Unbelievable Twists and Turns | "48 Hours" Full Episodes | Forensic Files

[Music] My son Christian Andreakio was um hard worker, loved life. He just always liked
the water. He talked about either working offshore um in the Gulf. Then someone told him about the toeboats and
that's when he went that direction. He was on the verge of becoming the youngest toeboat captain
and probably had a long career running a boat up and down the river. Loved to be the center of attention and
the life of the party. Whether you were 80 years old or you were 15 years old, he was going to flirt with you.
always wanting to help somebody out. Ultimately, his good-heartedness is what got him in trouble at the
end. He had gone to a party across the lake, and I think he met her at the party. Willie Goodman was very polite,
very, I mean, cute girl. When we first met her, she was quiet, you know, and Christian liked her, so that was good
enough for us. Is there any doubt in your mind that Christian fell in love with your
daughter? No. No doubt whatsoever. And did she feel the same for him? She did and she does to this day.
We were out to eat at a restaurant. Had just sat down. My father called and said
we had a tragedy. 911. Where's your emergency? Man, we had a suicide. You suicide? Yes, ma'am. That
was toughest toughest news I ever heard. It still hurts today. Who is it, sir? Christian
Rocky, but he's laying across the the bathroom, the tub, and he's he's got blood everywhere.
Did he take his own life? No, sir. Absolutely not. No, he he would never do that.
Okay. Who's that in the background? That's his girlfriend. What's her name? Whitley Goodman.
Do you believe that your son was murdered? Oh, I 100% believe he's murdered. Mr.
Andreakio was shot in the right side of the head. There was very little, if any,
investigation that took place on the scene on the day that it occurred. It was totally bungled because the
investigators were called off because they didn't do their job. We had to do their job for them. Sitting across from
me today, do you know who killed your son, Christian? Yes. [Music] I was so confused whenever I started
being blamed. I really was. We're going to keep on fighting. I do have a small army, but they're smart.
She did not kill him. As a prosecutor, I have never in my career seen anything like this case. I don't care to change
anyone's mind. They let somebody get away with murder. [Music] [Music] I can't believe this is happening to our
family. I think everybody was just kind of in shock. This is something you know that happens
to other people. It doesn't happen to you. From their lakeside home just outside
Meridian, Mississippi, Ray and Todd Andreakio are haunted by the death of their 21-year-old son Christian in 2014.
A lot of days I look out there and, you know, expect to see him out there with the jet ski floating about,
but you know, every day you get caught with memories. [Music] Christian grew up here on Delwood Shore
Lake where he fell in love with the water and dreamed of becoming a toeboat captain on the Mississippi River.
He was on his way to being a really good man. And I think he would have made a good father, a good husband. It's tough
to talk about this. Yeah. I miss him every day. [Music] Have either of you honestly been able to
have any peace in your life during all of this since your son's death? No. No. We've we've kind of been at war since it
started. And you're at war now? Yes, sir. This isn't over. No. Well, it's not by a long shot.
For now, there are two unanswered questions at the heart of this case. Why would a young man with so much to live
for take his own life? Or perhaps more importantly, did someone take Christian's life from him? Your son's
death, suicide or homicide? Homicide. It's definitely a homicide. But Lauderdale County District Attorney
Cassie Coleman, who took over the case in 2018, says the evidence points in another direction. Well, at this point
there has been further investigation by multiple agencies that have determined it to be a
suicide. At issue are the events of February 26th, 2014. I had talked to Christian that morning.
He was on the boat. You know, everything was fine. Christian was a few days into what's
called a hitch, a 30-day work trip on the Mississippi River, where he was a first mate on a toeboat. Ray called him
about getting tickets for a Rihanna concert. And he said, "Well, let me check the dates to see." He said, "I got
to go. I'll call you back later. Love you." Got off the phone. Just hours later, they were told that
Christian was found dead in his apartment, which he shared with his girlfriend, Whitley Goodman. And I was
like, "No, I don't I don't think so. Christian's a work. He's not even He's not even in town."
A Meridian police detective broke the horrible news to them in person. And he said, "Well, this is his driver's
license." And when we saw his driver's license, it became a little bit more real.
But suicide, nothing made sense to Ray and Todd. He's never had any kind of mental problems, any kind of depression.
I'm proud of where I came. Professionally, at the age of 21, Christian's life couldn't have been
better. And on the personal side, he adored Whitley, who had dropped out of high school and wanted to become a hair
and makeup artist. They made each other happy. He was crazy about her. What is it, buddy? Christy Chatterton is
Whitley's mother. She's very funny, very creative, and adventurous. She's a young
woman that Christian Andrachio fell in love with. She is. Whitley even moved in with the
Andreakios. But after a few weeks, Ray says Whitley became jealous, defacing a picture of Christian and his
ex-girlfriend. I figured that she stabbed the faces out and then she brought the picture to me.
What' you think, Todd? I thought she was a nut. The Andreakios asked Whitley to move
out. And so, you know, his kind of attitude was, "Well, if she can't be here, then I
can't be here." Christian and Whitley moved into this apartment, which Christian paid for. I felt that she was
using him for money. He was providing her with a place to stay with a car, clothes, makeup, whatever. Whitley's mom
saw problems, too. Especially when Christian was on the toeboat. She would have to stay on the phone with him at
night so he could keep up with where she was and what she was doing. You mean for
like an hour after an hour? Like hours and hours and hours every night. I didn't know how unhealthy the
relationship had become. But none of this seemed to add up to suicide for the Andreakios.
So for him to take his life over somebody he'd been dating for 6 months, I don't think so. No.
On the night of Christian's death, Rey needed answers. She called her brother Chris Thompson and asked that he drive
over to the Meridian Police Department. That's where Christian's friend Dylan Swearing, who made that 911 call. What
was your first name? Dylan. Dylan was being questioned along with Whitley. And I told him to be sure that Whitley
didn't have Christian's phone. At first, Whitley denied having it, but eventually
turned it over to police. To me, that was a big red flag right off the bat. So, she had lied initially about not
knowing where Christian's phone was, right? It's very suspicious because why would you do that?
My personal opinion is that she did not want that phone to get in the hands of law enforcement because there were a lot
of sexually oriented photographs and messages in that phone. The Andreakio were stunned to learn the
investigation at the scene lasted only 45 minutes. And the job they did in this investigation, how would you describe
it? piss poor. But that same investigation did turn up something that the Andreakios hoped
would be a gamecher. Both Dylan and Whitley are checked for gunshot residue. GSR. What do they find? Gunshot residue
on both their hands. In both hands. And what does that suggest to you? They were in a room when the gun was
[Music] fired. Nobody wants to think that their child was at a point in their life where
they took their own life. I mean, that's just human nature. But we had someone in
the community who had killed himself and that it really bothered Christian and he
several times told me, you know, mom, if anybody ever says I killed myself, you come looking because I wouldn't do that.
For Christian's family, that horrible night in 2014 started a search for answers that continues to this day. We
took the time to to have his funeral and then the very next week we started going
to the police department. From the beginning, the Andriakios had questions about that 911 call placed by
Christian's friend Dylan Swearingen around 4:45 p.m. 91. They wonder, is this a genuine call or
an elaborate act? Listen closely. All right. Who is it, sir? Christian. Okay. Just try not to touch anything.
Okay. That's Whitley wailing in the background. Whitley. Whitley. Is she up here? Come down here. They don't want
you to touch anything. Come on. If Come here, Whitley. Come here. It just sounds fake
to me. Please get somebody up there. I think he shot himself. He's already put it out there in
people's mind that it's a suicide. So, you know, now that's how it's going to be looked at. Did your son Dylan shoot
Christian? Absolutely not. Pam Swearing is Dylan's mother. On a very bad day, my son lost his best
friend. Dylan and Whitley declined to grant us an interview, but their mothers agreed to speak for the first time to 48
hours. While they wouldn't discuss specifics of the case, they're adamant their children did not commit any crime.
It was just so um shocking and you know what she saw like she could never unsee it. I just want them to know that she
did not kill him. That night, Christy rushed down to the police station where Whitley had just
been questioned. I just hugged her and comforted her. Was she in tears? She was hysterical. Christian's death. Suicide
or homicide? 100%. It's suicide. Investigators found Christian's body in the upstairs bathroom, leaning face down
over a blood-filled tub with that gunshot wound to the right side of his head. 4 months after Christian's death,
Benny Dubose became Meridian's new chief of police and took on the case. A lot of
this stuff didn't make sense. Starting with Christian's gun. When the gun was sent to the crime lab,
they did not find any prints on the gun at all. Christian's prints should have been on the gun. The gun was clean,
wiped down. He says the bathroom was surprisingly clean, too. There should have been some blood splatter uh on this
side and uh on this side. There was no blood splatter. Suggesting what? that number one, the crime scene had been
tampered with. Probably, most likely, the blood splatter had been cleaned. Dubau says officers bungled the
investigation. Taking pictures on the crime scene with a dog on sale. They all were issued
cameras, and the pictures, needless to say, were terrible. District Attorney Cassie Coleman agrees.
She inherited the case in 2018. Would you use the word incompetent? Yes, without a doubt. Um, it lacked
competence. It lacked thoroughess. Dylan and Whitley were not even photographed.
