Women Behind Bars - Season 1, Episode 6 - Virginia and Diane - Full Episode | Forensic Files

on this episode of women behind bars one woman was convicted of murdering her own parents
virginia twinner had opportunity or had access to that handgun i didn't think i'd even go to trial and
then when i did go to trial i knew they couldn't get a conviction i wasn't guilty okay
then diane metzger tells her story she was an alleged cohort in the brutal death of her husband's ex-wife
and he said she's dead and i just at that point everything started to move in slow
motion you know somebody went upstairs suffocated martha wrapped her in a blanket
and they stuffed her in the trunk of the car two women two brutal crimes these are
the stories of virginia twitter and diane metzger so on the morning of may 5th 1988 54 year
old john wells was found murdered in his own home located in rural pettis county missouri
he'd been shot it didn't look like a struggle perhaps somebody that he knew there was a large amount of blood
throughout the living room at first investigators suspected his wife 49 year old marilyn wells
that was until her body was discovered the following day in a field eight miles away
we had a female subject that was located about 40 or 50 feet off into this wooded area
she also had been killed with a single gunshot wound to the chest within three days 26-year-old virginia
twitter a financially strapped single mother was arrested and charged with killing her own father
and stepmother in cold blood for money i think she went there to try to get money from her father
he refused her i think she shot him her mother was taken out in the country and killed
she loved her mom and she loved her dad did virginia twitter resort to the murder of her own parents to erase her
mounting debts or is she an innocent woman who wound up on death row for a crime she didn't
commit my dad was in the united states marine corps he was stationed in okinawa japan
my birth mother aida is from sasebo japan virginia's parents had two children in japan
in the early 60s they were restationed to oceanside california where virginia and her two other
siblings were born he was a good father as far as providing for us we never went hungry
we always had everything that we needed okay but if i had to come up with one word to
just describe him the abuse stands out in 1967 the couple filed for divorce when i was
six my dad married marilyn and she was the one who raised me i considered my mom marilyn had three
children of her own by 1972 the blended family including eight kids settled into the rural farmland near
sedalia missouri in order to provide for his family jd set up several cash businesses
jd and maryland ran two local businesses a restaurant here in sedalia and a bar in a small neighboring community
maryland was primarily running the bar jd was running the restaurant marilyn was the caregiver and the lover
and had good relationships that i saw with all the kids jd was a disciplinarian in fact according to virginia even as
the kids got older the former marine continued to rule with an iron fist i still remember getting weapons and
spankings and stuff but i think at 15 i finally got an outlet i loved horses i love animals and living
on the farm i always had some place to go to get away from it when virginia was 16 she met another
local teenager named hugo he's about five foot tan he's country boy real muscular i guess that's what
attracted me to him because he was just so strong hugo also represented freedom for the
teenager who longed to break free from her father's grasp virginia dropped out of high school
married hugo and moved with him to his new job as a farmhand in osceola some 200 miles away from her father
my honeymoon was spent in a trailer with no gas no water no electricity nothing just a lantern i was okay with
i was i was free but times only got tougher for the young couple when virginia gave birth to a baby boy
there was one more mouth to feed dad didn't want us living in osceola on this farm anymore he
wanted us to move back to sedalia to keep closer tabs on us the financial stress only intensified with the birth
of another son in fact records show that virginia and hugo often relied on bailout loans from
jd i don't think hugo was happy that i had a second child so soon i think i put too much responsibility on
him remember things changed he was hitting me and he and i went to call the police and
he took the the curly wire on the telephone and he wrapped it around my neck when he was distracted i run up the
stairs and close the door on him and hit and took off got my two boys and got out of there she
ended up divorced because it was an abusive relationship and she couldn't take that for her and
her children anymore in late 1987 after eight years of marriage she got divorced and worked at
a fast food restaurant to make ends meet before long though her car was repossessed and the bank threatened to
foreclose on the house she and hugo had bought together hugo paid her 400 a month support for
the kids and jenny provided for him the best she could by her own admission virginia was careless when it came time
to pay the bills at that time it was actually just a big party i just partied all the time
not drinking or none of that i just didn't do none of my responsibilities in the spring of 1988 virginia once again
turned to her father for financial help asking him for a loan i was very desperate
i needed this loan okay because otherwise my kids was going to lose their home my kids was going to be
