, and I'm a forensic accountant and expert witness.
In my experience of fraud, they do tend to be serial fraudsters. So they do it once and they get away with it.
They-- perhaps in their mind, don't intend to do it again, but then circumstances are such that they do-- do it again.
And I think you need to bear in mind the fraud triangle, which means there needs to be motive, opportunity
and rationalization. And if those three factors are in place, then quite often a fraudster will repeat the previous fraud.
NARRATOR: James Baldwin's background as a 911 operator and ex-deputy meant he was quickly embraced
by the Chester community. TRAVIS JENKINS: I definitely think that James Baldwin's background and
law enforcement would have made other people trustful of him. And I think that that probably just grew because, again,
so many people knew Judy and so many people loved or liked her. She had a lot of friends.
She was very well known in the community. NARRATOR: In March 2012, Judy and James
married, and Judy was happy to spend lavishly on her new husband. - Judy really did enjoy spending money on Jamie.
He was very charismatic. And at the time, she's just such a console. I think she just loved all the attention.
It had been a long time since she had had a serious relationship, and so she did.
They actually went and bought a beautiful new Harley Davidson motorcycle for him.
And anything and everything he wanted for it, she paid for it. She basically set him up in this house
and paid for and did anything that he wanted. He was living the kind of life that he wanted to live,
but it was because Judy had the money and not him. NARRATOR: In June 2016, James Baldwin
persuaded Judy to take out a $25,000 life insurance policy. CANDICE LIVELY: James Baldwin did
take out the accidental life insurance policy. It just seemed like a normal thing to do.
And she had unfortunately lost a husband in her lifetime, and she understood the importance
of having money whenever you have an unfortunate loss like that. Jamie had been in some motorcycle accidents
in the past and he said, you know, these are-- having an insurance policy is important.
FIONA HOTSTON MOORE: An accident-only life policy only pays out if the person dies in an accident.
So it does not pay out if they die of natural causes, or some terminal illness, et cetera.
It's much cheaper and easier to obtain and therefore potentially more liable to fraud--
fraudulent claims when someone actually dies in an untoward circumstance. NARRATOR: In December 2016, Judy and James Baldwin
were getting ready for an event with their Christian biker group. CANDICE LIVELY: Judy Baldwin loved Christmas.
That was her favorite time of the year. They would go with their group, their Christian biker group,
on different trips to raise money for charities. They had one, that was their biggest one each year,
which was around Christmas, where they would collect toys for children who were in need.
They were going to go to Kentucky actually for the 2016 Christmas. That's whenever things fell apart.
NARRATOR: 11:04 PM on the evening of December 14, 2016, Chester police receive a 911 distress call.
911 DISPATCHER (ON PHONE): Chester 911. JAMES BALDWIN (ON PHONE): We ran off the bridge.
911 DISPATCHER (ON PHONE): You ran off the bridge? JAMES BALDWIN (ON PHONE): Yes, ma'am, I need help.
My wife, I don't think she's breathing. 911 DISPATCHER (ON PHONE): All right. Is she trapped in the vehicle?
JAMES BALDWIN (ON PHONE): No, ma'am. I have pulled her out. Please help me. Oh, God.
NARRATOR: Highway Officer James Calvin Rikard Jr. Was asked to respond. - My name was James Calvin Rikard,
Jr. We enforce all traffic laws and crashes in South Carolina, and we would get called out to work more complex collisions.
The early hours of the 15, I was at home, I was sleeping, I got a call from my supervisor and
stated that the troop here in Chester, South Carolina, was needing assistance with one of the cases
that they had responded to. NARRATOR: The supervisor explained, a Jeep had crashed on Old Richburg Road,
just outside of Chester. CALVIN RIKARD: It's a two lane road, but it is dark. There's no really ambient lighting out in that area.
You are, as we would say, in the country at that point. NARRATOR: The couple traveling in the Jeep
were Judy Orr Baldwin and her husband, James Baldwin. RANDY NEWMAN: I'm Randy Newman, Sixth Circuit solicitor.
So according to James Baldwin, some errant car comes into his lane or truck, runs him off the road,
and he says that he blacked out at some point. When he comes to, he reaches over,
doesn't feel her in the seat, crawls out of the vehicle and finds her lying in a creek.
Not underwater, just in a couple of inches of water, unable to get her, come to and calls 911.
