The Murder of Byrd and Melanie Billings | Millionaire Murders | Forensic Files

[theme music] The area is called Beulah in the Pensacola area. It is very much a rural area.
WAYNE WRIGHT: It's a little ways to the north from downtown Pensacola. Very nice area of town.
This is an area of Pensacola that crime really is-- it's not thought of. It's a quiet little place.
Crime is never dreamed of. And certainly not a crime of this magnitude. When the Escambia County Sheriff's Office
received the 911 call, they basically send their units rapidly. The crime scene technicians monitor the same police radios
as the patrol deputies do. We heard this call go out. We heard that there were two shooting victims.
I knew that the crime scene technician's going to be needed. We were told there were two people killed in a house.
I was thinking that it's possibly a murder suicide. I got a call from the captain of the division
saying, you need to around your people up and come in. We need help. BOBBY GUY: There's a long private driveway.
And then when you go down the driveway, you see this-- it's a large plantation-style house
on a private lot with quite a bit of land, probably 10 or 15 acres. So it's very secluded.
The value of that property is really incredible. I mean, it was an incredible piece of property and a house.
WAYNE WRIGHT: There's a small fishing pond off to the left, a detached garage, and a swimming pool.
It is a very, very nice home. When patrol deputies go into a scene, the preservation of evidence is actually
secondary to the preservation of life. JOHN MALCHON: They enter the house. They see the blood inside the living room.
The husband and wife were dead in the house. It appeared to be close range shots.
Mr. and Mrs. Billings. Byrd and Melanie are found there in the bedroom. Byrd is face down.
He's got zip ties on his hands. There's wounds that are visible in his head area and his leg area.
Melanie Billings is in a hallway towards the bathroom. She is face up. There are multiple gunshots in her head,
multiple gunshots in her chest. And she's clearly deceased. And they find the bodies.
And then they're dealing with the multiple children that they had. The Billings family had adopted a lot
of special needs children. And a lot of the children were still present in the home.
There's children hiding and under beds, in closets, everywhere. The scene was absolutely chaos.
They enjoyed helping children with disabilities. There was maybe 12 or 13 children at the time.
They had to evacuate all the children, clear the house, make sure that there's nobody left that's around or injured.
You're looking for bad guys, in case the bad guys are hiding. The fact that these children were in the house--
I mean, thankfully, no harm befell them. They were not the recipients of more violence.
The crime scene folks came. The detectives arrive. There's a huge, you know, amount of police
presence at that point in time. BOBBY GUY: Half the force was there. And right away, I know that this is going to be something major.
I mean, it's obvious. WAYNE WRIGHT: The first and foremost thought for all law enforcement on the scene
is getting justice for the victims. And you can only get justice for the victims
by being careful, methodical, and making sure that as little as possible is missed.
Once patrol deputies secured the scene, I moved in and started documenting the scene.
We don't want to leave anything out because, at that early stage, we don't know what's going to be important.
JOHN MALCHON: There are spent 9 millimeter casings that have ejected from a semiautomatic pistol.
So you have a huge clue there. You have a semiautomatic pistol being used in the crime.
WAYNE WRIGHT: There were two shell casings in the living room, both around Mr. and Mrs.
Billings' deceased bodies. 10 casings in the master bedroom. We also recovered the projectiles, the projectiles
that had gone through the bodies and had embedded themselves in the wood through the rug.
The crime scene folks are documenting and photographing the points of entry, which shows that there clearly was busted
in doors, busted door frame, which shows the severity of the intrusion into the house.
It wasn't a knock on the door. This was a kick down the door type of thing. But typically, in these neighborhoods,
you don't get this kind of crime scene. And when I see multiple points of entry,
I know that this is something that's on a whole new level. Forced entry to multiple points, multiple assailants.
BOBBY GUY: One of the kids starts telling us about a red vehicle that she saw from her window.
We had a bank of secretaries that had been called in to take the tips that were calling in.
And I'll tell you right now, I didn't know how many red vans were in this county.
I was assigned to check them out. That was my job. BOBBY GUY: Maybe it's a robbery because it was a nice house
with money, somebody with a vendetta, or maybe even a family member. We knew that something was missing from that home was.
There was a small linen closet very close to Mrs. Billings' feet. And there were some spent shell casings in that linen closet.