kicked out of the catholic school i had already lost my car but this time the answer was no
virginia had recently defaulted on an already existing loan of three thousand dollars from her father
he'd threatened to garnish her wages he was mad my dad was very mad at me i guess i made
maybe three trips down to the restaurant talking to him all together when he finally agreed that he would
give me this loan according to virginia her father had finally agreed to loan her more money
a local bank teller however remembers an incident several weeks before his death
when j.d wells entered the bank with an unusual proclamation he said my name is john wells and i want
this bank to know in case anything happens to me that within the next few days i'm going
to be making a large deposit to my daughter's account so how did virginia twitter wind up being accused
of murdering her own parents the two people she says were willing to help her most
when women behind bars continues it quickly came to investigators attention that she was in financial trouble before
the homicides and that she was getting herself out of it may 5th the day the bodies were
discovered on the morning of may 5th 1988 j.d wells oldest daughter made a grim discovery
as she entered her parents rural farmhouse outside sedalia missouri his daughter anne laos had went to check
on him to see why he wasn't at work that day and when she came there she found her
father dead 54 year old j.d wells had been shot once in the back perhaps mr wells
was in the master bedroom when he was confronted and that was used to get him into the
living room and then upon then he was shot he was wearing his pajamas at the kitchen table was his checkbook
a calculator that was on the television which was on and a cup of coffee which looked like it
was fairly full it appeared that john had been doing his books paying some bills
gotten interrupted and ended up shot well the first things that caught my eye were the bloody
footprints that were on the linoleum of the kitchen in the house it's always the thought that the one who
committed the murder stepped in mr wells's blood and then left that particular clue there in the kitchen
area so it became very important as footprints go it was a fairly distinctive footprint that is it showed the the sole
pattern pretty well investigators collected several 38-caliber shell casings and cigarette
butts then began the search for jd's wife marilyn i believe around noon that day there was
a another crime scene located about eight miles from the residence marilyn wells body was found in a field
she'd been shot once in the chest with a 38 caliber weapon we believe that she was executed here
it's very rural there's no houses around nobody to see a crime committed i think
the most important piece of evidence we found besides the body and a bullet that was taken from mrs
wells was a piece of blue denim that was found on the barbed wire strand of the fence
near maryland's body lay a half pack of marlboros the same type found inside the whale's
home i was just made to learn that we've had in homicide at least doubly dismayed to learn there
were two victims because it was a big deal the local sheriff called in the mid-missouri major
case squad dozens of members of the major case squad began by interviewing anyone who
knew jd and marilyn including their eight children twenty-six-year-old virginia twitter
revealed that just hours before the murder she and her two boys visited her parents
house he was sitting at the table in his overhauls writing bills my stepmother come in and
me and her went into the living room and was talking we didn't want to interrupt
him virginia says she'd come to pick up an 8 400 loan from her father more than half of
which was to pay for a new car the first check she'd written to the dealership bounced
so my father got up from the table and he walked into the bedroom and he hollered back and he said he said
marilyn write her out two checks write one out to david malemo motors in the amount of 4 400 and write her one
for four thousand dollars so my stepmother wrote the checks out [Music] and i said thank you to my dad
according to virginia she went home made dinner and put the boys to bed sometime before 9 pm she decided to go
out with a friend to polos or local bar leaving her roommate mike to babysit linda turner had called and said she
wanted to go out to polos when i got out there i didn't see her car but i seen one of the guys that i
was dating going into polos with another girl so i got out of my car and i started to go into polos and i
thought you know you're worth it she claimed that she then drove to knob noster 20
miles west of sedalia drove around town for a while and then came back to sedalia
when she was interviewed a second time she pretty much stuck with that same story although she
said she had gone clear to warrensburg virginia also admitted when she got to warrensburg she didn't just drive around
as i was pulling out a hardee's there was one another guy i had dated robert driving
by and i honked and when he looked up and noticed me he motioned me to go into the parking lot at mcdonald's
it's like nine o'clock now when robert walked up to the car and he had a friend with him
and he introduced a miss steve and he was a really nice looking guy so robert asked me steve could have i
too i don't know asked me if i wanted to go out to the park with them so i said yeah
i just followed them back down the road to this park area well we ended up having sex and she inferred that