There's been a lot of questions about was there any blood on either one of them. The reality is we don't know. The
timeline that Dylan gives of the events don't really add up. Dylan told police Christian had called
him around 2 early that morning, urgently asking for a ride home from St. Rose, Louisiana. Apparently, Christian
had found out Whitley was cheating on him. He was coming home to kick her out of the apartment. You believe he was
going back to break up with her? Yes, sir. Dylan says he picked up Christian and
they drove back to the apartment. Almost immediately, Christian and Whitley began
arguing when Dylan says Christian suddenly took out a gun and put it to his own head. According to the report,
Christian threatened to shoot himself, telling Whitley to tell him that she loved him. Dylan uh ended up saying that
he took the weapon away from Christian, unloaded it, and hid it. But Whitley told detectives a different
story. When Whitley is asked, "Has Christian ever appeared suicidal?" She says, "No, I don't think so." There were
inconsistencies throughout her stories. According to police reports, Whitley told responders and friends that she
discovered Christian's body, but she told a detective at the station that it was Dylan who found him.
She claimed to be asleep on the sofa and a 45 caliber handgun is discharged and she slept through it. Is that
believable? No. No, not at all. You know your guns. How loud is a 45? That should
have been heard two to three apartments over. And remember, gunshot residue was present on both Dylan's and Whitley's
hands. While police have not publicly commented about the GSR on Dylan's hands, Whitley told investigators she
has an innocent explanation. Her response was, "Well, I'm going to have it on my hands because I was shooting
guns the night before." She said she'd been target practicing with friends, a claim one of those
friends said was true, but another said was false. But the Andreakios are questioning everything, including
something odd. Dylan did earlier that day. What are we seeing in this picture? Um
Dylan Swearing at the credit union. Who has an account at that bank? Christian. These photos were taken at 12:29 p.m.
around 4 hours before Dylan called 911. Dylan told investigators that Christian had given him his debit card with a
startling request. He says that Christian told him to withdraw all of his money, that he was giving him his
money. But there was one little problem. Dylan didn't have Christian's PIN number, so he left empty-handed.
Is that suspicious to you? Absolutely. He arrives back. He said that they um watched a couple of movies.
Dylan said Christian had calmed down, so he gave him his gun back. He says Whitley settled in for a nap. Dylan says
he left for another errand. And when he returned, 911, where's emergency? Man, was that a
suicide? Knowing what you know about this case, if I asked you, was this suicide or homicide? Where are you
leaning? Neither. How do you mean? I don't think that Mr. Andreakio killed himself on
purpose. And I don't think uh anybody else killed Mr. Andriyakio on purpose. Dose believes Christian may have once
again held his gun to his own head. This time upstairs in the bathroom. I believe
that Quitley may have reached for the gun and the gun discharged. I don't think there was a motive. I think it was
just an accident. The Andreakios aren't buying any of it. Could it have been an accident?
I mean, anything's possible, but uh I I don't believe it at all. In this situation, everything points to murder.
And then they whoever staged it to look like a suicide. That night, the coroner ruled the death
undetermined. After an autopsy, a forensic pathologist labeled it a suicide. And just like that, the
Meridian Police Department closed the case. And so then we had to do this, start this investigation on our own. So
they began hiring their own private investigators, eventually forming a small army of supporters and experts,
including a forensic pathologist named Dr. Jonathan Arden. It is my conclusion that the death of Christian Andriakio
was a homicide. [Music] We've just been really let down by the police and law enforcement. We had no idea what to do
or where to start. Rey and Todd Andriyakio began their search for justice by hiring their own
team of investigators, including this man. I've performed about 3,000 autopsies on my own. Former Washington
DC medical examiner Dr. Jonathan Arden, who examined the case file. From the beginning, my reaction was something is
wrong here. Starting with where investigators found Christian's handgun, it was pressed between his left thigh
and the front of the tub. It's significant to me that the gun is in the wrong place on the wrong side cuz he's
right-handed. He's right-handed. Entrance wound in his right temple. How does the gun end up on his left side
once the bullet goes through his brain? He's unconscious. He can't transfer the gun.
Crime scene photographs show that the bullet had struck the wall on the opposite side of the bathroom next to
the sink, but somehow the bullet ends up in the bathtub and he's leaning over the
bathtub. So, none of this lines up for him to have shot himself in the position where he was found. It simply makes no
sense. Clearly, somebody put him there. It's a stage scene. The coroner placed the time of death at
3:45, but Dr. Ardan believes Christian may have died earlier. He says pictures show Christian's body was in advanced
rigor mortise. Rigor mortise is the stiffening of the muscles that happens after death. The development of
wellformed rigor mortise tells me that he's been in that position unmoved undisturbed for at least several
hours which if accurate suggests that Christian may have already been dead when Dylan went to the credit union to
empty Christian's bank account. So yeah, I believe my son's dead and I believe he's trying to steal his money. The
evidence led Dr. for Ardan to reach a dramatic conclusion. Somebody else shot and killed him.
I don't see how you can argue with forensics. Science doesn't lie. People lie. Why would someone want your son
dead? Well, that's the answers, you know, that we would like. The scene was altered or
staged. And usually when you do that, you're hiding something. The family worked with a team of private
investigators, including Sheila Weisaki, to dig further. The Andreakios have had
to fight tooth and nail for the truth. The investigators recorded an interview with Dylan Swearing a few weeks after
Christian died. You are one of the only three people that were even there that day that he had this to say about his
visit to the credit union. That's the only thing I didn't understand, like why did he want me to have this money?
Dylan told them that Whitley and Christian were always fighting and that Christian didn't trust her, even sending
Dylan to spy on her. I was kind of like the babysitter. He always would ask me to check on her, see what she's doing.
And Dylan repeated that he and not Whitley discovered Christian's body. When I opened the door, he was hunched
over the bathtub. And I knew that I knew he wasn't alive just the way he was just
sitting there and like being an adult too. Whitley's mom Christy says the day Christian died wasn't the first time he
allegedly threatened suicide and that Whitley told her about an incident that happened about 2 months before his
death. He had gotten intoxicated and getting angry and heated and he put the gun to his
head and he even would put it to her head and he was asking her if she loved him.
But remember when police asked Whitley if Christian had ever appeared suicidal, she said she didn't think so. Ray and
Todd don't believe their son ever held a gun to his head. We don't think it happened. That does not sound like
Christian to you. Yeah. However, investigators found a misspelled message on Christian's phone
that was sent to Whitley the night before he died. If this doesn't work when I get to my apartment, I'm putting
my pistol in my mouth and I'm ending this. I'm ending this once and for all because Whitley, you're the closest I
have ever been to happiness. I don't trust any of the texts because they were in possession of his phone.
Don't forget Whitley had Christian's phone at the police station. Todd and Ray believe the message could have been
planted. District Attorney Cassie Coleman dismisses that theory. The phone was on the tugboat with Christian at the
time that those messages were sent. And so I do not know of any way that those messages could have been manipulated to
appear that they were coming from the boat if she was in Meridians. 3 years after Christian's death, Benny
Dubose, who had taken over as police chief, decided it was time to get fresh eyes to look at the case. He assigned
Captain Jay Arrington. Gave him the case. He worked his butt off. Captain Arrington, a 30-year
veteran detective of the Meridian PD, combed through the case file and came up with a conclusion that Christian's
family had long waited to hear. Homicide. Are you sure of that? Absolutely. And um do you believe that
Christian's body was moved at that scene? That somebody moved it after his death? I have no doubt.
Captain Arrington, like Dr. Ardan concluded that Christian had been dead for several hours before the 911 call
was made, allowing time for a cleanup. Death scene had obviously been altered from its original state.
Arrington wrote arrest warrants for Whitley and Dylan. The charge, manslaughter by culpable negligence,
which means unintentionally causing a death while acting with disregard for the person's safety. Were those warrants
ever served? No, sir. In February 2017, before Cassie Coleman took over, her predecessor decided to
hand off the case to the Mississippi State Attorney General's office. They wouldn't comment about it with 48 hours.
In October 2017, a Mississippi state prosecutor did present the case to a grand jury. But were you allowed to
present your investigative report at the grand jury? I wasn't allowed to be at the grand jury. It's the only one I've
ever had done that way in all my years. It's the only one. Without ever hearing from the detective
who calls this case a homicide, it's now up to the grand jury whether it will go
to trial. Do you believe in a court of law you could get a conviction? 100%. You were a member of the grand jury,
correct? Yes, sir. And what decision was made? [Music] The woman at the heart of this southern
mystery, Whitley Goodman, has never spoken publicly about the case until 48 hours came to town. Whitley started
talking when she agreed to meet our camera crew to get some video shots with her mom. Two weeks ago, it just came to
me like out of nowhere. She would not take questions, but she did read a poem. The title is Moist by Whitley Goodman.
The verses describe what she says is her tumultuous life after Christian's death.
I miss who I was, the person I once was allowed to be, before the anxiety, the pain, and the notoriety. Before your
name was used in vain as the main source of my pain. In Whitley's words, she is the victim. Oh, it has been such a war.
I guess it's me who we should hate. Uh, I'll be everyone's escape. But there has been no escape for the
Andrachio family, which suffered a devastating defeat in late 2017 when that grand jury returned their decision
to not indict Whitley and Dylan. From the jurors that I have spoken with, they did not believe there was sufficient
evidence to prove either of these people guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of either manslaughter or homicide.
The Andriakios were crushed. I feel like the Meridian Police Department, the Attorney General's office, and everybody
involved officially has let us down. They let somebody get away with murder. Whitley's mother sees the grand jury's
decision as just. She loved him dearly. The greatest tragedy for her is still losing him and finding him the way she
did that day. But the Andreakios were determined to keep their son's case alive. So they
took to social media, starting their Justice for Christian Facebook page. And in June 2019, a podcast
culpable started covering the case. His death was ruled a suicide. The actions of Whitley Goodman and Dylan Swearingen
were now being judged by a national audience. The podcast is exposing all the injustices that have happened during
this investigation. People from coast to coast became enraged and they acted on that rage. Among their targets, DA
Cassie Coleman. Have you received threats? Yes, sir. I have um received threats towards me, towards my family,
threats of physical violence. Take your time. There's a lot of tragedy and heartbreak
um in everybody's family. Do you sleep with a gun by your bedside? Yes, sir. It's that serious. Yes, sir.