But also, if you looked on the carpet, you could see four small indentation marks
or something relatively heavy had been sitting on the carpet. Common sense would tell us it was probably a safe.
Probably, I don't know, size of a microwave oven. You know, small enough that, you know, it was heavy,
but one person could carry it. The other investigators were digging into the backgrounds
for the victims. They learned that Byrd Billings had been a very successful businessman.
JOHN MALCHON: It was their second marriage. And they had children of their own. Of course, Ashley Markham was his biological daughter.
She had children, also, biological children. He also had a son. But they weren't there at the house.
They were older. BOBBY GUY: They lived very comfortably. Mrs. Billings, especially, enjoyed
taking care of all the children and loved having them. JOHN MALCHON: Very challenging work, I'm sure very rewarding.
They were known in the community, well known in the community for their efforts in taking in these children.
Byrd Billings was a very successful car dealer, car finance, multiple businesses.
Multiple locations where he sold cars and financed the cars. When you took all the assets of Byrd and Melanie Billings,
they were-- they certainly had to be millionaires. The value of that property is really incredible.
WAYNE WRIGHT: Obviously, in that line of work, he makes a lot of connections and deals
with a lot of different people. That opens up the door for a lot of people that need to be talked to.
We're keeping all possibilities on the table at this point. JOHN MALCHON: We got blood stains here.
We have shots being fired here. And then you have the decedent, Byrd and Melanie,
but I can't remember who discovered it first, but that was basically the discovery
of the surveillance system. WAYNE WRIGHT: The Billings had so many special needs children.
They had equipped the home with a number of cameras. I believe there were 13 cameras total.
That's when you have a significant amount of evidence that tells you what happened.
And that's something that you very rarely seen. We had to get our tech guy to come in and actually
remove the hard drive from the computer system and the surveillance system to get back to the Sheriff's Office to try to get it open.
We reviewed the surveillance footage early on. And frankly, some of the footage was just heartbreaking.
There was one camera in an upstairs bedroom. And you could see one of the children look out the window,
sees the red van pull up in the driveway. BOBBY GUY: The little girl was explaining exactly what she saw.
We didn't know that at the time. We felt like she was talking about a red SUV. She was very accurate, you know, as a limited speech
that she had. It was unreal. WAYNE WRIGHT: You see people exit the van. There's one that goes towards the front door, two
that go through the side door. Another camera captured two other people coming out of the wooded area that separated
the home from the main highway. So you've got two approaching from one side on foot.
You have three others coming out of the van. And then they all make simultaneous entry to the home.
So as we're watching the video, we were just shocked. We see five people dressed in all
black, ninja, military style. WAYNE WRIGHT: Given the fact that there were three
points of entry, three doors. And they all converged and found the victims in the living room.
There was definitely some planning and some forethought that was put into this. You see Byrd and Melanie that are in their house
when doors are busted open. Two individuals come in from the laundry area. One come in from the front door.
Again, another person and then other people come in into the house. There's a child also there that is witnessing this.
This is not a smooth surveillance video, where it's capturing everything. It's stopgap.
It's a frame every two seconds or so. JOHN MALCHON: They're startled. They're scared.
I mean, it's very clear. Two individuals are all carrying an AK 47, another with a shotgun.
You see one with a pistol, who then grabs Byrd. And you can see the fire, you know, fire leave the gun.
It appears as he's shot in the leg. And then you see them kind of grabbing, and pulling,
and tugging, and just shouting. There's no sound to it, but you can see that there's dialogue.
When we're watching that video, I remember everybody was silent. And then everyone disappears into the master bedroom.
And there are no cameras in the master bedroom. You could have heard a pin drop in there.
And we're all like, I mean, our eyes are wide open. You see this kid watching his parents get killed.
It was horrible. And then everybody exits. And then you see the red van just leave out
the front gate of the house. So at that point in time, the investigation has a huge clue.
And that clue is the red van. [eerie music] The surveillance video showed this red
van entering at approximately 7:05 PM on July 9, about 16 seconds. After the van first comes into view of the cameras,
the assailants are already bailing out of the van and making entry into the home.
You see the suspects start exiting the residence carrying an item which appeared to be a safe.
The van is then seen departing at 7:10. So total time on the compound was only about 5 minutes, maybe 5 and half minutes,
and probably only four minutes actually inside the actual residence. So this was a very quick operation.
