Women Behind Bars - Season 1, Episode 8 - Deborah and Maryann - Full Episode | Forensic Files

on this episode of women behind bars one woman allegedly murdered her elderly parents
there was a obvious sign of a struggle with the blood trail there were pieces of broken frying pan
obvious stab wounds point forward trauma there were there was no blood on my clothes there
was no blood on my shoes how is it possible to have done that with no blood anywhere then marianne
acker tells her story she was convicted of murdering one man in hawaii and one in california didn't
threaten me [ __ ] if you don't do what i tell you i'll kill you shot twice once in the ankle once in the head
and left to die here two women two brutal crimes these are the stories of deborah
parringer and marianne acker [Music] on november 2nd 2001 lloyd and agnes courtney were found dead in their home
each had been stabbed and bludgeoned repeatedly it was very brutal it was very bloody collectively
lloyd and agnes courtney had been beaten stabbed and cut a total of 75 times police became suspicious of the
courtney's daughter 48 year old deborah perringer on the night they informed her of her
parents death she had a very flat effect when they told her they noticed that she
had a band-aid or bandage on her left index finger when they asked her about it she said
that she had cut her finger doing dishes that morning was debra perringer framed in the brutal
slaying of her parents or was this a calculated murder-for-profit scheme deborah lynn perringer was the only
child born to lloyd and agnes courtney in june of 1953 in a middle-class neighborhood in fort worth texas
we had to leave it to beaver home and so did the neighbors and and so did our family and everybody
around us that we knew we were all alive the courtneys went to church every every sunday it was a big part of
their lives she was a wife and a homemaker but she was very active in the community she was a
child advocate and volunteered her time she loved to sing by all accounts a very very sweet
lady lloyd courtney had been employed with the fourth police department for almost 50 years
he originally started as a certified peace officer worked his way up and worked as a latent
print examiner my dad was the greatest man i ever knew she was his pride and joy when she was
31 debra enrolled at texas wesleyan university in fort worth to become an accountant
while still in college she met her future husband paul perringer the day i met my husband i knew i was
going to marry him and so i had to wait six months for him to ask me out and uh that was it and on january 16 1988 the
34 year old coed got married almost a year and a half later she graduated college i got a job
with tarrant county in fort worth as an auditor and i did that for nine years and really enjoyed it
five years after the couple married debra gave birth to a baby girl named angela
about three or four years later i started suffering from depression and i was put
on an antidepressant deborah says the depression so incapacitated her that she was unable to
work forced to retire early she went on disability i was treated for depression at first
and then they found out that it was really a bipolar disorder and you know you can have the highs and
the lows at the same time her husband paul contracted a debilitating case of hepatitis
and lost his job as a plumber the couple unable to make ends meet leaned on debra's parents for financial
support my parents helped me financially because when i was on the bipolar highs i would
go shopping retail therapy oh it worked wonders for my mood it didn't do anything at all for our
finances the way that debra handled her money didn't please her parents she owed them
an upwards of forty thousand dollars some of the family members had said the reason that
lloyd courtney had actually gone back to work after he had retired was because of the amount of money that he was
having to give to ms paringer and her husband and that he was angry about that he didn't want to work anymore
despite the strain deborah's financial difficulties and bipolar disorder caused her family
she maintained a close connection with her parents and saw them frequently on the morning of november 2nd 2001
debra visited with her mom and dad i went over to my parents house and my mother wasn't home yet
so i sat and talked to my dad he was playing on the computer my mother got home and we visited for a
little bit and then i had to go shopping she said that when she left that her mother and father were fine that
afternoon a neighbor became concerned when he noticed that lloyd courtney hadn't left for work at his usual time
the neighbor across the street noticed that my dad had not left for work and that was like i think one o'clock
so the neighbor became concerned and he ended up calling the police later that day the police arrived on the
scene the police officer appeared inside and noticed the contents of a purse had been
dumped it appeared that the house had been burglarized he got a key from a neighbor and entered the home and
that's when he found the bodies it was a extremely violent crime scene it looked like the