the reason she hadn't mentioned that originally is because she was embarrassed to say anything about that
i was very very ashamed of myself very very can't believe i did this thing the prosecution says it was unable to
locate a robert arnell or the man she called steve the two men virginia twitter claimed she was with
during the same time her parents were murdered her only other alibi was her friend linda turner
i walked in the door a little after eleven o'clock and mike turner told me that linda
turner called and i said well i really need to talk because i needed to tell somebody what i did she
had said she had been at polos i think she ran into a boyfriend that she had just broke up with
and then she talked about meeting a couple of guys and she left with them for a while the
problem with linda's testimony for the defendant is she picks up at about 11 15 p.m and then goes on through the next
couple hours linda's testimony doesn't help the defendant during the two-hour gap
between nine and eleven fifteen what worried investigators is that linda turner also
described a route that passed right by both crime scenes most suspicious was the sudden activity
in virginia's bank account on the morning that virginia twinner's parents were discovered
dead she had a forty four hundred dollar check payable to malmo motors to take care of a bad check she had
given there and she had a four thousand dollar check which i believe was payable to herself
and she used that to take care of a number of other bills witnesses say virginia had also given
conflicting accounts about where the money came from there were three or four or five
different versions of events that she gave such as my dad gave me the money and i made the
deposit my dad and my former husband hugo gave me the money and i made the deposit
according to virginia her father told her to keep quiet about the loan worried his other seven children might
also ask for handouts when people ask me where i was getting the money i never told anyone the truth because that was
one of the things my dad asked me not to do investigators asked to conduct a search
of virginia twinner's home the team collected a number of pieces of evidence including a pair of tennis shoes linda's
the one who actually said jenny i think they're starting to suspect you when women behind bars continues i
didn't understand why i was sitting in this chair being charged with two counts of first degree
murder of my parents and later in this episode of women behind bars the murder of a mother of four we know
somebody suffocated martha wrapped her in a blanket wrapped cord around it three days after j.d wells and his wife
marilyn were shot to death near sedalia missouri their 26 year old daughter virginia
twitter was arrested and charged with carrying out the brutal double homicide we developed several different people
who might possibly have been involved one of the people who we looked at pretty hard was uh virginia's ex-husband
was being involved his alibi was that he was at work at the fire station at the time of the killing
which is a pretty good album for him all of those financial troubles are over after her parents are killed
and then she's lying about the the trail of money all caused her to come into focus as a suspect we talk to
the other people and one at a time eliminated them until she was pretty much left
i just couldn't believe this was happening to me i mean my parents was dead okay
i think she had severe money problems she didn't see any way out perhaps she thought that
her dad would bail her out again maybe there was a confrontation virginia would stand trial without the
support of her siblings their reactions was strong that jenny was guilty because that's what
sheriff's deputies had told him on december 9 1988 pettis county prosecutor jeff mittelhauser presented
the case to a jury a case that was based almost entirely on circumstantial evidence
i tried to be fairly careful not to emphasize a single piece of evidence because in my
mind this didn't boil down to one smoking gun investigators from the missouri major case squad had failed to
find any fingerprints inside the wells home nor did a scrap of denim left at the
second crime scene match up an expert also testified that while virginia's tennis shoe was similar
it was not an exact match to the bloody footprint found at the crime scene the biggest
problem to me was helping the jury understand the whole picture and not just looking at the bloody shoe
print and saying well yeah virginia twinner had a pair of shoes like that but 10 other people might have bought
the same pair of shoes in the same size even though the state put forth an expert that testified he couldn't
positively say it was virginia toyota's case the jury was left with the information that she
had shoes that matched them virginia also smoked marlboros the same type found at both crime scenes
and then came the murder weapon ballistics tests showed it belonged to virginia's ex-husband who'd reported the
gun missing two weeks earlier testimony reveals he suspected his ex-wife of stealing it
that handgun was found approximately two miles from her residence you have the murder
weapon now that matches up with the ballistics the bullets that were recovered and virginia twinner had opportunity
or had access to that handgun a second search of virginia twitter's home had also turned up a puzzling item
we got a search warrant for her home and it was served may 6th or may 7th under her waterbed mattress they found a
cash register tape from the business that jd wells ran it was dated may 3rd and that would have