NARRATOR: Judy Orr Baldwin was pronounced dead at the scene. James Baldwin was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
TRAVIS JENKINS: The news of her death actually got to us the next day, but even at that point,
there were already sort of whispers in the community that there was more to the story.
-- I felt like there was something different about this case, but I got the internal nudge that I needed to go
actually to the hospital and talk to Mr. Baldwin as soon as possible. When I first had the conversation
with-- with on scene supervisor, what he was saying that Mr. Baldwin had told him
at the scene was not matching up with what the damage was or the lack of damage.
So pretty close early on in the investigation, I felt like something wasn't-- wasn't adding up with what
he was saying and what was being presented at the scene itself. CANDICE LIVELY: James Baldwin, at first, when he called 911,
he claimed that that there was a car accident. He swerved to miss a truck that had come into his lane,
that he went off the road and must have lost consciousness, because he kind of comes to when the Jeep stopped and
realized that his wife was not next to him in the passenger seat of the vehicle.
NARRATOR: While James Baldwin was taken to the hospital with minor injuries, officers began to notice inconsistencies
between evidence at the scene with James Baldwin's version of events. CALVIN RIKARD: I knew the story that was being told
did not line up with what was being presented at the scene. I spoke with the on-scene supervisor,
he was telling me that he had some concerns with what Mr. Baldwin had told him. The on-scene supervisor was saying
that Mr. Baldwin had told him he felt like Ms. Judy was ejected out of the vehicle,
and that's what caused her death. I asked him if he could send me a couple pictures of the vehicle.
He showed me those pictures, and I knew that was not the case from the lack of damage to the vehicle.
NARRATOR: Officer Rikard decided to go straight to the hospital to interview James Baldwin.
CALVIN RIKARD: He did say that he tried to get her up the embankment, but also said that he found her in the front of the vehicle,
which would have been in the water, and she was basically pulled towards the driver's side
of the vehicle, which would not be in the direct path to try to get her to the top of the embankment.
So that was a little strange, but maybe he was disoriented. I was trying to give him the benefit
of the doubt at that time when he is telling me this story. NARRATOR: During the interview at the hospital,
James Baldwin's story of what happened that evening began to change. CALVIN RIKARD: He started adding more stuff to it
to try to fill in those gaps and those questions that he was being asked. So his story was that back at the house,
there was an incident. There where Ms. Judy had fell off of a ladder while trying to decorate a Christmas tree.
He was outside at that moment. When he came back inside, he saw that she was laying on the floor, was bleeding a lot,
and decided that she needed to go to the hospital to get stitches. RANDY NEWMAN: So according to James Baldwin,
they are decorating for Christmas. She's on a step ladder decorating the tree. James Baldwin said, she fell and bumped her head.
She's bleeding profusely. Can't get the bleeding to stop. Gotta take her to hospital.
CALVIN RIKARD: And as he was traveling down Old Richburg Road, a vehicle was in his lane of travel
where he took evasive action and ran off the right side of the road. Kind of overcorrected and went off the left side of the road,
down an embankment and into a creek, where he said that he doesn't remember really
what happened after that, except when he woke up that Ms. Judy was not in the vehicle,
and then he found her outside of the Jeep itself. NARRATOR: Officer Rikard noticed a lack of emotion
from James Baldwin. CALVIN RIKARD: I knew he was a police officer. I knew he was in public safety.
And maybe that was just the way somebody actually responded to that behavior. I asked him point blank that night if he
did anything to hurt Ms. Judy. That was the only time that I saw emotion out of him
during this interview, is when I was accusing him of doing something to Ms. Judy.
NARRATOR: After interviewing James Baldwin at the hospital, Officer Rikard joined his colleagues
at the scene of the accident. CALVIN RIKARD: This is a rural two lane road out in the country.
There's a bridge there that covers the creek itself, but I was able to see the path of travel
that Mr. Baldwin went off the right side of the road. And even when I got there, he should
have stayed in a straight path, which would have taken him straight into the woods.
And so when he goes off the left side of the road, he has to make a controlled movement
to straighten up the vehicle, drive down the embankment, get to the creek bottom, and then kind
of angle it back to the right. And so it does not add up with what he is telling us.
CANDICE LIVELY: Highway Patrol was immediately suspicious. They see accidents all the time.