the dining room table leg which had been [Music] broken or knocked off apparently in the
struggle was then used after lloyd was probably down already face down to beat him on the back of the
head and then there was also a blood trail from the dining area into the southwest bedroom
where agnes was located and then when they went to the back bedroom their bedroom my mother was on the
oh i remember the picture 71 year old agnes courtney was found in a bedroom next to the bed which was soaked in
blood and littered with pieces of cast iron skillets she had been cut or stabbed 22 times and
had suffered multiple injuries to the head her throat had also been slit she and
her 75 year old husband lloyd were pronounced dead on the scene cause of death multiple stab wounds and blunt
force trauma when women behind bars continues floyd courtney's body was found in the dining
room but his right leg had a note that was attached to his pants by a small white-handled paring knife
on the morning of november 2nd 2001 48 year old deborah perringer visited with her parents police officer and
fingerprint expert lloyd courtney and his wife agnes later that day police arrived at the
courtney residence and found that the couple had been stabbed and bludgeoned to death
police discovered a note on one of the victims lloyd courtney's body was found in the dining room but his right leg
had a note that was attached to his pants by a small white-handled paring knife and the note said something that
something to the effect of look what i learned in prison thanks for the memories
and then there was a string of expletives and then it said you better watch who you let in through
the door next time the note implied that the crime had been committed by someone that he had put in
prison later that evening when police notified debra that her parents had been killed
they were surprised by her lack of emotion they both noted that her reaction was
somewhat odd she appeared to be upset but never actually cried any tears the police came at 10 30
and um told me that they'd been murdered and i just i just shut down i just went inside
myself she immediately mentioned the possibility that the family had always worried that mr
courtney would be murdered by someone who had recently gotten out of prison somebody he had helped put away which
was of course you know coincidental based on the letter that was found with mr courtney's body
growing up with a policeman as a dad he always got threatening phone calls threatening letters
so always in the back of my mind was that fear that one day it would really happen and when it did
[Music] i just i just couldn't i didn't function debra claimed that her father had
testified in a gang-related trial and had been receiving death threats but the police could find no evidence of
such threats in reference to the threats made to lloyd there were never any reported
to the police department never to the supervisors that we know of someone was angry
because of a conviction they would most likely lash out at the detective who was most responsible for that case not
an employee who just analyzed some evidence the police investigated that thoroughly they were never able to
locate anybody who had recently gotten out they talked to co-workers supervisors at
the police department all of whom said it's common that if you are receiving some sort of threat
to alert your supervisors nobody had ever been alerted that there was any type of a threat ever made
mr courtney had not testified in court in a number of years police also had suspicions about the
authenticity of the note the note just it just did not look right it did not look like something that
someone would have done come from prison to get revenge for being sent away and leave a note
like that it looked like someone who was trying to cover up you know what they had done and put it
off on someone else a cut on debra's finger and bruises on her arms also raised officers suspicions ms
perringer stated to the police that she had fallen down the stairs on november the 2nd when
she had overslept from a nap whenever we interview somebody who possibly has something to do with the
offense see if they have any type of injuries on their hands wounds that would have been inflicted on them
from the victims that cut on debra's finger it wasn't i mean like a gashing wound but
it was noticeable when they asked her about it she said that she had cut her finger doing dishes that morning and i
was washing some dishes and i you know jammed my hand down in the dishwater and cut my finger on a knife
and so i put a band-aid on it and then i went over to my parents house i went in the kitchen and i saw a few
little dishes and i thought well you know i'll wash them while i'm waiting and so my band-aid got wet and i just
took it off and i didn't think anything of it and i didn't realize that that it was
still bleeding investigators spent four days at the crime scene and recovered a large amount
of blood evidence and the murder weapons a paring knife four shattered cast iron skillets
and a table leg we believe that it is likely that when mr courtney was struck he was initially struck