been the last day's worth of cash register receipts it's important because jd was sitting at his table when it
appears he was interrupted and then shot on the night of may 4th i didn't think i'd even go to trial and
then when i did go to trial i knew they couldn't get a conviction i wasn't guilty okay
would the mountain of circumstantial evidence be enough to convince a jury to find virginia twitter guilty of two
counts of capital murder i believe it was a small town it was election year and it looked good for
them to have somebody in jail for these murders i think to them they didn't care
jenny was as good as anybody else the jury found the defendant guilty of both counts of first-degree murder
we then proceeded to a penalty phase and the jury recommended life without parole
for killing john wells and they recommended the death penalty for killing maryland wells
hours after the verdict virginia reportedly attempted to commit suicide by taking an overdose of pills
there's no possible way for anyone to even begin to comprehend the intensity of another human being or a judge
or anyone saying death sentence she was given a new trial by the trial judge because
he felt that there was numerous things that the trial attorneys did in this case that
were ineffective witnesses that weren't talked to family members that weren't talked to
things that weren't investigated that should have been the prosecution challenged that ruling and virginia's
appeal went all the way to the supreme court the court ruled against a new trial but reduced her sentence to two
life terms without the possibility of parole in 2005 another team of defense attorneys phil gibson and mark thomason
agreed to take on her case one more time it just didn't seem to me that based on
the facts that she could have been the person that they committed the crime there was never
another person identified there was never another person brought into trial on these cases
but that it was just virginia's winter we're involved with this case for the long haul
and if that means we're on it for another 10 years then we'll be doing it for 10 more years
separate from twitter's attorney's work journalist and teacher ellen harris reviewed virginia's case with a group of
her students at university college in st louis i don't believe virginia twente received
a fair trial i don't think she received a fair police investigation i think there was a rush to justice and
it was rural justice virginia's attorneys are hoping to retest the evidence for dna
for now they're relying on old-fashioned detective work what we're going to have to do in this
case is find who did it and that really is probably virginia twinner's only case of proving her
innocence [Music] virginia says 20 years behind bars has taken its toll she's had almost no contact with her
children or siblings i think 19 years without your children she'll never get that back
her life has changed forever and she can't get that back i don't believe in my heart that i would
spend the rest of my life in prison i believe eventually somebody will come forward something
will be found something and i'll be vindicated next up on women behind bars a woman is
accused of murdering her husband's ex i was like okay where's marty and he said she's dead and i just
at that point everything started to move in slow motion for more information about women behind
bars go to dot www.wetv.com [Music] on august 18 1974 29 year old martha metzger
known as marty was beaten strangled and suffocated in her home in a philadelphia suburb a month later
her decomposed body was found in a shallow grave near buffalo new york i observed the grave in the backyard
i'll never forget it sends chills up and down my spine to this day according to investigators marty's
husband frank metzger and his then-girlfriend diane hamel killed her the prosecution alleges that
diane wanted marty dead she was so obsessed with him but she was also obsessed with the fact of getting
marty out of the way she got involved in a situation that wasn't her doing made a foolish decision
to stay with the person she was in love with at the time and you know it just went horribly horribly
wrong was diane hamill metzger guilty of murder or was she an accomplice blinded
by ill-fated love ridley park pennsylvania a town 17 miles southwest of philadelphia
[Music] diane metzger was born in 1948 and grew up in this quintessential small american
town i was made aware very young that my dad wanted a boy as a result i always try i was always a
tomboy i always tried to be like the you know best in sports and all to make him
like me when she was growing up she never gave me a problem such promise i guess i'd say because she
always did so wonderful in school fran stafford went to school with hamill from kindergarten to 12th grade
i just remember diane was you know one of these people that always did everything she was supposed to do
straight a student the kids thought i was a nerd and homely and you know even to get to go to a school dance i
usually had to ask a boy when diane graduated high school instead of going straight to college
she decided to take a year off she got her own apartment and an office job she also took and passed the mensa exam
a national testing program for those who have iqs of more than 130. i might have had an iq of 150 but my
emotional iq i was like was like 14. diane was still just a teenager when she met frank metzger at work
he was a chemist married with kids she was a statistician's assistant frank was 30. diane was 18.