In August 2020, the controversy grew even more intense. Right before 48 hours traveled to Mississippi to cover this
story, Captain Jay Arrington's investigative report from 2017 was made public for the first time.
I realized that this was things we had never heard. Arrington writes, "It's my thoughts it could be suicide, homicide,
or accidental with one of the three to be proved with facts. Until that is established that death should be
classified as a homicide." That's a heck of a sentence. When you read that, what did
you think? I'm shocked. We spoke to Cassie Coleman just days after the report was released. Mr.
Arrington's findings. This report, was it presented to the grand jury? Yes, I have had conversations with grand jurors
that were on the grand jury and I've had conversations with the investigators that were there presenting the facts and
they tell me that all of the reports from the Meridian Police Department were presented. But while we were reporting
in Mississippi, we found a grand juror who said that's not true. You were a member of the grand jury that was
looking into the Christian Andrachio case. Correct. Yes, sir. The grand juror agreed to speak if we agreed not to use
her name or show her face. I'm holding a report here that is dated January 11th,
2017, and it was written by a Captain J. Arrington. At the time, had you heard this man's name before? No, sir. I read
her all the major findings of Captain Arrington's report, none of which the juror said she knew. Does that bother
you? Does is that something that you find in any way disturbing? Yes, it's very disturbing because it seems that he
had a lot more information detailed in his report than what we were presented. I think it's a travesty.
I think my son deserves more than that. Now, with the release of Arrington's explosive report, the Andreakios were
finally beginning to think maybe they might have one last chance at justice for Christian. I think we need feds or
somebody to come in here and and clear this up. I don't trust anybody over in Meridian. I don't trust that DA we got
right now. I wouldn't want her anywhere near my son's case. [Music] [Music] in November 2020, like they do every
year, the Andreakio family and their friends celebrated Christian's life. Today is Christian's birthday, uh,
November 4th, and this is our seventh night to have Wishing Night. Heartfelt messages are written on these lanterns
and sent floating toward the heavens. Wishing night is kind of a way of just letting Christian know that we haven't
forgotten him. This peaceful evening stands in contrast to the war of words and deeds in this
emotional case fueled by social media that includes acts of cruelty. All of Christian's autopsy photos were placed
on social media and I think downloaded over 2,000 times. They harassed my daughter. I still believe someone set
her car on fire. We've been run off the road. You're kidding. Absolutely not. I bought a new car and within 3 weeks it
had bullet holes in it. In our interview with District Attorney Coleman, she said she would reconvene a
grand jury if it turned out that Captain Arrington's report had not been presented. I have said repeatedly and
stand by if that information was not presented then yes that is a situation that would open the door to allow the
case to be represented to the grand jury 3 months later. Hey Cassie it's Peter Vans with 48 hours. How are you? I told
Coleman that 48 hours learned from that grand juror that she was not informed of
Captain Arrington's 2017 report. a fact that may have changed her opinion on this case.
I think they should have done more investigating and brought it back to a grand jury again with more evidence,
especially that report to present it to another jury to decide if that it would be indicted or not. Coleman confirmed
that Arrington's report was not presented to the grand jury and said she is willing to reconvene a new grand
jury. She acknowledges the Andriakio family doesn't trust her to present the case. A request for the appointment of a
new prosecutor is pending in court. We're 100% confident that if the information is presented fairly that um
people will be indicted and then of course from there um there'll be a trial. Complicating matters further,
nearly three years after he finished his report, Captain Arrington was indicted in federal court, accused of using city
funds for his personal use. Arrington's attorney, J. Stewart Parish. The allegations are false. They arise
apparently from somebody either intentionally or maliciously misleading other folks.
Caught in the middle of all this are Dylan Swearingen and Whitley Goodman's families. Is there anything that you
would like to say to the Andrachio family? That we loved Christian. We grieve for him, too. And we grieve
for him. Whitley Goodman's attorney, Bradley Clanton, filed a $47 million lawsuit
against the Andriakio family, the podcast culpable, and others for defamation and emotional distress. You
can't torture people for the rest of their lives because they got accused of a crime. The civil suit also seeks an
injunction to shut down the Justice for Christian Facebook page and end their public accusations. You've had four to
five law enforcement agencies all the way up to the Mississippi Attorney General look at this and everyone has
reached the same conclusion that it's a suicide. I was so confused whenever I started
being blamed. I really was. you know, if they were so weak-minded that um that they took pride in, you know, hurting me
without even asking me or ever confirming, you know, what the truth is, that I don't want anything to do with
them. [Music] There's only one life destroyed, actually destroyed, and that's my son.
He's not here anymore. Today, Christian would have been 28. So, the case goes on.
[Music] I think that they wake up every morning and they have a choice of what they're
going to do with their day. You know, they get to go out and live and love and travel and get married if they want to
and have kids and um you know, Christian that's taken away from him. Doesn't he deserve justice? Don't
we deserve answers? [Music] 48 hours. To miss it would be a crime. Were you at all prepared for what
happened in this case? [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] 911. What's your emergency? My daughter
was murdered. He's been murdered. We absolutely were obsessed with this case. January 13th, 1995 was the last known
contact with Catherine. She's handcuffed. She's been to charge. It was always a big case within the
department because it was the biggest case unsolved. Nobody felt safe anywhere. Nobody knew if it was a neighbor. Nobody
knew if it was a police officer because of the handcuffs being used. My name is Tina Llewellyn. Aaron Llewellyn. I'm a
detective. I'm a detective at Bowmont Police Department. My sister's dead. My parents are over there. I have Who's
your sister? Catherine Edwards. I had no idea who Katherine Edwards was, but after I read decades of her
journals, 1986, 1989, '91, 94, I feel like I know her. Things are looking up in my life. I'm going to teach second
grade next year. I know I meant to do this. There were so many of her students that came forward to share the impact
she had on their lives 25 years later. They were always close to me in my heart. I'm Diana Co. and I was
friends with Catherine and her twin sister Allison since middle school. They were so sweet and so funny. They had a
cute laugh and everybody just loved them. This was not an easy case to crack. Every free moment I would try to work
this case while still maintaining my case load, staying up till midnight every night. It just was not going to
happen without the DNA. If there was no DNA in this case, if that evidence had not been properly maintained, we'd have
never got there. My name is Brandon Best, Sergeant, Texas Rangers, Company A Coalcase Team. The
technology has changed so much since 1995. By the time we got to Catherine Edwards, there were a lot more of these
resources that were available. We felt that genetic genealogy was going to be the answer to this case. So, you
would do the police work, you would do the genealogy work. Yes. Along with another genealogologist. My name is
Sherah Brousard Le Point. Tina had started a tree and we really think alike and work together to build this tree
with 7,49 people in it. Oh my gosh. I would call her no less than five times a day.
We were on the phone constantly. Tell her what I found. Just back and forth. I blew her phone up trying to get to the
bottom. We had to narrow down the different family members to find the direct lineage of our suspect.
Is this someone that knew her? Is this someone that was a stranger? She had some, you know, ex-boyfriends. There was
always the worry that it was a police officer, some criminal is not going to have a pair of Smith and Wesson
handcuffs. There was no sign of forced entry at the time. Right. Right. Did we believe it was someone she knew?
Yeah. [Music] [Music] The thing that really got me about the case was you don't expect to have this
beautiful young single school teacher be murdered in her own home. She was such a great person. Came
from such a great family. For Texas Ranger Brandon Best, almost everything about the Mary
Katherine Edwards case was different. It was an unusual crime scene. She's over the bathtub and she's obviously been
sexually assaulted and handcuffed behind her back. Were they police handcuffs? Handcuffs have always been a key piece
of this. January 14th, 1995. It was a Saturday. Catherine, as most people called her, didn't show up for a
family lunch, and she wasn't answering her phone. When her mother and father went to check on her, they had to see
what no parent ever should. What happened, ma'am? We came over here and found her. Please send her. We're
sending someone, ma'am. Is she Was she shot or what? Uh, we can't tell. Catherine was 31. My mom is the one that
told me. Diana Co remembers hearing the news and so she said, "Have you not heard about Catherine?" And I go, "My
Catherine?" She had been friends with Catherine and her twin sister Allison since middle school. I was new to the
area. So I knew no one and they just started talking to me, asked me my name and we were friends from that point
forward. The sisters, both school teachers, look so much alike, everyone had trouble telling them apart,
especially their young students. Miss Edwards was my second grade teacher. Helaniah Adams remembers being in her
classroom. Most of us grew up in a pretty tough environment and being around Miss Edwards was a joy.
Originally, they believed that she might have been drowned, but there wasn't enough fluid in her lungs. So, then it
kind of became a suffocation by compression. I just remember being told that our
teacher wouldn't make it to class that day, everyone just crying. Early investigators could not piece
together what happened, but those policegrade handcuffs were a big clue. It was almost talked about like a ghost
story around a campfire. Detective Aaron Llewellen. Maybe it was somebody in law
enforcement or somebody in security. Could it have been somebody that we knew? In the weeks after the murder,
police focused on tracing the serial numbers of the handcuffs, but came up empty. They also zeroed in on an old
boyfriend, David Perry. They focused on him early on because there was no forced
entry. But Perry was out of town that night. He gave a DNA sample and it was not a match. I wasn't there. It's not
me. The crime scene DNA stayed well preserved and the years dragged on and on until forensic science changed.