Number one, they didn't see damage to the vehicle. They thought that that was very suspicious.
And the fact that the windshield was intact, nothing was really damaged except for just
the front little grill piece on the Jeep. There was no indication of a huge turn
or some type of movement by the vehicle to avoid a truck coming into his lane, which he claimed.
CALVIN RIKARD: I can see the fresh marks in the dirt off the right side of the roadway,
and I'm like, this doesn't happen when you're traveling at normal highway speeds of 50,
55 miles an hour. So just seeing the Jeep, its location, the path of travel that it took to get to its location,
the amount of blood that was in the vehicle, and on the outside of the vehicle just did not add up with her getting
ejected out of the vehicle. NARRATOR: Despite the concerns of the officers at the scene,
James Baldwin's background as a deputy and 911 responder meant local officers were quick to believe
his version of events. CANDICE LIVELY: Here in Chester County, with it being such a small county,
people are in the community who work in law enforcement. It's hard to look at them and think
that they could have had anything to do with injuring a family member. I think that there's just that inherent small town feel
that there's just no way Jamie Baldwin could have done something to hurt this wonderful woman
that everybody loved. VICKY THAKORDAS-DESAI: It is highly likely that when James called 911 and his colleagues responded to that,
that they would have quite quickly believed his version of events. He was a trusted colleague.
He had worked within the profession for as long as he did, and that unconscious bias
that would have been present, which would have rationalized their decision, which was-- well,
actually, he's an-- he's one of us. He should be telling the truth. He is telling the truth.
And therefore, there's no need to question this any further. CANDICE LIVELY: On the night when the Jeep went off
the road, the Sheriff's Office did send an investigator to the home. He looked in the window, and you could immediately see,
there was blood on the floor in the main area. It was a huge, wide open main area.
There was a ladder and a huge Christmas tree. Unfortunately, he only took about 40
pictures, not that many more. But looking at the scene without having anybody else
come in there, he went and reported back that what he saw, and based on what Mr. Baldwin had told him,
he believed that Judy had fallen from the ladder and hit her head on the mantle or somewhere in that area.
And that's what caused her head injuries, so that fit with what he believed at the time
Jamie Baldwin was telling everyone. NARRATOR: Satisfied with James Baldwin's story
that there had been an accident at the home, the investigator allowed the scene to be cleaned up.
- The only person who walked in that home that was law enforcement was the investigator from the sheriff's
office, and he also told a friend of Jamie Baldwin, you can go ahead and clean up.
I'm sure you don't want it to look like this whenever Mr. Baldwin gets back to the house.
He gave a card to this female by the name of Terry King, who said, you can call these people.
They'll clean up the-- the blood. NARRATOR: On the morning of December 15, the community of Chester learned
of Judy Orr Baldwin's death, and there was immediate suspicion around what happened.
TRAVIS JENKINS: We found out about it the next day, word gets around very quickly in a town as small as Chester.
CANDICE LIVELY: Law enforcement had two different versions of what could have happened.
Highway patrol was thinking, this is not a car accident. And then you had law enforcement
with the Sheriff's Office saying, well, it looks like it was possibly an accident from a fall
that happened at the house. RANDY NEWMAN: They took his statement, they went to the house, and they did,
I guess, the bare minimum. And this guy was a former dispatcher at the Sheriff's Office.
They never, at any point, thought that he's not being truthful. NARRATOR: A local pathologist performed an autopsy to try
to confirm the cause of death. CANDICE LIVELY: The biggest issue happened whenever the autopsy was done.
The findings of the pathologist was that she had died from a blunt force trauma to the head.
But in their opinion, that it was probably because of the fall. TRAVIS JENKINS: There absolutely
were whispers in the community about-- about her death. There were just questions about, I guess,
holes in Jamie's story. His, I guess, connection to the law enforcement community.
I think a lot of those things were brought up as questions that people had about whether or not
this was being looked into as thoroughly as it should have been, and whether or not there
was more to the story, which most people seem to think that there was. NARRATOR: While local law enforcement
were quick to believe James Baldwin's version of events, the coroner who knew Judy personally had doubts.
CANDICE LIVELY: Terry Tinker, our coroner, and the family, after hearing everything, strongly
believed that it didn't fit with what they were actually seeing from the pictures that were taken at the home
that this didn't make sense. How she could have such a severe head trauma falling from basically a three-step ladder.