They were able to get some still shots of a red van that was involved in the murder.
And we got it out in the news and on the media pretty quickly. Who would want to do this to them?
Because it looked more like a professional type targeted attack. BOBBY GUY: When we asked Ashley Markham, the oldest daughter,
if she knew who would do something like this, she told us she didn't, but she did talk
to us about Justin Billings. He was adopted also by Mr. And Mrs. Billings. He had had problems with Mr. Billings.
JOHN MALCHON: You know, you look at the family first of all. I mean, you always look at everybody as a suspect,
at that point in time. Who hates him to that extent that would want to do this type of damage?
BOBBY GUY: When you first get onto a scene, everybody's a suspect, right? And that's what we were doing with Justin Billings.
Mr. Billings had caught him stealing one time from him, I believe. And he had even got shipped off to military school.
And Justin had gotten sent back from military school just recently before the murders.
So right away, it piqued our interest. He's a 19, 20-year-old kid. He starts telling us his relationship with Mr. Billings
was on and off, volatile at times. They would butt heads tremendously. So it really threw up alarms for us.
As we started trying to get a timeline, the best we can, where he was, what he'd been doing, he advised that he had been eating
dinner with a friend of his. We start the process of being able to eliminate Justin.
Well, it's either confirmed that this kid is involved or let's eliminate him so we can let him grieve the right way.
And we were able to eliminate him fairly quickly. We asked him, did your parents have any enemies?
He said that him and his father, Mr. Billings, had a huge disagreement and falling out
with the former business partner. Mr. Billings and his partner owned a car dealership.
Over time, they had a falling out. And Mr. Billings decided to end the partnership.
When he did, it got very nasty and ugly. And we get contacted by Santa Rosa County Sheriff's
Department stating that they had located the former business partner. And this business partner was at his car lot
that he was working at the time. And he was outside, cleaning a red SUV. We're like, oh, my goodness, maybe this is the guy.
We're thinking, maybe we're onto something really, really good. We do pull up to the car lot and then start to speak
with the business partner. And right away, he tells us he's aware that Mr. Billings died.
And he is not upset at all and tells us that. He's like, look, I'm not afraid to tell y'all that
I didn't like the man. And I hate that he's dead, but I could really care less. And he didn't hide it at all.
So we have Justin's interview. That was just weird. And then we're interviewing this man and it's even stranger.
We did check out the vehicle at the car lot that he is working on. And it was definitely not involved in the homicide
and in the murders of the Billings. BUDDY NESMITH: The Crime Stoppers people notify us
that they'd had a tip about a red van parked at a yard behind the house, close to the crime scene.
And I'm thinking, that kind of makes sense because killers are kind of lazy. An individual had called in stating that that was his van.
He had sold it to Patrick Gonzalez Jr. He said that the van was staying at a Leonard Patrick
Gonzalez, Sr.'s residence. So we had the address. And we went out there. JOHN MALCHON: Leonard Patrick Gonzalez, Sr.
Was a tough old southern man. There was no question, he had it rough. He's got a lengthy past.
He's been arrested multiple times. Nothing serious or crazy, but multiple, multiple in and out of jail.
He had been estranged from his son, from Junior, for a number of years. They had not had a great relationship.
BUDDY NESMITH: I got there. It was an old mobile home. There was a tin building in the back.
And you couldn't see anything. The van itself was backed in behind a shed. You could kind of see it sticking out
by the shed a little bit, but it's nothing that you would have noticed just driving up and down the road.
So we're wondering, how are we going to get back there to look? We're trying to figure out, when a car drives up.
And it was Ms. Brant, who is Leonard Gonzalez, Sr.'s common law wife. And I stopped talking to her and just asked her,
is there a van back there? And she said, yeah. I said, well, I really like to see it.
And she said, well, go back there and look. As they go on the property with Gonzalez Sr.'s wife,
they made contact with two men, which would be Gonzalez Sr. and Wayne Coldiron. Wayne Coldiron starts to run.
So patrol grabs him. And that's how he comes into the picture. JOHN MALCHON: We knew very little about him.
Wayne Coldiron was originally from Tennessee. He had a criminal record from Tennessee, had done time,
had come down here, was living in the Florida area. Wayne Coldiron and Gonzalez Sr.
are good friends because they're neighbors. Wayne Coldiron was behind Gonzalez Sr.