Genetic genealogy technology. Genetic genealogy. By 2018, there was a way to take the DNA left at a crime scene and
search for biological relatives. A program Jed Match scarfs up all the DNA from people who agree to share it with
law enforcement and upload it when they use sites like ancestry.com and 23 andMe. Ranger Bess approached me and he
asked if I thought we had a case that would fit the bill for that type of investigation. I said absolutely I know
the perfect case for this and it was a Katherine Edwards case. So in April 2020, the DNA from Katherine Edwards
crime scene went to Aram, a lab outside of Houston for testing. There they would
give us familial matches and from there we would start trying to build a family tree to get us closer to our suspect.
Yeah. But the number of names to pursue was overwhelming. When the family tree began
to grow beyond my computer screen, I started to get a little bit confused. And that's when Tina jumped on board.
Aaron's wife, Tina, an auto crimes detective, began using her off hours to help sort through it. The matches were
all Cinjun. Cinjun ancestry coming from the Louisiana area. Yes. Particularly Kaplan, Louisiana. So Tina went back to
Catherine's journals looking for clues to see if I could see a Cinjun name that jumped out to me. I did find a few
French names and they were quickly eliminated and nowhere in our tree. And as she was building out the branches,
one of the names on the family tree kept coming up. Le Point. As I'm researching the
matches and building my trees and you're researching other people's trees, I kept
noticing Sher Le Point had built that tree. And then I'm working some more. I do some more research. Well, Sher Le
Point built this tree. And I'm like, is she related to our suspect? I had no idea who she was. This is actually my
great-g grandandmother, Claudia. And when they called her, they found out Sherah had been building her family
tree. It was my family's DNA kits that I had uploaded to Jed Match. And then they
found out something that changed the course of the investigation. Sherah was known professionally as the gene hunter
and already skilled at working these cases. She'd identified one of the women buried along Interstate Highway 45 in
the Texas Killing Fields case and she agreed to lend her expertise. I told him that I was willing
to help, even if it meant taking a hard look at her own relatives. It was kind of scary because I'm putting my own
second cousins in this tree and I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, you know, could one of my
grandfather's sister's grandchildren have have done this? They lived here in Texas.
It was a complicated, multi-layered process using publicly available DNA, birth and death records, finding
parents, siblings, and cousins. As you build those trees, you look for information that is pertinent to the
case that you're working on. We had a tag for people who were in Bowmont. She was a teacher. As you build tree, you
look at people who are in education. Every one of these lines are built out. The tree grew up and down and sideways.
There were almost 7,500 names. That's a lot of hours, a lot of work, and a lot of people in a family
tree. All the while, Tina hardly slept, working through most nights, knowing there was a killer still out there.
Every day counted. Every day mattered. I needed to get it [Music] solved. Hunker down at their computers
day after day, constantly back and forth on the phone. Tina Llewellyn and genealogologist Cheryl La Point are
quickly becoming great partners. She was a team player from Jump. Never had met me. We talked so often that we became
friends. Best buds. Best buds. I don't know what else to say. And when they needed DNA, they turned to Tina's
husband, Aaron, and Texas Ranger Brandon Best. So from that point, I mean, Brandon Best would drive around Texas
and go talk to these people. Convincing someone to give their DNA up, to give a piece of themselves up to you in a
homicide investigation can be very difficult. When we would sense um anxiety in someone, Aaron would
immediately tell them, "Hey, who do you want to play you in the movie?" And they
would look at Aaron like he was crazy and say, "Um, what are you talking about? This guy's a Texas Ranger.
everything they do turns into a movie. Who do you want to play your role in this movie? That calmed them down every
time. And I of course do threw out there, hey, I've already got Brad Pitt, so you know, you can't you can't be Brad
cuz Brad's playing me. Was there ever a time though that somebody actually thought my uncle may actually be a
killer. Who knows? In every one of these cases that I've worked using DNA and genetic genealogy, you have at least one
person, usually two or three, that says, "You know what? I had that weird Uncle Joe." Once the uploads were compared to
the killer's DNA, if the amount of shared genetic material was low, they knew it was a dead end. There were times
when we would come across a name and like you get that the the butterflies in your stomach like, "Hey, maybe this is
our guy." And then it turns out it's not our guy. After almost 3 months of ups and downs and nearly non-stop work,
Sherah hit pay dirt. It was about 10:30 at night. She was working a family line very distantly related to her own. It
was a very common cinjun name, Tibido. I got to a couple who were in Bumont. I was able to see from uh records that
they had two sons. This was a major lead, a family in Catherine's town with two sons who went to Forest Park High,
the same school Catherine did at around the same time. I put the names in the tree and I
messaged Tina and I said, "There's a couple in Bowmont. I'm tired. I'm going to bed." And I turned my cell phone off
and I fell asleep on the sofa. And when I woke up the next morning, my phone had
just blown up. And it was you on the other end. Yes. What were you saying? This is them. We found them. Just didn't
know which one. Okay. It's either Michael Foreman or Clayton Foreman. What did you do to to figure that out?
The first name I ran was Clayton. And then when I came across his prior conviction for the sexual assault, the
hair on the back of my neck stood up. I'm like, "This is our guy." In 1981, a 19-year-old woman told police
that Clayton Foreman bound her hands and raped her. She had also gone to Forest Park High School, where Clayton was the
manager of the football team. Foreman was convicted but was given probation and paid a fine but he did not have to
give a DNA sample at that time. This was back in the early 80s. We didn't have sex offender registry. Uh no DNA
database. And then they found another connection. It went all the way back to Diana Co, Catherine's friend from middle
school. In high school, Diana fell madly in love. Her boyfriend had graduated three years ahead of her and they got
engaged. He was so kind. He had the most wonderful personality. And when she started planning her
wedding, she immediately turned to her old friends, Catherine and Allison. And they were one of the first ones I
thought of as a bridesmaid and and I asked them and they said yes. And the groom, the man Diana co-married
back in 1982. Now, he was their number one suspect, Clayton Foreman. She, in fact, did know him. Yes.
In hindsight, there were signs. When Diana found out about Clayton's legal troubles, the wedding was less than 3
months away. And the wedding invitations had already been mailed out. Mhm. And I said,
"Rape?" I said, "Oh, there's no way." But she never got any details and her fiance explained it away. He kept
telling me it it was a big misunderstanding. And so in my mind, I thought, well, he must be telling the
truth because if he got arrested, he's not in jail, but you didn't really believe it was rape, right? Diana's
sister Anne and her brother Scooter were not so sure. And neither were their parents who wanted her to call it off.
And I said, "Well, Dina, why don't you just wait?" And she didn't want to wait. She wanted to marry Clay. She was in
love with him. She's believing him and she's wanting to get married. Then then we have this support as a family. He was
like, "I'm so so sorry. I love you. I want us to be married. I want us to have a family." And so I was like, "Okay."
You know, so I went I went through with it. Diana and Clayton stayed married for
a little more than 11 years. They had a son. The relationship began to fray over
foreman lying about their finances. And it ended after he had an affair. And looking back, Diana can see that he had
an unhealthy fascination with police officers and the tools of their trade, like handcuffs. I remember that
he had ordered those handcuffs. Well, he had them hung over the rear view mirror.
And I I didn't think anything of it. When Catherine was killed, they were divorced. But Diana remembers calling
her ex-husband to talk about it. I think I was, you know, crying and I said, "Oh
my god." I said, "Somebody has murdered Catherine." And and he goes, "Oh, really?" just like no emotion. When we
hung the phone up, I can remember because I was like kind of squinting and kind of like going, "God, that's kind of
odd." With all the mounting evidence, Foreman needed to be found. He was 60 and no longer living in Bowmont. They
quickly tracked him to Reynoldsburg, Ohio. What was he doing there? as an Uber driver at the time. So, I was able
to send a lead uh to a field office up there and basically did what we call a trash run. You need to collect a piece
of DNA so that you can ensure that it's the the right guy. Right. Correct. Uh so
that's what they did. They surveiled his house and then went and snatched a bag of trash and sent it to me. Uh so I
brought that stuff to Houston to the DPS crime lab and from there they tested it. The
likelihood that the DNA belonged to Clayton Foreman was a big number, 461 septilion. It doesn't get better
than that, says Cheryl La Point. I mean, you can't fight those odds. You cannot fight those
off. And that was all they needed. I got a text from a a DPS lab technician and she said, "Go get his ass."
Aaron Llewellyn and Brandon Bess were about to hop a plane to Ohio. ready to face the man they felt sure had killed
Catherine. Mr. Foreman is And while they're doing that, Tina pays a visit to Diana Co.
Did they tell you we had they had DNA though? Tina told you that. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I just went, "Oh my god,
please don't tell me it was clay." I almost fell to the ground. I was just like, "Oh my god, I Oh god, I
can't believe he's done this." What do you think of sharing your DNA with law enforcement to help solve a
murder? Chat now with the 48 Hours team on Facebook and X. When Texas Ranger Brandon Best and
Detective Aaron Llewellyn arrive at the Franklin County Sheriff's Office to confront Clayton Foreman, they have a
cover story. It's about a lost item from one of Foreman's Uber rides. We go in under the uh under the ruse of
someone had left uh a purse in his car. So, he came in voluntarily to talk about
a purse that was in the car. It was April 29th, 2021, 26 years after Katherine Edwards
was murdered. And they are sure they are sitting in front of the man who murdered
her. And we're asking you to visit with us about a crime that we're investigating. Okay. Did he immediately
go, "Uhoh." No, he didn't. So, the crime that we're looking at is the murder of Mary Katherine Edwards, and she was
murdered in 1995. I guess he pretty quickly realized he wasn't there to give up a purse. He did.
And we found a picture of a wedding picture that she and her sister, uh, Al Allison were actually in your wedding,
right? And 1982. 82. Okay. Okay. Do you ever remember anyone ever coming to you about that crime? Were you aware of the
crime even? No. You didn't know the crime occurred? No, sir. Okay. We backed him into a bunch of hard corners. He
claimed that he didn't even know that she was dead. You didn't know that um Catherine Edwards was murdered? No, sir.