So there were just a lot of questions. RANDY NEWMAN: I think it was just he was taken at his word.
They felt like they didn't have anything to show otherwise, and so they weren't moving along
the way the family wanted them to, or the way the coroner wanted them to. TRAVIS JENKINS: I mean, to be honest,
there were a lot of people who said that he had killed her, that they believed that Jamie had murdered Judy.
NARRATOR: In early 2017, the investigation into the death of Judy Orr Baldwin was still ongoing, with the coroner
and the sheriff still in disagreement about what happened. RANDY NEWMAN: I started getting calls
early on from the community. Hey, this isn't right. Somebody needs to do something.
CANDICE LIVELY: This case was very tricky, simply because we had an initial disagreement
or kind of this impasse between investigating agencies. NARRATOR: The fact that key people investigating the case
knew both James Baldwin and Judy Orr Baldwin personally complicated matters. CANDICE LIVELY: So initially, that was hard to get
over that hump of thinking. We've got to look at this as investigators and not as friends of one another.
We've got to dig into this and do what's fair for this family. VICKY THAKORDAS-DESAI: When you're
emotionally involved with anyone, whether that's the victim or the perpetrator, it is hard to detach yourself, especially professionally,
when you are being asked to offer an opinion. And therefore, the whole town was impacted
in some way, shape, or form. RANDY NEWMAN: Then we get a call from the judge, local judge.
He wants to meet with the coroner in the Sheriff's Office. So it's kind of like those two guys are getting called
to the principal's office. NARRATOR: After meeting with the judge, the coroner continued the investigation
with the help of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, known as SLED. CANDICE LIVELY: SLED is a multi-jurisdictional
investigative agency. So most places like Chester, who, you know, were small, rural community, we don't have
our own drug testing labs. We don't have a DNA testing lab. So whenever we have a complex case,
then you want to bring in someone who has all of these individuals who have specialized training.
NARRATOR: SLED began by reexamining the photos taken at Judy Orr's home, where James Baldwin had told police
she fell and hit her head. CANDICE LIVELY: We basically went back through every little inch of every photo that
was taken by that Sheriff investigator to try to break things down. They tried to find the ladder.
So he's saying, oh, I don't have the ladder anymore. I took it to this attorney that I
was going to have sue because it was a defective model of the ladder. We wanted to measure how high would
Judy have been from the ground if she fell from this ladder. And all of a sudden, he's just, well,
it's just I can't find it. NARRATOR: The SLED team also decided to examine the data from the Jeep's internal control system,
known as the black box. CALVIN RIKARD: So the black box has been termed kind of referencing airplanes.
The black box in a vehicle is designed to analyze certain components, certain data.
And the sole purpose of it is to deploy airbags. It does give us a lot of information
in regards to vehicle speed, braking, acceleration, temperature, odometer reading.
NARRATOR: The black box data records any unexpected changes of speed that would occur in a car accident,
which are recorded as events. CALVIN RIKARD: There has to be a change in velocity
for 5 miles an hour over a certain time frame, which I think was 150 milliseconds for an event
to even occur. And in this case, there was no events recorded. If there was any speed involved, and
an event would have occurred. And when it told us nothing was on that module to us,
that was-- that was a red flag. NARRATOR: The data from the black box, along with other evidence collected on the road,
began to cast even more doubt on James Baldwin's story that he swerved to avoid an oncoming vehicle.
CALVIN RIKARD: There is no doubt that they were traveling down Old Richburg Road,
and we have tire impressions where they ran off the right side of the road. But if somebody's traveling off the roadway
at 55 miles an hour, that there's going to be some tearing into that land, that dirt,
especially as soft as it was, and that was not the case. NARRATOR: As well as showing James Baldwin was not
driving fast on the road, the damage to the car suggested it was driven down the embankment at a very
controlled slow speed. CANDICE LIVELY: They were able to pull all of this data out of there to determine that he
was not going that fast. He never had an impact that would have caused the airbags to go off.
That was immediately apparent to them. If all this horrible accident, he runs off the road.
So the black box ended up being super critical for highway patrol to basically say this was not an accident.