by some sort of an object there was a table leg that had some of his blood on it
and then the cast iron skillet it was a very very brutal bloody scene and they suspected
from the beginning that the killer likely injured themself during the attack and possibly the
killer's blood was also in the house so it became very significant from the beginning to collect
as much blood evidence as possible and for that blood evidence to be tested against their suspects as well against
as against their victims despite her explanations police quickly zeroed in on deborah perringer
as a prime suspect from the time of the offense occurred we had obvious suspicions that it was deborah
one of the neighbors told the police that she had seen deborah about 10 15 that morning outside
of the courtney's home walking towards her car then they turned to me because they found out i had been there
that morning she maintained her instance from the time the police first talked to her there were
there was no blood on my clothes there was no blood on my shoes and uh they said that no one had washed up
in the house they checked the drains how is it possible to have done that with all of that blood
have no blood in the car no blood anywhere on you and yet no one washed up in the house it
doesn't make sense seventeen days after the murder police executed a search warrant at deborah's
house we didn't find any pieces of frying pan any bloody clothing we collected some knife to comp possibly
compare to the knives that we found at the scene but nothing ever that actually incriminated her the only thing
that of note that was found in miss parringer's car was in the trunk and there was
actually a purchased copy from a bookstore of the texas probate code a book that explained
how the probate code was used how wills are executed timelines my mother gave us that book
to try to get us to make our own wheels after our daughter was born by canvassing the neighborhood police
found an eyewitness who had spotted a man in the courtney's backyard on the day of the murder
there was a neighbor who lived almost directly behind the courtneys she got up and went outside
and and reported that there was a man dressed in coveralls in the courtney's backyard she assisted police
in drawing a composite sketch if that person existed we never did identify anyone i don't think
anything was ever done with that i don't it wasn't put on the news or anything of
that nature i think the police had basically decided that that wasn't the route they were
going to go no arrests were initially made but five months later dna testing came back linking perringer
to the crime scene a warrant was issued for debra's arrest we did dna analysis on several blood samples that were found
in the house there was an enormous amount of blood that came back to both lloyd or agnes courtney
however there were six samples that were tested in the crime lab that came back to
deborah parringer perringer was arrested at 8 a.m friday april 19 2002 after dropping off her daughter at
school when she was arrested and advised that she was under arrest for capital murder
once again she had a very flat effect i i shut down again when they handcuffed me
and put me in the car i was just i was just in shock when women behind bars continues
we believe that on the morning of the day of their death that mr courtney probably got into some sort
of a verbal altercation with deborah and that the assault started on mr courtney and later in this episode of
women behind bars marianne acker is accused of murder in two states i was arguing with him about that and
suddenly he held the gun on me and threatened me [ __ ] if you don't do what i tell you
i'll kill you [Music] in early 2003 deborah perringer was the main suspect in the murder of her
parents after investigators found her blood at the crime scene perringer claimed that an ex-con had
killed her parents as an act of revenge against her father a police officer [Music]
perringer's defense attorney argued that although deborah was at her parents home
on the day they were murdered and her blood from a cut was found at the crime scene she did not kill
them she testified in her own defense on her own behalf that she had cut her finger the morning
washing dishes at her own home and later went to her parents house and was doing dishes the bandage became wet
and while doing some light housekeeping she had blood droplets that that were in various parts of the house and that's
the way they explained away the blood and then her blood just happens to be in the exact same locations that the killer
would have touched and you left a large amount was described as a large amount of blood
on the door going into this bedroom that just happens to be where agnes courtney
was found that's not very believable but the defense disputed that the amount of
blood was enough to implicate deborah what they didn't tell you was it was a little drop
[Music] a drop on the table a little smudge on the door the amount of deborah perringer's blood
depends on who you ask the defense is going to say that they were very it was a very minute amount little droplets