BUDDY NESMITH: Walked around the corner, identified the fan by calling the previous owner, who described
the inside, outside of the van. This is it because there's no tag number, nothing.
They've done taken a tag off. This was very old Dodge van, probably a 12 passenger van.
So there was a large open cargo area, plenty of room for individuals and equipment.
Plenty of room to put this small safe in. This was the right vehicle for that type of job.
They had been trying to spray paint certain areas of the van to slightly change the appearance of it.
So that van was seized and brought back to the Sheriff's Office. So we take DNA swabs from door handles,
steering wheel, the gearshift knob, anything like that. There was a partial fingerprint on the back interior window
of the van. So I processed that fingerprint. As I was leaving on the bar was just pile stuff.
But sitting there, on top of all that, was this boot box. There's nothing new in this place.
There's a brand new box sitting there. I remember somebody saying ninja. A ninja, suspect, war ninja stuff.
And these were black combat boot type things. So I asked her, I said, the box. She goes, yeah, my husband, Wayne Coldiron, and Junior had
been to house and left the box. I'm going to throw it away. I said, well, I'm walking outside.
Can I throw it away for you? Yeah, I don't care. So I just took the box and went back to the car.
And I just opened the trunk and threw the box in the trunk. BOBBY GUY: While Gonzalez Sr. and Wayne Coldiron get taken
to the Sheriff's Office to be interviewed, we were contacted by the medical examiner.
They advised us there was five gunshot wounds from Mr. Billings, one in each leg.
One in, like, the cheek. And then there was two very close range headshot wounds.
Mrs. Billings was very similar. She had four. Two freckles were to her head. And they were at close range.
So that's what we were told from the medical examiner's office. We're trying to get as much information as we can
on Wayne Coldiron and Gonzalez Sr. Who are these people? And why do they have the van?
And how are they tied to Mr. Billings at all? It's a huge deal. We decided, since Sergeant Nesmith had
made contact with Wayne Coldiron and , they had a rapport with him. So he was interviewing.
BUDDY NESMITH: Where do you get it at? I just stick to, hey, you know, people got hurt.
We think that you're involved in it. The van was at your house. Why is that van at your house if you're not in the middle of it?
BOBBY GUY: We let Sergeant Nesmith know what we had located on surveillance video.
When you see Mr. Billings get shot, it's by one individual. And they're all masked at the time.
But you can clearly see there's only one individual that was doing the shooting.
BUDDY NESMITH: I'm thinking, I got an ace in the hole. I call Ms. Brant. I meet her downstairs and walk her all the way up there
and said, this is what I got. I said, I'm telling you right now, he's involved in this murder.
And they've already told us, Ms. Brant, that this is a death penalty case. He's got a chance to save his life.
JOHN MALCHON: Carol Brant, I believe, was Gonzalez Sr.'s wife. She overheard discussions between her husband
and Gonzalez Jr. about a scheme to rob somebody, make a lot of money. BUDDY NESMITH: So we went in there.
And she sat down and told him, may I speak to the state attorney? GONZALEZ SR.: Everybody jumps in, doors kicking open.
Freeze. On the ground. Gonzalez Sr. starts, basically , telling us what took place.
Gonzalez Sr. tells us his son, Patrick Gonzalez Jr., is involved. Gonzalez Sr. had had contact with Mr. Billings
and had business dealings with him in the past. JOHN MALCHON: Leonard Patrick Gonzalez,
Jr., he had started a business, a local business for kids in karate. A children's fight type of program, where
he would bring in children and teach them those self-defense skills. GONZALEZ JR.: We provide kidnap prevention, abduction awareness,
training to children and women. He had made the news. He appeared to be a very successful businessman
Mr. Billings had donated and helped once with his karate studio. GONZALEZ JR.: He gave us $5,000.
BOBBY GUY: $5,000? Junior went back, I think, a second time, trying to get more money to help him with another project.
And Mr. Billings didn't want to get involved in that. JOHN MALCHON: His karate studio had gone under.
And he was losing money. His mother basically purchased the red van and had given it to him so he would have something to drive.
BOBBY GUY: Gonzalez Jr. denies everything. And then he starts telling us how his dad's--
don't believe anything that Gonzalez Sr. says because he's incompetent, crazy. GONZALEZ JR.: You know the guy's got brain damage, you know that?