Did not. Do you remember them from school? Do you remember the girls from school?
Not really. They were a freshman when you were a senior. Yes, sir. Okay. So on Mary Edwards Mary Craft Cathwards um
didn't know her well. Did you ever visit with her at all? Um did you ever go in her house at all? Any house that she
ever lived in? No. Okay. You know, did you know where she lived? No. Had no idea. So and he's denying denying. He is
denying. You know, in these DNA cases when you whether you're going to get a confession or not, you want to build up
that background of, hey, did you know them? Number one, did y'all have much acquaintance with them or was it just
like a high school friend thing? How did you know them? I think they were bridesmaids for my wife's life. That's
right. Did you ever go on a date? Never dated. All the way up to Did you ever have sex
with this person? Never. obviously had sex with her. No. Never. Never. Did you go to college together? Did you do all
everything was a no. And we had those denials several times. And then so towards the end of the interview, we
asked him, "Well, if all those things are true, can you explain how your DNA ended up on her and on her her bed?
Do you understand DNA?" Mhm. And do you understand how DNA works? You understand
you're made of DNA, right? He's made of DNA. I'm made of DNA. I think that Foreman knew enough about DNA that he
thought he would have been caught already. He knew that he had never submitted his DNA. He had no clue that
he was going to be arrested that day. Play level with you right here and now. I want you to hear me real close. All
right, sir. That crime scene was processed really well and your DNA was on Catherine's bed and was inside
Catherine. Okay. I mean, I don't know how it got there, but you say it was there. There's
only one way for it to get there. Okay. Um, and that's by you putting it there. Okay. Do you understand that? Do you
understand the implications of that? The day that she died, the night that she died, your DNA is in her and your DNA is
on her bedspread. Now, I don't want you to say anything right this second. I want you
to think about the next words that come out of your mouth. I want you to think very hard about that.
Okay. There's two people that know that story. You're one of them and she's the other and she can't talk. Mhm. What I
asked you is now to be honest with us completely and tell us how did that happen?
I'm not going to say anything. I probably need an attorney now. You probably need one or you do need
one. Well, if you're saying I did that, then I probably need an attorney to talk
to you. Well, is that all we got then? We're going to let you walk out of that door just like we told you.
It's a grainy video, but you can probably see us grinning at each other. You have all your stuff that he thinks
he's walking out of here. He thinks he's fixing to leave here. So, as he got out down the hallway
headed towards the elevator, we stopped him and arrested him for the murder of Katherine Edwards.
And after all those years and all that work, Aaron Llewellyn and Brandon Best had one thing left they needed to do.
Uh, if you remember back when we were talking about the crime scene, she was handcuffed. So, we had talked to the
DA's office beforehand and got permission to use those handcuffs. The very handcuffs that bound Catherine the
night she died. How did it feel to put those handcuffs on her? Very good. It's a moment I'll never forget. You feel
like you got to do something for Catherine, you know, like physically got to do for her is take those cuffs that
bound her when she was murdered and put them back on the guy that murdered her. It's, you know, it may seem small to
some, but it was a really big deal to us and it felt good. Even though they'd had
their suspicions about him, the news that Clayton Foreman was arrested for the murder of Katherine Edwards was
still a shock for his ex-wife Diana Co and her siblings Ann Scooter. And she calls me and she says, "Clay
murdered Catherine." And I said, "Dude, what?" your brain doesn't because it it knows him as a person as a as as
somebody that you you know your brother-in-law or your brother. That was that was
that was hard. Yeah. I thought of Allison and I just I I just couldn't believe it.
My my thought immediately went to Allison and I just said, "Allison, oh my god, she's going to hate
me. [Music] [Music] Opening arguments began this morning. Orman is charged with capital murder.
Guilty or not guilt? Not guilty. March 12th, 2024. This is not going to be easy for a lot
of people cuz it's been a long time coming. Nearly 30 years after Katherine Edwards was found dead in her townhouse,
you got to remember this happened in 1995. Bumont prosecutor Patrick Canow and his
colleagues Mike Lair and Sunny Eckhart are ready for trial. You're going to get to learn a lot about DNA. You're going
to hear and they're extremely confident about their case against Clayton Foreman. Mr. Burbank, do you want to
make an opening statement at this time? No, your honor. Tom Burbank is defending
Foreman. He didn't really have anything and he knew it. Next witness. The prosecution calls Catherine's twin
sister Allison. We wanted to remind everyone this is about Catherine and her family. And that's the way we wanted to
start off with here at 60. Sitting before them was the spitting image of what could have been. That is a picture
of my sister Catherine reliving the day she lost Catherine. And then the next thing we know, you know, my mom and dad
drove up and told us what I mean that there were no words. She was dead. That was
all that mattered. I didn't know how, what, or anything. I didn't know what happened to her. It was just that she
was gone was all I knew. The pain and the loss still so palpable. Four years later, I had a daughter and her name is
Catherine. Katherine after my sister. and she never got to know her. That's the hardest
part. It was a lie. Helaniah Adams, Katherine Edwards student when she was seven and now 37, sat in the courtroom
nearly every day. It was times when they would show photos or when they showed the videos of her on the floor. It was
as if your heart was breaking all over again. You measure the proximity of matching
DNA. Detective Tina Lulellen and genealogologist Cheryl La Point along with other crime lab technicians walk
the jury through the process of the genealogy and the DNA match. Texas Ranger Bess and Detective
Aaron Llewellyn go through the final stages of the investigation. All carefully coordinated
to make the chain of evidence airtight. And on the last day, the prosecution calls all the women who had
been scarred by foremen and were alive to say so. He was your supervisor. That's correct. An old coworker. When I
ever I opened up the drawer, there was a pair of handcuffs. A former fiance who found pictures of young girls. He said
to me that he had them so that he could fantasize about taking their virginity. his ex-wife, Diana Co, who agreed to
testify. Did you think at the time you were in love with the defendant? Yes. When you saw him at trial, how hard was
that for you? That was very hard and uh it was very embarrassing to me and and I
do feel ashamed. And it was during the trial that Diana learned about what really happened to that 19-year-old
woman in the months before she and Foreman married. It was the most horrific thing that I could have ever
heard. I couldn't imagine what she went through and was so brave to get up and say what she said. She was the final
witness returning to the night her car got stuck and Foreman falsely claiming he was a policeman offered to help.
First, he he tied my hands back. He tied your hands behind your back? Yes. Did he
threaten to cut your throat if you didn't? Yes. This whole thing took a while, didn't it?
Yes, sir. I'm sorry. What happened then? He He took me home. Did he say something that was that you
felt was odd? Yes. He said three things. He said, "Stop crying. I'm sorry. I hope I didn't hurt
you." And there was another woman who did not testify, but went on the record, an
alleged victim of Foreman's violence, also a high school friend of Diana, who did not press charges. She told
investigators Foreman attacked her from behind and put a gun to her head. She had indicated back in ' 85 or ' 86 that
he had uh come to her apartment and knocked on the door and told her that he was having financial and marital
problems with Diana and he needed somebody to talk to and so she let him in. Prosecutors suspect Foreman used a
similar ruse the night he appeared at Katherine Edward's door. That's the way we thought he got to Catherine because
Katherine was very, very Christian, very given, very naive. And it's a wonderful
thing to be except when you're faced with Clayton Foreman. I've always wondered, did he say something about
me? Hey, it's Clay. And you know, I need to talk to you about something about Diana. It's always I've always wondered,
but I thought I'll never know. After seven days of prosecution testimony, the defense calls no
witnesses and attorney Burbank closes. You heard different things in reference to sex things and stuff like that. Okay.
Still doesn't make him a murderer. You may not like him because of what people say, but I submit to you they have not
proven murder beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution wraps up its case. And it's so easy to believe that evil
doesn't exist. It is here in this courtroom here today. These are things I wish I didn't know exist. And I'm sorry
I've had to talk to you about it, but I didn't bring us here. He did. Now it would be up to a
jury to decide Clayton Foreman's future. Patrick Canow wants them to remember Katherine Edwards didn't have
one. And I do pray that Mike and I still have done a good job for G and you. I hope we've done our job.
[Music] Is this verdict a unanimous one? Yes, sir. It takes less than an hour for the
jury to come back with a verdict. We and the jury find the defendant guilty. Clayton Foreman guilty and
sentenced to life for the murder of Katherine Edwards. It didn't take long cuz all the evidence
was there. Once it got into the DNA, more or less sealed it for him. Larry Delkam, juror number two, says he and
his fellow jurors had very little to talk about. He had no defense that it wasn't him. There's no denial there.
It felt like, hey, this thing does work. For Helaniah Adams, finally some justice
for a favorite teacher after all. I wanted to close that door. finally. She meant so much to
me. And when you heard those words, guilty, what was that like for you? We did it.
Was it Was it emotional? We did it. This whole case was emotional. For detectives
Tina and Aaron Llewellyn, genealogologist Cheryl La Point, and Ranger Brandon Best, it was the ending
they had all worked for, but it left lots of room for reflection. And I think the justice system has worked and he's
where he needs to be. But to say that that's honestly justice for Mary Catherine. It's frustrating to know that
he lived a life and she should have been able to to live a life and have children
and go on. That is frustrating. I never use the word closure. I never use the word justice. There's no justice. He got
to live 26 years. He got to get married. He got to have kids. She did not. There's no justice. I don't believe
there is such a thing as closure. Not on this earth. Beth always wanted a confession. They all wanted to know why.
70% of the time, you're not going to get that. And and 100% of the time, you're not going to get the whole story anyway.