here and there the police would tell you that they were actually significant mounts it was
it was a smear on the mirror or on the knife drawer was it was visible to the eye so
therefore it was it was significant prosecutors made a case that perringer had financial motive
to kill her parents and that she cut her finger while attacking them we believe money was the motive to kill
mr mrs courtney mr mrs courtney both had been financially supporting deborah paringer
and her husband for a very long time she stood inherit somewhere between 200 and 250 000
in the event of their death the way that she was portrayed was that she was a greedy woman and she was dependent
financially dependent on her parents that she owed them an upwards of forty thousand dollars
deborah perringer when she testified she talked about the financial relationship
between her parents she explained that yes her parents had given her and her husband money over the
years that it was something that they wanted to do the defense also claimed that
deborah was not strong enough to commit the killings they maintained the murder was a revenge
killing done by an ex-convict but experts for the prosecution testified that the choice of murder
weapon did not fit the profile and that debra could have committed the double homicide
i thought that the use of the four skillets as a murder weapon that this was someone
who had come back from prison to track him down to kill him out of revenge for having you know
testified against him or in some way sent him off to prison you're not going to bring a cast iron skillet over there
to murder with it was obviously there it was just a weapon of opportunity we believe that on the morning of the
day of their death that mr courtney probably got into some sort of a verbal altercation with deborah
and that the assault started on mr courtney based upon the way that the crime scene
was found it appears that miss courtney arrived home either during the middle of this or
immediately thereafter and found her husband either dead or bleeding and found her daughter there the state
contended that deborah probably was caught in the act or something had happened where miss courtney had walked in and
found this going on and then she didn't have any choice but to go after her mother
well the prosecution's theory on on the killing was that somehow you know in the heat of passion the
adrenaline flowing that that debra had this you know exceptional strength to be able to uh
hit somebody with a with a cast iron skillet hard enough to break the skillet uh and to beat two people to
death without being or overcome by them especially a trained police officer it would have taken you know some severe
strength i don't think debra matches that kind of brute strength there was no dna evidence
ever linking anyone else to the crime based upon the timeline that we have of mr courtney's morning mrs courtney's
morning and then the time that deborah perringer was there that they were the only three
people who were in the home on january 20th 2003 the jury returned their verdict
guilty of capital murder i was just in a fog i just couldn't believe it unless i was
one that cried i started crying and they took me out of the court for the offensive account for murder
since the death penalty was waived the sentence is an automatic life sentence and for capital murder that means
40 calendar years that she'll have to serve before she's eligible for parole i would be 89 years old when i would be
eligible for parole we were satisfied that we brought lloyd magnus's killer to justice we were certainly
saddened by the fact that we had to prosecute their daughter to do so i don't think
there was anybody in law enforcement who took pleasure in the fact that we had to put lloyd and agnes courtney's
own daughter in prison for this murder but that's what justice required justice was not done in deborah's case
deborah is not guilty and the evidence to support that was not clearly represented
so no i don't believe justice was done in this case 48 year old perringer was incarcerated
at the maximum security facility in gatesville texas she's been in prison for five years and
has appealed her case her first appeal was rejected and she's now working on her second
focusing on new evidence there were and it's sort of unusual that agnes courtney's ring was found it had several
hairs in it but there wasn't anything that linked the uh the hairs to anybody in the house
they weren't agnes hairs they weren't lloyd courtney's hairs and they weren't deborah perringer's hairs
that's a unsolved mystery that again adds to the question of whether or not deborah's
in jail for something she didn't do there was also a dna of a unknown individual
found on the caller id box again giving you another potential that somebody else was
there while she waits for news about a second appeal deborah relies on her faith
my spirituality has actually grown but it gets tested quite often i do a lot of bible studies
and i do my best to stay out of trouble deborah's husband her 15 year old daughter angela and several of her
friends continue to support her my husband and daughter are 100 behind me i have four visitors that come