BOBBY GUY: We start getting stuff back from the search warrant at Gonzalez Sr.'s--
shoe box that was collected there, that came from Walmart. So we go to Walmart. They post a video showing Patrick
Gonzalez Jr., the son, and three or four other individuals. So we get pictures of this gold SUV from the Walmart
surveillance video. Probably more quickly than the red van, we start getting tips.
We even start getting some of these suspects call us wanting to turn herself in.
And that's when we started getting the second group, the Fort Walton group. So you had the Pensacola group, that was Wayne Coldiron,
Gonzalez Jr., and Gonzalez Sr. And then you have the Fort Walton group. Two individuals have come forward by the name of Rakeem
Florence and Mr. Thornton. And their story is that they were with the guys that did this invasion, but they slept in the back of the van
and they didn't do anything. Frederick Thornton and Rakeem Florence were two young--
I think they were aged 17 and 16, very young, black male youths living in Fort Walton Beach.
It's really kind of sad about them because, in essence, while they had a supportive family as kids,
they seemingly were going nowhere fast. They like to smoke marijuana. They skip school.
BUDDY NESMITH: We talked to Rakeem Florence. I ain't do nothing. I'm used to it.
I mean, that's the way it happens. It's a game you play. I'm not getting anywhere.
Right now, I know he's involved. And I talked to the other investigators that are interviewing Thornton.
And he's bellied up. And he's talking. And he has named Florence. I knew his mom was there.
And I just told her. There's a double homicide. And it's a death penalty case, just like I told Ms. Brant.
Best thing to do is talk or he's going to get wrapped up in the middle of it. You know, in my experience, squeaky
wheel gets the best deal. JOHN MALCHON: And very rapidly, the investigators were able to break them because, in essence, their story
that they were in the back doesn't fit with the video evidence. Rakeem Florence and Frederick Thornton
started also naming names. JOHN MALCHON: The young men talk about getting a call from Gary Sumner, who they
meet up in Fort Walton Beach. Mr. Stallworth also gets involved with them also. And then they drive to Walmart, where Gonzalez Jr. meets them.
Gary Sumner was older. I would say he was in his late 30s, early 40s at the time.
He owned a business called Fifth Dimensions, which is a paint and body shop. From outside looking in, it appeared
to be a successful business. But again, his business was not as profitable. I think there was significant money
problems that was happening. Donnie Stallworth was a staff sergeant in the US Air Force
on active duty, stationed at Eglin Air Force base. He had a family, was living on base.
His involvement is even more puzzling because if anybody should have known better, he should have.
BOBBY GUY: They start telling us the story about what happened. They're upset because no one was ever supposed to get hurt.
So they start spilling the beans pretty quickly. Originally, Gonzalez Jr. Had pitched to the whole group
that they were going to go in this house and be millionaires. They're going to be able to get this huge sum of money.
He describes this house of horrors, so to speak, that Mr. Billings was a money launderer.
And that he was abusive to kids. And he was a drug dealer. And that he kept in a vault inside the residence
$13 million. This was a home invasion done for the purposes of obtaining $13 million that Mr Billings was supposedly
stashed inside the residence. Gonzalez Sr., Florence, and Thornton, and Stallworth
were all in the red van. Coldiron and Gonzalez Jr. are in the woods. The plan is for Gonzalez Jr. and Coldiron
to go through the side entrance. Stallworth is supposed to go up in the middle, through the front entrance.
And then Florence and Thornton are going through the side entrance. Gonzalez Jr. then fires a shot into Byrd's leg,
still yelling out, we need the money. We want the money, that type of thing. Gonzalez Jr. then drags Mr. Billings and Melanie
Billings into this the bedroom. Florence and Thornton heard multiple gunshots. They get a small safe.
And they all get in the red van and then leave. They ended up in Alabama and basically transfer
the booty to another van. And then they proceed to an antique store location in Gulf Breeze.
Florence and Thornton described this young woman as being P-Lo. That was her nickname.
They transfer the guns and the safe to her. And everybody splits up at that point in time.
Based upon the information that has come forward through Florence and Thornton, our arrest warrants
are put together for Patrick Gonzalez, Jr., Patrick Gonzalez, Sr., Gary Sumner, Mr.
Stallworth, and Mr. Coldiron. Florence and Thornton are both also getting arrested.