he just started to pursue me after that i was kind of amazed and flattered and surprised and i
had never had that happen before and i think it was like because he was older it was more the daddy type figure
diane enjoyed frank's intellect with an iq of 150 he also joined mensah on her suggestion
they dated according to diane while frank was legally separated from his wife marty
frank and marty had four sons who lived with their mother in middleton pennsylvania
their neighbor colleen plyler babysat the boys when she was 17. they were very normal very wonderful
children and they had a very good mother she was very happy she had a lot of trouble in her life
and we would never know it because she always looked at the bright side of things
in 1970 one year after diane met frank they moved in together but financial troubles soon began to take a toll on
their relationship we pretty much had to live on my salary because he was not only paying support
for his children but he was also trying to pay bills that you know he had incurred with
marty i don't think he was giving her anything at the time because they certainly
didn't have anything diane claims that frank's estranged wife got him arrested for not paying child
support he did not like that at all so he he got very mad and started calling her
and harassing her over the phone and calling her names and and that sort of thing because he didn't
think that was right for her to do that diane also claims that frank paid marty in cash but he had no way of proving it
to the court so he and diane fled to florida to avoid authorities in the spring of 1973 diane learned she
was pregnant she says frank called marty to see if their divorce had gone through
she told him on the phone at that point that she was sick of waiting for the divorce to go through and then she had
gone down to the islands and got one of those quickie divorces now this is what she told him
we never so i never saw any paperwork there was no way she went to any island to get a divorce she didn't have money
to go down the street to go to the mcdonald's diane and frank then got married but the
marriage would later be considered invalid because frank could not prove he was divorced from marty
in november 1973 frank and diane moved to upstate new york eventually settling in an old farmhouse in a buffalo suburb
three months later their son jason was born wonderful my whole life you know he um he was just my world
but frank missed his other sons they did love their father they were confused and upset and disappointed
because he just took off like that and they didn't see much of them diane claims frank devised
a plan to drive to pennsylvania with diane and their baby and simply talk to marty
about getting custody the plan did not include murder frank rehearsed with diane what he would say
to marty to get custody if you don't be reasonable i'm just going to go away for good and you're
never going to see me again and then you won't have anything although she says she was hesitant
diane gave in to frank's plan around midnight on august 18 1974 after an eight-hour
drive they arrived at marty's house he backed into the driveway and he said i'm going to the back door
because she never locks that door diane claims she waited in the car with their baby and watched as frank went
into the house with a flashlight in his hand next thing i know is i'm kind of even
like nodding off a little bit in the car the baby's asleep and i hear the trunk open so i don't see
him but i hear him and i hear like a thump and it sounded like luggage it was being put in the
trunk right he came around to the passenger side and he was just crazed colleen plyler had her bedroom
window open that summer night in her house across the yard i remember waking up at like three
o'clock in the morning and hearing voices and listening and i thought for the life of me i couldn't
understand why i heard frank metzger's voice and i thought oh oh you're dreaming and
the dream's like what he says come on come on you got to help me got to help me get get the boys up um um
got to come on and um i was like okay where's marty and he said she's dead and i just at that point everything
started to move in slow motion diane says she went into the house with frank and helped get the boys dressed
and into the car he told them their mother went away on the drive home with marty's body in the
trunk frank gave diane the grisly details of the murder he went into the bedroom and she you
know jumped up and and came to the edge of the bed and said what are you doing here get out of my
house and he said wait i'm just like here to talk or whatever and she discussed him out calling whatever and
ran for the phone and he's like don't do that and she kept going and he hit her with
the flashlight he had like a big police flashlight prosecutor ed weiss strongly disagrees
i think this thing about frank going in by himself and hitting her with a flashlight
is an invention by diane he might have had a flashlight but they were breaking into the house in the middle of the
night to kill martha and to kidnap the children you don't turn on the lights but
according to diane frank told her that when he hit marty over the head she fell unconscious onto the bed she was