We all wanted those answers and because he was spineless and didn't talk to us or give us any
information, we'll never know the details behind it. And everyone was still reeling, asking themselves how it
was that Clayton Foreman walked among them and no one saw his monstrous core all those years hiding in plain sight.
So when we identified him, I actually have mutual friends with him that were in shock. They could not believe it was
him because they knew he was such a nice guy. He had fooled so many people for so
long. I personally believe that there are more victims out there. We just hadn't found them yet. I find it hard to
believe that he has not assaulted other people. I I really feel with all my of my being I feel that there are
others. And how do you think he was able to conceal this darker side? That's the
part I cannot I can't I I don't understand it. I don't know how he could. Like I always say, it's like Dr.
Jackekal and Mr. Hyde. I have my own speculations. I think somebody I think some people are demonp possessed or or
demon influenced cuz that's pure evil. There's nothing else you can explain. That's just evil. I was married to a
monster is what I was married to and didn't know it and didn't know it. I think if it if he wouldn't have married
me, she'd still be alive. But in the wake of the trial, it was time to turn away from Foreman and
remember Katherine Edwards as she was and in her own words. Wow, I didn't realize the timing on this
one. December the 11th, 1994. She was murdered a month later. I have given my life to God and I will
follow his path for me. That gives me a feeling of great relief and peace. The human spirit is stronger than
anything that can happen to it. The vibrant, beloved school teacher in her prime gone far too soon. If you could
talk directly with Mary Katherine Edwards, what would you wish to tell her? Oh my gosh.
Um, I think I would say I love her and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry this happened to her. And um I was honored to be given
the privilege to help give answers. Very honored. Very honored. She was a very special person. She really was.
[Music] Unfortunately, it introduced me to real loss, to trauma, to fear, to grief, to
heartbreak, to all the feelings. A podcast I watched, they they would always ask aspiring lawyers, when did
you fall in love with law? And I think that's when I fell in love with law in the second grade when
Clayton Foreman took my light from me. Helenia is a student once again. She's studying for her MERS in criminal
justice and plans to apply to law school, a tribute to her teacher. [Music] [Music]
CBS next Saturday. A young mother is murdered. She got shot in the car. At first, this seemed like an openandsh
case, but finding the killer, Carlton Police Department, come out with your hands up was only the beginning. It was
only half the story. 48 Hours is all new CBS next Saturday, 10:9 central, and streaming on Paramount Plus.
[Music] If you're afraid of snakes, then everything you think you know about them
is wrong. My name is Ben Renick. I'm with Ben Ren Reptiles and this is my story.
Ben Renick is an artist when it comes to breeding snakes. And this is a project that I'm actually a really big fan of.
Are there some species of snakes in here that Ben used to work with? Yeah, actually right behind me there's a
reticulated python and Ben was actually very fond of his reticulated pythons. Ben Renick was a great
businessman. He was a young upand cominging rock star in the reptile world. My wife and I uh mainly run this
company. Lley Renick is a kind soul, a devoted mother, and I would say a genuinely
caring person. They were happy. You know, they were very busy. You know, they worked a
lot, and there was never any instance of anything ever being wrong. On June 8th of 2017, at about 5:30 in
the afternoon, Lindley Renick drives home to where her home and her and her husband's snake facility is. She goes
inside and she finds her husband, Ben Renick, lying face down in a pool of blood. I got a call from Lley. She was
hysterical, complete in panic. 911. What's the address? The emergency ground. And I went in to try and find Ben. And
when I found Ben and um and his body, I knew that uh it was too late. Oh my god. My brother's dead. What What
may have happened? He got killed by snake. I assumed it was a snake. for that 1850. The whole building full of snakes.
There's a snake every 4 in here. I don't know what to stop. Someone being killed
by a snake is not something that happens every day, especially in Missouri. Paramedics said there's a bike mark on
him. So, if there's a snake loose in here. Mhm. So, watch your Being the coroner walking into a death
scene with thousands of snakes jumping at the cages. It was just a crazy scene to be at. Do we have anybody we could
call to deal with an anaconda? All right. How could you have something big enough
to kill a person here? I still didn't know what to think. I squatted down next to the body.
There's significant damage. There's blood all around. When I saw that shell casing on the shelf just above his head,
I knew this was not from a snake. This was something much more heinous. I knew that this was a homicide at that time.
Who would want to kill Ben Renick? That was the question. We couldn't have imagined anything like that.
And it was a long wait until we got that answer. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] I don't care if it's a if it's a 5 in
long steak and somebody's trying to bite me, I'm going to I'm going to light it up on a hot Missouri's summer day. In
June 2017, Montgomery County Sheriff's deputies were called to a unique and potentially dangerous death scene.
A literal snake pit, a building with more than 3,000 exotic serpents. Something got him, so watch your The
first responders aren't sure if one of these snakes may have killed renowned breeder Ben Renick.
Who is Ben? That's been renew. Make sure there's no snakes around the victims. Yeah. Excuse me. Coroner Dave
Colbert had never seen anything like it. They're holding shotguns in hand. They were guns out. She could just feel the
anxiety amongst everyone there. No one knew where the killer could be coiled or lurking. But while examining Ben's body,
the coroner made that surprising discovery. Ben's body, lying face down, hid the
true cause of death. He hadn't been bitten by a giant snake. Ben had been shot eight
times, once at close range. This was something that was not just a random act. There's a snake. There's a snake, honey.
We're not doing anything. Nearby was Ben's wife, Lindley. she had discovered his body and she was visibly upset. Uh
what you would describe as somebody who is grieving and you know just lost a loved one.
Okay. Lindley had called Sam who rushed to the scene. Sam Lenny got hit before I
did so I don't know. Okay. I He was always shot in the back almost exclusively. I I don't think he saw it
coming at all. Ben had such a future ahead of him. You know, he was 29 years old. He was almost 30. A lot was
lost. Near this remote highway about 80 miles west of St. Louis once stood a worldrenowned snake breeding facility,
Renick Reptiles, where Ben Renick built his empire of serpents. Welcome to the basement of Renick
Reptiles. Uh we keep particular pythons, blood pythons, white pythons, green anacondas. Ben had uh his first snake at
a very young age and that became a somewhat of a passion for him became a uh a hobby did build into a business and
he was he was very good at what he did. At the time of the murder, Sam and Ben Renick were living in separate houses
with their families on this 70 acre spread. We lived out there together and raised our kids out there together. Then
we went fishing on the weekends and you know, we were close. Ben and Lyn Lee first met when they were teenagers. They
reconnected in 2011, says local attorney Katherine Burgerer. They hit it off right away and their relationship got
pretty serious pretty quickly. Um, I think they moved in together within the first year of dating. Lindley had a son
from a previous relationship. Sam says Ben became a second father to the child. In 2014, Ben and Lindley decided to tie
the knot. Uh they had a beautiful wedding and it was beautiful small family event and it was very special.
Soon they had a baby of their own, a growing family to go with their booming snake breeding business. Lindley found
Ben's passion interesting. She would work day and night helping Ben with the snakes, handling them, cleaning them,
sorting them. In 2016, they opened a second business, a Sentia Spa in Columbia, Missouri, a longtime dream of
Lindley, who once worked as a massage therapist. Hi, I'm Lindley. I'm the owner here. I know that when she started
her spa business, this is something that she had always wanted to do that she that empowered her quite a bit. By 2017,
Renick's snake business was wildly successful. He was shipping his snakes around the world, from the UK to Japan,
and traveling to reptile conventions across the United States. He was so successful, Ben realized that if he sold
a portion of Renick Reptiles, he could make some real money. Ben had planned on selling the majority
of his ball python collection for uh from my understanding was about $1.2 million. Things were going to be very
good for uh my brother and and Lenley. The couple had received their first payment of at least
$200,000, but then Ben was murdered. When you heard that he was dead, what did you think might have happened to
him? So, the first question that I asked was, uh, how many snakes were missing? A
facility like Ben's um, it unfortunately attracts a lot of bad people. bad people
that see these snakes not as these beautiful amazing creatures that they are, but see them as dollar signs. To
understand the world of snakes that Ben lived and worked in, we spoke with Ben's
friend Dave Kaufman, who introduced me to a reticulated python, a snake Ben was known for throughout the world because
of how he bred them in captivity. Ben loved these snakes because how can you not love these snakes? I mean,
really, when it comes down to it, they're big, they're beautiful, they're personable. She's going to go right over
your shoulder and try to go on the cage behind you. Let's see if I'm right. Oh, no. She's going to wrap around you. It's
my new scarf. There you go. Kaufman is also a snake breeder. Have you ever seen a blood python this big? And a
documentary filmmaker who also travels the world tracking rare and exotic reptiles for his YouTube channel. This
is a first. It is a remarkable sensation. It is. Investigators looked into the theory
that Ben's murder may have been a robbery gone bad, but ruled it out. No snakes were missing. Dave Colbert says
it made sense to look more carefully at those closest to Ben. We definitely didn't want to exclude anybody from
being a possible suspect. I didn't know if Sam was involved. Didn't know if Lindley was involved.
The day after his brother's murder, Sam Renick was brought in for questioning. Ask your help. I don't know where to
start. Okay. And they also brought in Lindley. Give me questions for us. What happened? Yeah.
What I mean, what do I do? All your friends and family. But soon enough, those same friends and family
would have reason to question everything they thought they knew about Lenley Reic. Lenley that we knew back then was
uh very sweet uh kind. However, there was there were other sides there that we didn't know.
[Music] With law enforcement discovering that Ben Renick had not been killed by a
snake and quickly ruling out the possibility of a robbery gone bad, Sam Renick had one major question. Who would
have want to been dead? A Missouri State Highway Patrol detective had the same question when he spoke with Ben's wife,
Lindley. Could you see anybody, you know, being upset with Ben to the point to where that may happen?