I mean, they felt comfortable saying it looked like it was a very intentional act by the driver
to pull off the road and down into this ravine in a very slow manner. NARRATOR: While SLED continued their investigation,
James Baldwin moved out of Judy Orr's family home and in with his female friend Terry King--
the person police had allowed to clean up the blood the night Judy died. CANDICE LIVELY: Whenever we learned that Jamie Baldwin had
moved in with Terry King, it was right after we started really, really investigating
the case with SLED, and Judy's family were pushing him to get out of the family home
or getting out of Judy's home. So he moves in with Terry. And at first, I think he just used it as, oh,
I have nowhere else to go. But of course, I was thinking, obviously, this is his girlfriend.
Of course, that's where he's going to go, but that's how he kind of played it to everybody else.
NARRATOR: After James Baldwin left the family home, SLED had an opportunity to reexamine
the potential crime scene. RANDY NEWMAN: We were very fortunate in this case that we were able to go back to the family home after a year
or so Ms. Baldwin's son had actually taken over the family home. Luckily, he had not painted or any of that thing.
They found blood spatter over the top of the fireplace, consistent with someone thrusting or
hitting someone with something and blood flying off of the object. CANDICE LIVELY: So that shows that it
was more of a blow or something of that movement that would have caused her blood to be that high.
We had the DNA tested and it was her blood, and there's no reason why a 4 foot 9 woman would have blood
almost 12 feet up in the air. NARRATOR: After finding forensic evidence that contradicted James Baldwin's story
of Judy falling from a ladder, SLED made another crucial discovery. CANDICE LIVELY: One of the items that was very critical
that was taken from the scene was a Santa stocking holder. It's one of these iron stocking holders, very heavy.
We took that to our forensic pathologist, Dr. Ross. - When she saw it, she immediately said, that's it.
We asked, OK, he said she fell off the ladder, could she have fallen off the ladder
and hit this because it's a stocking holder, it would hang off the mantle. And she said, absolutely not.
This was blunt force trauma. She was hit with this item. NARRATOR: In June 2017, six months after Judy's death,
police were called to the home of Terry King. CANDICE LIVELY: I get a call from York County Sheriff's
Office telling me that Terry King's residence had burned down. I learned that there had been other problems
going on between Terry and Jamie at that time. Terry had actually called the police
after she told him to leave. Then a knife ends up stuck in her tree that actually had carved into it the letters B-I-T-C-H.
She was terrified. She called the police. They came and took pictures of it. They suggested police put up some type
of like a deer camera or a camera, so we can see maybe who it is. She felt it was Jamie Baldwin, but, of course,
she got to have proof. She did put up these deer cameras. She went out of town for a weekend.
While she was gone, she gets a call that her house is on fire. They look at the camera, you can
see a man coming into the property, then he walks back out, gets in his vehicle and leaves.
The house goes up in flames. And they were able to determine that this person was James Baldwin.
So he was arrested for arson and fraud. Because he was going to try to sue the insurance company for his contents
that were still inside of her home. FIONA HOTSTON MOORE: In my experience in cases such as James Baldwin, people
will undertake small frauds, whether that's an insurance fraud or some other fraud.
They get away with it, they become bolder, and they then undertake another fraud, and so on.
So when insurance companies are looking at paying out on claims, they will look-- look
at previous claims to see if there is actually a history and therefore, whether they need to go back and
review previous claims. NARRATOR: While James Baldwin was out on bond for second degree arson and burning personal property
to defraud insurers, he was indicted for the murder of Judy Orr Baldwin. CANDICE LIVELY: By that time, it
was clear throughout the community that everyone believed that this was not an accident.
As a matter of fact, because of all the community involvement and Facebook and social media, we
knew that we were probably going to have trouble getting a jury pool that wasn't going
to be biased in favor of Judy. So we actually had to change venue to another county
so we could try the case. NARRATOR: In October 2019, James Baldwin stood trial for the murder of his wife Judy Orr Baldwin.
TRAVIS JENKINS: We were there for every day of it. I know there were a lot of other media,
TV, and newspapers that were there. There was obviously a lot of interest in that case for a lot of reasons, partly, I think,
because people knew Judy, but also because the arrest took so long. The investigation felt like to a lot of people,
it dragged on for so long, longer than it should have. So that kind of built a lot of intrigue.
RANDY NEWMAN: The thing I remember most is the family, Judy's friends, they showed up every day.