Now we start trying to locate the safe, and the guns, and trying to locate this lady who may have helped them.
JOHN MALCHON: We brought in Gonzalez Jr.'s wife, Tabitha Gonzalez, to describe, again, the link
to Pamela Long Wiggins. Pamela Wiggins, she was involved in real estate and had a antique business here in Gulf Breeze, Florida.
She was very similar to Patrick Gonzalez, Jr., had a business, appeared to be very successful.
However, that turned out not to be as true. BOBBY GUY: We learned that Patrick Gonzalez rents his personal home from Pamela Wiggins.
We know that she has 5, 6, 7 rental properties that she owns. And she also owns like an antique mall.
And so everything's starting to come together. So we put Ms. Wiggins on the news.
We get a phone call within hours that she is in Orange Beach on a boat with her husband.
So we send Orange Beach County Police to the marina right away. And they were about to leave.
So we made it probably within minutes of them leaving. JOHN MALCHON: We interviewed Pamela Wiggins and her husband.
And basically through that, along with other information, got wind of where the murder weapon was located.
Now, we're probably four or five days after. I was directed to this automotive shop in Pensacola.
When I got to the location, the main investigators were there. They had already removed a car cover from this 1971 Buick.
The gun was very well hidden. It was up underneath the seat, up inside the springs
because you have to remove the seat. And then the package itself, it's got just brown paper around the outside with some tape on it.
Then there was some white plastic, like, possibly shopping bags or something like that.
Obviously, some effort had been taken to try to conceal that weapon. And when I opened up the packaging,
it was a Springfield 9 millimeter gun. JOHN MALCHON: All the spent cartridges that were recovered from inside the home and projectiles
recovered from autopsy were fired by that 9 millimeter Springfield pistol. So forensically then we had the murder weapon.
The safe was eventually found buried underneath some bricks in a black trash bag
in the backyard of a residence. That residence belonged to a Pamela Long Wiggins.
It was still closed. We opened the safe. And inside, we just found personal effects,
some prescription medication for the children, just personal papers, things of that nature, really
nothing of any financial value. This was a small safe, probably the size of a large microwave oven.
I mean, certainly not a safe that would hold $13 million. It turns out there was another safe in the residence.
It was not a safe that anyone could move. It was on the second floor. It was huge and well secured.
And it did have a relatively large amount of money on it, but certainly nowhere near the millions of dollars
that these rocket surgeons thought they were going to get. JOHN MALCHON: They were all charged
with first degree murder. Two counts-- one for Byrd, one for Melanie. And then a count of home invasion robbery.
BOBBY GUY: We go and retrieve the safe from the backyard of Pamela Long Wiggins' home.
We make contact with their friends in Mississippi. JOHN MALCHON: Just a guy who worked with Hugh Wiggins,
offshore, a guy named Eddie Denson. And they took the guns, that was two shotguns
and the AK47 and the 357. We arrested them on gun charges also, but we decided to use them as witnesses to help us.
So huge, huge evidentiary benefit for us because we have located the weapons, the safe,
and the murder weapon. [music playing] The build up to the trial was really-- it was a challenge because, in essence, we
had an incredible amount of information, an incredible amount of information, which we had to assimilate.
So you talk about visual-- the video evidence, the phone records, the forensic evidence,
the evidence from the gun. Look at DNA, fingerprints, this mountain of evidence to pull together.
And you have to, basically, also personalize it to each individual defendant. And so you're taking that task to just pull all that together.
So there was a lot of work, to say the least. So the state decided to seek the death
penalty on Gonzalez Jr. only because he was the actual shooter. And they decided to use the other ones to help
and prosecute Gonzalez Jr. Death penalties are a little more stressful because you're
talking about somebody's life. So there is always pressure when you do a death penalty trial.
We decide to allow Thornton and Florence to plead to second degree murder, felony murder, which
has a potential life sentence, to two counts of that and home invasion. And what they have to do is testify truthfully.
So they plead, but they are to be sentenced at the end when we finish the case. So there's a carrot at the end of the stick
that they have to cooperate and testify truthfully on everybody and tell the story.
And then their cooperation will be taken into account by the judge when they sentence.
The jury went out for deliberations. As I recall, it was several hours, three to four.