Both Lindley and Sam were cooperative in their initial interviews. Are you willing to submit to a shotgun or not
shotgun, a gunshot? Yeah. Anything you want, we got it. Okay. Sam says he understood why police would
first focus on them. And he told investigators he could never imagine Lindley being involved. I didn't think
that Lindley would have been capable of murder like that. Lindley also agreed to a gunshot residue
test. But in her one-on-one interview with a detective, Lindley made a startling claim, saying that Sam might
have had a motive to kill his brother. Was there any family issues like between Sam and Yeah.
At issue, Lley said, was Ben's plan to possibly sell the property where they all lived. She claimed Sam was upset
about it. Ben had inherited the property after another tragedy on the Renick family
farm just 5 years earlier. The suicide of Ben and Sam's father, Frank Renick. Ben found him. Uh he came and got me and
I we went there together and uh it was a tough day. Frank Renick shot himself in 2012 after being implicated
in a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme involving fraudulent stock certificates. There's a lot of people that lost a lot
of money, you know, due to my father. Unaware that Lindley was implicating him, Sam wondered whether Ben had been
killed in an act of revenge against their father. We were concerned, however, that, you know, someone could
have been upset enough to to have waited, done something like this. But that theory never took off. And Sam, who
had tested negative for gun residue on his hands, was ruled out after cooperating fully with investigators. I
provided them, you know, everything I had, my cell phone, the shirt off my back, uh, my alibi to where I was when
the murder happened. I I gave a polygraph. As highway patrol detectives continued
their investigation, the reptile community stepped up to help Ben's wife and children. We have a male fire
cinnamon. They held this online auction of donated snakes. She's a pretty girl, guys. Raising more than $40,000. Guys,
remember all this money is going to a great great great cause. You guys banded together and you got thousands of
dollars to Lindley to help her during this time of crime. Tens of th Yeah, we we raised tens of thousands of dollars
to help Lindley and the kids because you felt she was a victim. That's correct. But that supposed victim had a startling
confession when Lindley spoke with detectives again just 11 days after Ben's murder. So, have you been talking
to anyone or did you have a relationship? Eric, how did you guys? Lley admitted she had been unfaithful.
It was just just Did he think the same way? Yeah. Detectives checked that man's alibi and
cleared him of any suspicion. Investigators then interviewed Ashley Shaw, one of Lynley's employees, and a
close friend who she had confided in, which may have been a mistake. I mean, I'm sure that, you know, she was having
um an affair, a couple affairs, actually. Um Ashley, the manager at Asensia Spa, said that Lindley had also
been seeing another man named Brandon Blackwell, who she had met on a dating website. She said Lley was hooking up
with Brandon before Ben's murder. I know Brandon was like really a short time before that, I believe. Along with
Lynley's affairs, investigators had discovered Facebook messages between Ben and Lley. They revealed that Ben had
found out the spa was losing money and that Lley had lied to him about it. Ben sent a message to Lenley just hours
before he was murdered. No more lying. No more keeping things from me. No more not paying people and
thinking it's okay to pay later. 4 months after Ben's murder, Lenley was in front of cops again and
agreed to take a polygraph exam. Okay. How do you think you did, Lenley? Okay. Not exactly. Lindley's polygraph
test was a dismal failure. And so the results of the polygraph showed that you failed the the test. When I asked you,
did you shoot that man? You failed the test. Why? I just failed that, but I didn't
kill Ben. And but investigators suspected she did and may have had help from yet another man in her life. His
name is Michael Humphrey, an old ex-boyfriend and ex-con fresh out of prison on drug possession charges who
she texted and called numerous times, including on the day her husband was murdered. Coming in for a massage. The
thing is that that right there is very suspicious. It appeared Lley was close to breaking.
I don't know, but she continued to deny any involvement dozens of times. I didn't have anything to do with this.
There is so much circumstantial evidence against you in this case, it's mindboggling.
But Lley's gunshot residue test had come back negative with no witnesses, no murder
weapon found or direct evidence linking her to Ben's murder. I need to go get my children.
She left that interrogation room a free woman. The investigation went cold for nearly 3
years until unexpectedly someone came forward with everything Missouri Highway Patrol
investigators were looking for. [Music] The boas are long gone. Pythons packed up. Snakes in new homes. The reptilian
paradise turn crime scene now a vacant frozen field. Eight fatal shots unanswered.
I wasn't sure what to think. Unaware that investigators suspected Lynley, Ben Reick's brother, Sam was left more than
a little uneasy. It was very, very tough knowing um that someone's out there that
had essentially gotten away with murder. Um I was concerned my own safety. And without an arrest, serpent lovers
were also left rattled. So when the case went cold, we would all contact each other asking if anybody had
any information on what was going on. It was frustrating. It was frustrating to have all this time pass and not have a
culprit in custody. All Dave Kaufman knew for sure, humans do things other than what you expect. Snakes do not. And
the most unexpected behavior came from the human closest to Ben Renick, his widow, Lindley.
We want to be, you know, as understanding as possible. However, in time when she refused to talk to us or
allow us to talk to the kids or even uh receive my brother's belongings, we knew
something was wrong. In fact, just weeks after Ben's murder, with her spa business failing, Lindley
had sold the family property, closed up shop, and left town in a hurry. So like one day she was there and the
next day just left and then never came back. Today Beth Mayberry works at that same location. But back then she was
just one more true crime buff in Columbia, Missouri, riveted by a case without a conclusion. How much is this
Renick case talked about around here among It's a lot. And what do people say? What do they think? Um crazy. It's
crazy. Um, and people did start to wonder, maybe Lindley did it, maybe she had someone do this. Um, it did become a
question, a question without an answer until January 2020 when cops followed up on a jail house tip. We're
investigators. I'm here because you used to be dating Lenley. That's correct. Out of nowhere
comes this, you know what what I'm sure the investigators would would think as a
god a godsend. Journalist Dave McKenna of Defector Media was following the case that was
about to change fast for investigators. Your dad gave me a call today and said that you wanted to talk to us. Yeah.
Just lays out the whole story and it is very detailed. It was Brandon Blackwell, the man Lyn
Lee met online. the lover she was hooking up with the very week Ben was murdered. Her husband is freshly dead.
Body's still warm and she's found another warm body. Only a year and a half after Ben was killed, Blackwell and
Lindley had a child together. But Lindley alleged Blackwell had become threatening and they had broken up. Lley
got an order of protection and Blackwell was then charged with violating that order and stalking her. Charges he
denies. He was jammed up in jail and looking to make a deal. Concern is getting out of that cell. Now you're
coming to us when you're in a pickle. Right. [Music] Blackwell's tale begin weeks before Ben
Reic was shot dead when he says Lindley and spa employee Ashley Shaw whipped up a toxic shake for Ben. He was given a a
protein drink one night that was laced full of enormous amounts of narcotics and somehow lived through it. But the
plan was for that to be the last day of his life. a poison potion served to a husband by his wife. Brandon says Lley
confessed that and much more to him. My information is out of the horse's mouth.
Okay. So, when pills failed to kill, Brandon says Lley turned to one time boyfriend Michael Humphrey.
They drove to the farm. He had gloves. He had a firearm. The plan was for him to do it. Um they get there, he hands
her the gun and says he doesn't feel comfortable doing something she's got to take care
of. She walks in with the gun and just shoots him a bunch of times. And according to Blackwell, Lley's spa
employee, Ashley Shaw, was once again involved. Brandon Blackwell told the police that Ashley was in on it
intimately from from the start of the planning. The cold case was blown wide open. On January 16th, 2020, cops made
their moves. Lindley Renick and Michael Humphrey were arrested, charged with the
murder of Ben Renick. Loved ones and friends never saw it coming. What that moment was like for you? Disbelief. I
thought they got the wrong person. It It took us years to find out that Lley was
lying and that she was living in a double life. a sociopath. Uh, if you look that up, that's Linny's picture
will be sitting right there with it. But what motive could Lley have to murder the man she had built so much with? Some
say it was as coldblooded as a cobra. Money. Lindley stood to gain millions of dollars from the death of my
brother. Between the life insurance, the sale of the snakes, and the family farm
that she would inherit, it was significant. Still, investigators needed someone to flip.
They arrested Ashley and Fast let her know exactly what her future reality might look like. Now is a time you're
either on team Lenley or you're on team Missouri. And team Lenley's going to jail. They're going to prison for
first-degree murder. In exchange for leniency, Ashley turned on her one-time boss. Starting with the toxic
ingredients in Linley's venomous smoothie, Ashley would say that Lley told her Ben had abused her. She asked
if I could get any um thing, any prescription pills or anything in the amount that could um help her kill him.
And so I got her um per it was percoet, I'm pretty sure. And there was um I think 15 of them. According to Ashley,
after the shooting, Lindley claimed Michael Humphrey was the trigger man. But she says a few days later, Lindley
changed her story. Ashley now claimed that Lindley confessed to being the killer. And she said, "Oh, no. Once we
got there, I I was fine to do it." And so he handed me the gun and I did it. After the murder, she ever seemed
remorseful. She was sorry. Never. No. But as the case headed to trial, Lindley's legal team insists Michael
Humphrey was the real shooter. And they argue the state's case isn't based on truth, but on the fearful, coerced
testimony of Ashley Shaw. You're either on team Lenley or you're on team Missouri. And team Lenley is going to
jail. How would that impact somebody uh a woman like Ashley Shaw, do you think? Well, if Ashley Shaw ever wants to leave
that interview room for the rest of her life or for the indefinite future, she's
going to change her story. It was only after that threat that she changed her story and implicated Lonely
Renick. I don't know what happened with this. I don't know. It took a lot of time to just process,
you know, the lies that we were given by Lley. In late 2021, Sam Renick was bracing himself for the trials of his
brother's alleged killers. My biggest concern was keeping my composure during the whole time.