It's just heartbreaking for them. TRAVIS JENKINS: The atmosphere was interesting
because once out of the courtroom, you have the family and friends of the victim.
And then on the other side of the courtroom, you have the family and friends of the accused.
And I distinctly remember just being struck by the fact that the side where Judy's family and friends were sitting
was filled, I believe, to overflow. Like, they literally had to bring chairs in and sat in the back of the courtroom
to accommodate all of her friends and family that attended. And they were there every day.
CALVIN RIKARD: I did attend the trial. There was a full gallery side of Ms. Judy every day
of the trial. So again, I think that goes back to what kind of person she was and what the community thought of her.
TRAVIS JENKINS: And the most people I recall sitting on Jamie's side of the courtroom
was one, one person. NARRATOR: After an intense 18-month investigation, the prosecution knew they had to convince
the jury that Judy's death was not an accident. CANDICE LIVELY: Whenever you have a start of a case that's
an accident, and then you learn as you're going on with the evidence that an accident completely does not
fit the scenario, then you have to really take your time to make sure that you go back and
explain away or explain to some extent why it was missed on the front end. TRAVIS JENKINS: But the most compelling part
was when the SLED investigator was brought in and unveiled the findings of the black box.
Jamie's story was she had fallen. I'm taking her to the hospital, and they were run off the road by a truck,
and they swerved wildly and plowed down an embankment and hit something hard. But when SLED got the results from that black box,
it demonstrated that the car came to a stop. It slowly turned and drove 5 miles an hour
down the embankment. And at that point, his story completely fell apart. NARRATOR: For the prosecution, one
of the most challenging aspects of the case was addressing the conflicting opinions of law enforcement.
CANDICE LIVELY: The worst part about the case for me was having to cross-examine, or treat hostilely, individuals
who were typically on my side, but the bottom line is they didn't do their job. The worst part was having to ask that investigator,
oh, you actually handed the girlfriend of Mr. Baldwin a card, letting her know that this cleanup
company will come and clean up the blood from the crime scene. That was not good.
That was a moment where I could feel the jury beside me going. What? He did what-- it was just kind of a very uncomfortable moment.
NARRATOR: The relationship between James and Terry King was a key argument for the prosecution.
RANDY NEWMAN: It was very important. I think it leads us to motive, although there's
several other things that lead us to motive. But somebody who's got a girlfriend
and is in a marriage, that becomes an automatic issue. CANDICE LIVELY: The relationship
between James Baldwin and Terry King was a really big piece of our case, because it showed the intentions of the defendant
and why he would have wanted Judy gone. So it was a big motive. Also, the money.
NARRATOR: The $25,000 insurance policy was a key argument for the prosecution. TRAVIS JENKINS: I definitely remember
the accidental insurance policy that was taken out before Judy's murder. That was prominently mentioned during the trial
as a possible motive. CANDICE LIVELY: You know, you think of $25,000, you're like,
wow, that's not a whole lot. But for someone like Jamie, who at the time was getting ready to possibly be out on the street
without a house, without a motorcycle, because everything had been bought for him by Judy,
any money was going to be critical to him. NARRATOR: The prosecution argued control was another key factor in the case.
- James Baldwin was definitely someone who always wanted control. Judy was someone who he was able to manipulate and control
from the beginning because it had been years since she had been in a relationship.
She desperately wanted to have someone who loved her, and that she could spend the rest of her days with.
She actually confronted Jamie about this friendship he was having with Terry King and told him, absolutely,
this has to stop. And if not, then you're going to have to leave. And we believe that's what probably
led to the huge argument that happened on the night that she ended up dying. Was he wanted to go to Kentucky,
she did not want him to go. And she knew Terry King was going. So we believe that whenever Jamie
felt he was losing control, Judy was finally standing up for herself, and she wasn't going to let it happen.
And that's whenever the argument and her eventual death took place. VICKY THAKORDAS-DESAI: James Baldwin wanted to have it all.
He wanted his wife. He wanted a girlfriend. And when those things were threatened,
he was unwilling to lose it. So he used whatever means necessary to get what he wanted so that he could stay stable and sustained.
RANDY NEWMAN: I think he felt like that was all his life, as he knew it was getting ready to change,
because Judy wasn't going to put up with that. She wasn't going to allow him to live in her house
and have a motorcycle and all this stuff that she's buying him and have a girlfriend.