And they came back and they found Patrick Gonzalez, Jr. guilty as charged. That being of two counts of first degree murder
and one count of home invasion robbery, which is exactly what we wanted to have happen.
He is on death row presently. They are going to have to redo the death penalty phase
because it was a 10-2 decision, a 10-2 recommendation at the time. The law has changed since then.
And it has to be a unanimous recommendation. Donnie Stallworth, he was ultimately convicted,
sentenced to life in prison. Coldiron, he was found guilty, sentenced to life. Gary Sumner and Gonzalez Sr, they elected to enter pleas.
And we allowed them to plead. And they were given 20 plus year sentences for their involvement.
These are the lookouts, the drivers. We had a trial involving Pamela Wiggins as an accessory
after the fact. She was convicted and sentenced to 20 years. She ultimately died in prison.
Florence and Thornton received almost 30 year sentences for their involvement. What's important to note is that those two individuals, Florence
and Thornton were armed, and kicked down the door, and entered the house. So there's a significant level of culpability
when you go and you start going into the house of somebody versus somebody who's a lookout or a getaway driver,
so to speak. And that's why the judge, I think, ultimately entered the punishment that he did.
BOBBY GUY: All three were convicted. Was there ever enough justice for something like that?
Not really. Killed execution style like that? No. What can you say? Or what could be enough?
I don't know that there could be enough. WAYNE WRIGHT: I'm lucky we had a great team.
And we were able to present a very good picture to the jury that this was a good family.
That evil just visited at their home that night. I don't know if we'll ever really
know definitively why Leonard Gonzalez, Jr. pulled the trigger. My own hypothesis ranges from the fact
that possibly that in their discussion, Byrd Billings recognized him in some way, shape, or form, either
by voice or whatever. And that he thought, at that point in time, that he needed to execute them and leave no witnesses.
That's one hypothetical. Maybe he became enraged over their lack of cooperation and the fact that there--
he was finding out there wasn't $13 million in the house. Look at Ashley, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Billings, how her life changed. I think about that, too. She went from a young wife with one kid to 13 overnight.
Think how their life changed. And that's now the new stresses that they have and deal with on top of losing their parents.
She didn't want them kids to anybody else. And she knew how much her mom loved them.
This was a crime that was motivated by money. This was a purely financially motivated crime.
And frankly, it just makes it that much more heinous. But it's very clear that these children
heard what was going on. Some of them saw parts of it because you can see-- in some
of the videos, you see when the red van is there, one of the young girls looks out the window.
And you can see them walking around. And while they had the issues, there was no question
that they had to have in some been impressed with this tragedy that happened that night.
There's always a family left behind. And nobody deserves to be killed that way. It's just horrible, just thinking about it.
Just right now, just thinking about the-- looking at that little boy watch his parents
get killed like that. My heart got stopped. But just thinking about what these kids saw,
it's just horrible. Horrible. That's the stuff that'll stick out in my mind. BUDDY NESMITH: They took those kids' life away from them.
They took somebody that cared for them, much like someone taking your mom away from you.
And it just-- and it's like over senseless. It's senseless. What did she have to do with it?
Nothing because they're evil people. [theme music]

In 2009, Byrd and Melanie Billings were murdered in their Florida home during a robbery. The crime was orchestrated by a former employee, involving multiple suspects. Investigators uncovered a complex conspiracy behind the brutal killings.

Greed, jealousy, revenge, lust, anger — any and all are motives for murder. When there's cash involved, the stakes are even higher. Explore a new case in each episode of Millionaire Murders.

Brief Summary

The episode covers the Billings' murder case, investigation, and the emotional aftermath for their surviving children.

Key points

The Billings Family Tragedy. A quiet rural area becomes the scene of a shocking double murder involving the Billings family.
Surveillance Footage Reveals Horror. Heartbreaking footage captures the moment of the Billings' murder, shocking investigators.
The Red Van Clue. A red van seen entering the Billings' property becomes a crucial lead in the investigation.
The Plan for a Home Invasion. Gonzalez Jr. pitched a plan to his group to invade a house for supposed riches.
The Aftermath for the Victims' Family. The crime left the victims' family shattered and changed forever.
The Shocking Reality of the Crime. The home invasion was motivated by a false belief in a hidden fortune.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The scene was absolutely chaos.

Describing the chaotic crime scene with children present.

4:06WatchMar 16, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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