bleeding from the mouth and so he ran he said he ran into bed bathroom and got a wet wash rag and like put it
in her mouth because he didn't want her bleeding everywhere an autopsy later revealed marty died of
suffocation by swallowing part of the washrag the prosecution believed the murder was
premeditated and the diane was the mastermind behind the murder i know somebody went upstairs and
suffocated martha he wrapped her in a blanket wrapped cords around the blanket now it
seems to me in a fit of passion you don't happen to bring with you some cords with you
to wrap somebody in a blanket and i had the strongest feeling that she was the prime
person who actually planned the murder when they got home frank buried marty's body in their
backyard while his son slept diane watched as he dug the grave she says she thought about going to the
police but decided against it i knew my husband was getting a whole lot of trouble
just trying to keep the family together the next day colleen plyler discovered marty and the
boys were missing when she came to visit her father called police the state police came
and they looked around and they apparently didn't see anything suspicious about it
almost six weeks went by before police suspected something was wrong during that time diane frank and their
infant son along with frank and marty's four boys lived at the farmhouse in upstate new
york when word reached them about the investigation diane and frank took the five boys to a motel in the next town
this is a dunk motel which was the next little town over and we just stayed in there and waited
two days later frank decided they should leave the boys behind and make a run for it
i said what about the kids and he says no we leave them here we got to go but diane refused to go without her baby
frank gave in to her demand i don't know what else i could have done for the boys at that time i mean frank
was running the show they were his kids three days later the boys ranging in ages from 4 to 11 were discovered
the initial report came in that four young boys were found abandoned in a motel the
children led the police to the farmhouse martha's body was discovered buried in the shadow grave behind the farmhouse
when women behind bars continues the nationwide search for the fugitive couple begins
i willingly tried to help him but i had no idea anybody was going to be dead that night
in september 1974 26 year old diane metzger and her husband frank became the focus of a nationwide police
search they were wanted in connection with the murder of frank's ex-wife marty a month before anybody you could have
thought in high school that would have gotten in that kind of situation everybody was
shocked for almost a year the metskers and their 18 month old baby jason eluded police by constantly moving
around the country but on july 11 1975 the fbi found them in boise idaho the couple was arrested brought back to
pennsylvania and both charged with first-degree murder burglary and kidnapping jason was sent to a foster home and was
later adopted by diane's parents when the social worker came in that night she just literally snatched him
right out of my arms frank metzger confessed to the killing and waived his right to a trial
a judge sentenced him to life without parole but there was more public interest in
diane's trial and why she chose to shield her husband from the police and go on the run with him i just didn't
want to lose my husband i know he was in really you know and deep and um it's just like you keep you just keep
going until they actually stop you in february 1976 diane metzger's trial began at the delaware county courthouse
she was tried under the accomplice liability law which finds a person who assists in a crime
as guilty as the person who actually commits the crime she may have known after the fact
what happened that front that frank had killed martha but in the eyes of the law
she was there that makes her guilty reporter barbara ormsby was there when frank metzger took the stand claiming he
not diane was the one that murdered his ex-wife he seemed remorseful in the beginning he
just told the story of what had happened how he went in and didn't intend to kill martha he just wanted to
take the boys and get out of there but the prosecution presented testimony to the contrary
one of frank's own sons said the night of the murder he woke up and saw an unidentified couple on the
stairs neighbor colleen plyler recounts the metzger son's testimony he woke up and he heard
shouting from the room and all the commotion and even he heard someone hollering kill her kill
her and diane was in the house and was helping him hold her down that's what the little boy
said [Music] defense lawyer art donato says the young boy's testimony was unreliable
because he could not say for sure if it was diane who was in the house as a general proposition when anyone in
particular a young child is awoken from a sound sleep their initial perceptions are not reliable
beyond a reasonable doubt diane took the stand and maintained she never went into the house during the
killing and had no knowledge frank would kill marty yes i willingly tried to help him you
know and cover up and ran with him but i had no idea anybody was going to be dead
that night but the jury didn't buy diane's side of the story and found her guilty of