So he was going to have to make some changes. He kind of saw his golden egg going away, so to speak.
NARRATOR: On November 5, 2019, after a week long trial, the jury retired to consider their verdict.
RANDY NEWMAN: It's always nerve racking. That's something that you never get used to.
You're sitting there and you look at the family and they're on pins and needles,
waiting to hear what you've really got to think about what that family's going through
and what they're thinking during that time, because we know it could go either way.
- I was so nervous because you just never know what a jury's going to do. NARRATOR: When the jury returned,
James Baldwin was found guilty of the murder of Judy Orr Baldwin. CANDICE LIVELY: We all broke down.
We could hear them crying behind us. Tears came to my eyes from just overwhelming emotion
and also just feeling like it was the right thing. It was definitely the right verdict.
RANDY NEWMAN: I don't think he really reacted a whole lot. There was a lot of relief from Judy's family.
And finally, it's over and we can breathe. CALVIN RIKARD: I think back now, like, I'm just so grateful and thankful for Ms. Judy's sake
and her family's sake, that I went straight to the hospital, was able to get that statement, lock him down
and what his events were, what he was saying happened that night. I think that helped.
And the court proceedings during his trial and ultimately with him being found guilty for her death.
NARRATOR: James Baldwin's exploitation of Judy for financial gain, which eventually
resulted in her murder, led to him being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
CANDICE LIVELY: Greed was a huge motivation for him, and it was something that had driven him for a long time.
And so when you look at his decision that night to take Judy out of the equation,
he clearly was thinking about the fact that this is going to put me in a situation
where I'm going to be set. He was going to have the house. He was going to keep his bike.
He was going to get $25,000. And he was going to have his girlfriend. VICKY THAKORDAS-DESAI: James has always
been in a position of power, so to have been confronted by Judy would have represented a level of threat for him.
He stood to lose everything. Everything that he'd managed to gain within the relationship,
which wasn't his. It was hers. Her house, her finances. And so he stood a lot to lose.
He wanted to have it all his way. TRAVIS JENKINS: I think you actually go beyond greed
when you're willing to kill somebody to collect money, especially a person that you purport
to love and take care of. I think you've actually gone beyond greed at that point,
and you've veered into either being mentally unwell or evil. NARRATOR: The murder of Judy Orr Baldwin
by her husband, James Baldwin, was not only devastating for Judy's family, but a traumatic experience
for the people of Chester. CANDICE LIVELY: Whenever I've looked back on this case,
I'll be honest, initially, I was shocked. I was like, what have I gotten myself into coming to Chester County because I was completely
blown away by the fact that the Sheriff and the coroner were having these issues.
TRAVIS JENKINS: Not every Deputy Solicitor like Candice Lively, and not every coroner
like Terry Tinker, would have been willing to buck the system a little bit because they
thought there was more going on there than they were being told. There was more to the story than what was
written on incident reports. They knew that there was something else going on, and that they didn't just accept the pat answer
and say, OK, well, he's not guilty, or it was an accident, or whatever. RANDY NEWMAN: So, I'm a firm believer,
everything happens for a reason. So have we not had a coroner and a Sheriff bumping heads and
we not called in SLED, we may have never known what really happened to Judy. [exhilarating music]

Judy Orr Baldwin dies after a crash on a rural road, but the damage does not fit her husband's account.

This true crime series delves into cases where financial schemes spiral into betrayal, violence and murder, exposing the deadly cost of lies fueled by greed.

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Brief Summary

Judy Orr Baldwin's suspicious death leads to her husband James being indicted for murder after a complex investigation reveals inconsistencies in his story.

Key points

A Tragic Call for Help. James Baldwin calls 911, claiming his wife is not breathing after a crash.
Community Whispers. The tight-knit community of Chester begins to suspect foul play in Judy's death.
The Life Insurance Policy. James Baldwin convinces Judy to take out a $25,000 life insurance policy shortly before her death.
Investigation Complications. The investigation faced disagreements between the coroner and sheriff, complicating the case.
Black Box Evidence. The black box data revealed that James Baldwin's story about the accident was false.
Trial Verdict. After an intense trial, James Baldwin was found guilty of murdering his wife.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

There absolutely were whispers in the community about her death.

Indication of suspicion surrounding Judy's death.

0:40WatchFeb 25, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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