First up, Lynley's old boyfriend, Michael Humphrey. The prosecution said Lindley fired the gun and that Humphrey
was in on the plan. Prosecutors said he was in on the plotting. He provided the weapon. He helped knock off her husband.
But that murder weapon had not been recovered. Humphrey's defense argued that he had been lured to the snake farm
by Lindley, who claimed she wanted protection when asking Ben for a divorce. Lley had then surprised him and
pulled out a gun and shot her husband. They painted him as kind of a fawning suitor of this pretty blonde petite uh
snake salesman. The jury didn't believe Humphrey's story of being an innocent spectator. After deliberating for just 5
hours, jurors convicted him of firstdegree murder. Lley is a manipulator and I truly
believe that he was manipulated into where he is right now. Then facing life behind bars, Michael Humphrey, changed
his story. Lynley's trial attorneys, Tim Hesman and Katherine Burgerer. He decides to flip. Why does he do that?
He's convicted of first-degree murder after a jury trial. Uh he agrees to cooperate with the state in the hopes
that he might be able to parole out eventually. Humphrey now admits that he provided the gun that Lley used to shoot
her husband. and he tells them where they can find it, which is in his girlfriend's mother's attic. With the
murder weapon in hand, jurors in Linley's upcoming trial would have to answer one unresolved question. Who
pulled the trigger? This is case number 307, State versus Lenley Renick. The defendant, Lenley Renick, shot her
husband, Ben, eight times, killing him. We're going to come back and ask you to find her guilty of murder. The
prosecution painted Lley as coldblooded as one of her husband's snakes, a killer
who shot Ben and then went about her daily routine as if nothing had happened. She goes to the school, picks
up her two children, and drives them back to the place where she knows she is going to find their father's dead body
because she killed him. Lenley is being deceptive to Ben. The defense counters by saying that while Linley lied and
cheated on Ben, that doesn't make her a killer. She's not planning a murder, she's planning a divorce. They pointed
the finger at the man already convicted of murdering Ben Renick. Michael Humphrey took it upon himself, acting
completely independently, took Ben's life himself. But Lynley's employee and confidant, Ashley Shaw, now the
prosecution star witness, swears Michael Humphrey and Lindley were full partners
in crime. Michael is going to come to the spa and they were going to go together to her house, his business, um
to kill him at home or at at work. Shaw says after the murder, Lindley returned to the spa not for a massage, but to
wash away her sins. So Lley goes back there and she tells you to do what? Uh to give her a shower and she asked me to
scrub her body and her hands really well and she walked. Then Ashley tells the jurors what Lley told her about what
really happened at Renick Reptiles the day Ben was killed. She said that Michael got uh too nervous or didn't
want to do it and so he handed her the gun and she actually killed him. She said that she put the gun to his back
and shot him several times. But the defense claims Ashley Shaw, just like Michael Humphrey, made up this story in
order to avoid life in prison. How are you able to be so calm when you're being questioned about murders that you
evidently claim to be involved in? How is that, Ashley? I don't know. There are so many aspects of Ashley Shaw's story
that simply are not credible. And now, in a strange twist of judicial fate, the prosecution called an unlikely
key witness to the stand. Now, what am I holding up? That's That's my gun. That's
what your gun is? Convicted murderer Michael Humphrey, who now swears he's telling the truth about how Lindley
killed her husband. I heard a shot come out, so I kind of ducked a little bit. I
looked down through there and she was at the end of the corridor, whatever you want to call it, posed up like this with
a gun. All right, thank you so much. Call your next witness. As the trial neared its end, the defense took a
chance on a star witness of their own. Lley began by detailing the troubled and sometimes violent marriage she claims
she was trying to escape. Lley. Uh, was there ever any other occasion where an argument with Ben turned physical? Yes.
Ben and I had been arguing at the house and he grabbed my arm and pushed me into
the refrigerator and was like, "I'm not done with this. We're going to finish it
now." Lley Renick never filed any police reports about the alleged physical abuse. Abusive is a word that I would
not use with Ben. He was very kind, very loving. Then came her chance to explain
why she asked Michael Humphrey to accompany her that fatal day. Hey, my marriage is falling apart. Will you
please just go with me just to make sure like, you know, I'm safe and I can get some stuff and go. Did you ask Michael
to help you kill your husband? No. Set the scene for me and the jury. I walked up right right behind
Michael and then Michael turned around and I saw a gun in his hands and then I heard shots ring out and I screamed and
I ran outside and then I heard more shots go off and everything just went numb and I
remember staring at the trees And then Michael running out of the facility and pushing me towards the
car and telling me, "We have to go, Lily. Get in the car. We have to go now." Claiming to be in shock, Lley admitted
she didn't tell the truth to investigators, but said that didn't add up to murder. And I
understand what that means and how this looks. I just I don't know how to fully express
that I I never wanted been dead. And I Miss Renick, you would not get home. The prosecution was ready to strike. You
were interviewed a bunch by a bunch of cops. Correct. Yes. And you lied to them every time. Yes. But deep down in that
heart of yours and in that brain of yours, you know who killed him. Correct. Yes.
Lynley's lies to cops included a terrible slander, accusing Sam Renick of killing his brother. And then anytime
the police asked me who I thought, I just told them, "Sam, I'm so sorry." Her trying to apologize to me on the
stand and garner sympathy with the jury didn't sit well with me. I'm sorry. There's no low too low for for that one.
Why should these jurors now believe you? You now want these 12 people to believe
it. Correct. Yes. I bet you do. While I regret that it took her 2 and 1/2 years to tell the
truth, I think she was relieved that the full story had finally been told and now
it was in the jury's hands. It had been almost five long years since Ben Renick was murdered. Exhausted, Sam
waited for a jury to weigh the evidence against his younger brother's bride. And
for the record, the And after 12 hours, the judge revealed the verdict. As to count one, we the jury find the
defendant Lenley Renick guilty of murder in the second degree. Verdict. As to count two, we the
jury find the defendant guilty of armed criminal action. In that moment, 33-year-old Lindley
Renick became a convicted killer. She really believed that she was going to get away with all this and she really
believed that she was going to get what she had planned after murdering my brother. The time still to be measured,
the length of her stay in a Missouri prison. You may now retire to consider punishment in this case.
For that, jurors gathered again for a separate sentencing hearing. While life was an option, the jury would settle on
something considerably less. Punishment for murder in the second degree at 13 years. Punishment for armed criminal
action at 3 years. 13 + three for Ben Renick's life. Jurors never said why they chose such a
seemingly light punishment. But 6 weeks later, Sam would tell the court that the
sentence itself was an injustice. I beg the common person to watch the trial again and ask themselves if my brother's
life was worth only 16 years. 16 years is why I'm here today. He would recount that hideous day that
changed everything. The web of devastation travels far and spared no one. She put the children through this
experience. Here I am, covered in my brother's blood, attempting to comfort the children despite them asking me if
their daddy's dead. Sam's frustration at the sentence seemed to be shared by the
judge. But under Missouri law, he could not increase Lindley's punishment. You're awful lucky, ma'am. You're going
to get out in your 40s, and my 40s weren't too bad. I just hope you don't kill again. That's it.
[Music] Some reflected on the cast of bad characters, two convicted killers, and
Ashley Shaw granted immunity after plotting with Lindley twice. These people, these creeps and dark
characters, behaving very badly and behaving inhumanely towards humans. Ben Renick had created an Eden for serpent
lovers. Spotnos clown. But it was people, not a snake, that destroyed his paradise. You can reduce it to a story
of greed. It may be as simple as that. Greed that left in its bloody wake children and a brother determined to
carry on. The kids lost their father, my babies, and Ben's babies. And I'm here to take care of them for the rest of my
life. And around the world, wherever reptiles coil, slither, and slide, the loss of a
superstar is still felt. What happened to Ben was a tragedy that absolutely did not need to happen.
And yet, Ben Renick lives on in a way he would surely have loved, celebrated with
a new breed of snake named just for him, the Renick ghost. And what ghost is is a
slight reduction of blacks color. It gives the snake kind of a ghosty appearance to it. And that is such a
testament to what Ben meant to this community that he now has a mutation of a snake named after him. You miss your
friend. Every single expo that we would see each other at, there is a vacancy there that will never be filled again.
[Music] 48 hours to miss it would be a crime. Were you at all prepared for what happened in this
[Music] case? Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music]

“48 Hours" reports on cases involving surprising pivots in crime investigations. Watch the YouTube mini-marathon, which includes "The Suspicious Death of Christian Andreacchio," "Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards" and "The Poisonous Wife."

00:00 The Suspicious Death of Christian Andreacchio 41:11 Tracking the Killer of Mary Catherine Edwards 1:22:19 The Poisonous Wife

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

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Brief Summary

The episode details the suspicious death of Christian Andreakio and his family's fight for justice against perceived police negligence.

Key points

Murder or Suicide?. The family believes Christian was murdered, while authorities suggest suicide.
Conflicting Stories. Whitley and Dylan provide different accounts of the events surrounding Christian's death.
Christian's Last Message. A haunting text reveals Christian's struggle before his death.
Whitley Goodman's Lawsuit. Whitley files a $47 million lawsuit against the Andrachio family and others.
Sherah's Breakthrough. Sherah discovers a major lead in the case, linking it to a family in Beaumont.
Clayton Foreman's Arrest. After years of investigation, Clayton Foreman is arrested for the murder of Katherine Edwards.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I miss him every day.

A poignant expression of grief.

5:21WatchMay 3, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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