first-degree murder as a co-conspirator and of kidnapping and burglary she was sentenced to life without parole
disbelief i just i just i think i was numb i think i was numb for weeks no one seemed to think there was any
chance that she could be found guilty of the same crime as frank they were assuming it would be some sort of
accessory after you know after the fact and it'll be some sort of you know minor
sentence or something six years later in october of 1982 the state supreme court overturned diane's
conviction after a procedural error which potentially weakened her defense [Music]
this time while awaiting her retrial diane got out on bail her parents posted attorney art donato three years out of
law school at the time defended diane in her second trial in june of 1983. there was clearly enough evidence to
show that she was helping him after the fact but that doesn't make one guilty of a
murder as an accessory there was no new evidence in the retrial that proved diane was involved in the killing
but prosecutor ed weiss argued that diane had a reason to kill marty the motive was financial
[Music] diane resented the fact that martha was draining frank's finances i had no doubt that she was the actual
killer i had no doubt that she was the one who planned this was a premeditated crime
twice this woman has been convicted by a jury two separate juries of first degree murder the juries in each
case had no question in their minds about her guilt she was sent back to a pennsylvania
prison with the same sentence of life without parole she took a life and that's what she got in return her
life an eye for an eye [Music] diane metzger has lived most of her life in prison she's now 59
and has spent 32 years behind bars when i got there and i realized you know i might be there for a long time
i just didn't want to waste my time so since i had never gotten to college i found you know i started seeking ways to
do that she's received four college degrees including a master's degree in the humanities
she's also a published writer and poet she was the the prisoner of the year so stated by the pennsylvania prison
society for the past 12 years diane has been at the baylor women's correctional institution in delaware to be closer to
her brother and her ailing parents she still keeps in touch with frank metzger who was in a pennsylvania state
prison frank and marty's four boys were adopted by a couple in pennsylvania diane now keeps busy working as a clerk
in the prison's treatment services department she is extremely good with the teenagers
or say the young ladies who come in with her type of offenses the warden at the prison says diane has been a good
worker and a model inmate which has earned her a private cell in the lifer's honor pod
as you can see we don't have a whole lot of space here hang up our outgoing clothes here it's kind of my
food and drink utensils chair and my tv during the 32 years she's been in prison
diane has applied eight times to the pennsylvania board of pardons to have her life sentence reduced to time served
ernie priet the former state attorney general championed her fight for freedom in her 2004 application
it's almost four inches thick i don't think anybody ever submit an application like this
to the board of pardons the board approved diane twice for a reduced sentence but both times the governor of
pennsylvania denied it she continues to fight for her release a life sentence is a death sentence in
pennsylvania lifers don't get out except when they get taken out by the undertaker without
clemency diane will die in prison she has this to say to the metzger boy she and frank
abandoned when they were on the run you didn't deserve this and i wish i had been a better person
to try to do something for you to keep this from happening i made terrible decisions i didn't take them into
consideration but boys i am sorry and i only wish i had done better by you [Music]

Brief Summary

Virginia Twinner and Diane Metzger share stories of brutal crimes and the consequences they faced in prison.

Key points

Virginia Twinner's Shocking Crime. Virginia Twinner was accused of murdering her own parents for financial gain. "Did Virginia resort to murder to erase her mounting debts?"
The Discovery of the Bodies. On May 5, 1988, the bodies of J.D. and Marilyn Wells were discovered, shocking the community. "It appeared that John had been doing his books when he was interrupted and ended up shot."
Trial and Circumstantial Evidence. Virginia's trial relied heavily on circumstantial evidence, raising questions about her guilt. "Would the mountain of circumstantial evidence be enough to convince a jury?"
Virginia's Long Fight for Justice. Virginia's attorneys are committed to proving her innocence, even if it takes another decade.
The Murder of Martha Metzger. Martha Metzger was brutally murdered, leading to a shocking investigation.
Diane Metzger's Trial. Diane Metzger's trial reveals the complexities of her involvement in the murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I just couldn't believe this was happening to me.

Virginia expresses her shock at her parents' murder and her situation.

18:34WatchJan 12, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Files

Solve the Crime

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