regularly i go see deborah once a month and i drive uh one way 165 miles i'm convinced that that she's guilty and
she deserves that sentence debra maintains her innocence she still grieves for the loss of her parents
well i see myself leaving prison in 2008 and i'm going to go home and enjoy my retirement
i'm just going to enjoy life one day my world was perfect and the next day my heart was ripped out and
not a day goes by that i don't think about my parents i feel their their spirit with me always because we were so
close it'll never replace them next up on this episode of women behind bars a woman is on the run for two murders
when he killed um lawrence hasker i had no doubt that he would not hesitate to kill me too if i didn't do what he
wanted me to for more information about women behind bars go to www.wetv.com on june 23 1978 20-year-old lawrence
hasker was found dead near the picturesque site of hanama bay he was walked down
the access road to hanama bay and shot twice but it would take police almost a year
to link hasker's death to marianne acker and her husband william both were already serving time in
california for the murder of another man cesario arasa after coming to hawaii and committing the crime the actors left
hawaii under assumed names in a case of he said she said william acker claimed marianne killed lawrence
asker while she maintained it was her husband who pulled the trigger was marianne ecker a cold-blooded
murderer or was she the unwilling participant in her husband's schemes [Music] at three months old marianne acker was
adopted by a devout mormon family she grew up with one sister in phoenix arizona where her life revolved around
school and church my childhood was pretty normal childhood i grew up in a middle class home
my mom pretty much stayed home with me when i was a kid my family was a very religious family
they were latter-day saints i was raised in the mormon church but for marianne her idyllic life came to an end when her
parents moved from phoenix to yuma arizona that's when i started getting kind of
ticked off about life in general because my parents disrupted my 14 year old little world i started
questioning the church and the teachings marianne decided that when she graduated
high school she would move back to phoenix to be with her friends i had no goals no direction i just knew
i wanted to get out of yuma and away from mom and dad after graduation from high school in 1977
marianne went back to phoenix got an apartment a job and met 28 year old william acker who
was working at a local hardware store i met my co-defendant at work when i was 18 years old
his sister introduced us linda spaulding was a juror in marianne's case she wrote a book about marianne's life i
think when marianne met william she was naive she'd had other boyfriends she'd been to parties
but she'd lived in this very restrictive home environment he had that bad boy image he was 10
years older than me and there was that part of me mom and dad would just absolutely hate him
i was already so much enthrall with him i needed him in my life i was just very much a people pleaser very you know
i needed a relationship but william acker's charisma and good looks hit a mysterious dark past
that marianne would not discover until it was too late he had been in custody for 14
of his 29 years marianne didn't know that obviously there was some discussion about him being on parole and
he downplayed that issue significantly no one really knows very much about him except that he had
numerous arrests and he was incarcerated for all but 14 months of his adult life all of a
sudden he was living with me within about eight weeks he was talking about getting married
she remembers being in love with him and how you know incredibly [Music] strong a feeling that was in april of
1978 william and marianne were married shortly after marianne claims williams started
becoming controlling when i first noticed william was isolating me from my family and friends
it was when he just alienated my best friend that was the first time he just really
shoved somebody out of my life he'd separated her from her world and what she knew of herself in june
1978 according to marianne williams suggested that they go to hawaii to visit relatives and have a
belated honeymoon when we got over to hawaii he didn't want me calling my parents and telling
him where we were going it's all a big secret and they have to register and do everything under her
maiden name because he has jumped parole in order to make this honeymoon trip still unaware of william's
extensive criminal past marianne went along with his plan after vacationing in hawaii
marianne claims william decided he wanted to stay there permanently they get to hawaii they get an apartment
and they run out of money i started to say well i'll go get a job suddenly now he didn't want me working
and i realized now that was just because he wanted the control of me he talked about robbing tourists so she
doesn't want to do robberies he wants to do robberies and i was arguing with him
about that and suddenly he held a gun on me and threatened me [ __ ] if you don't do what
i tell you i'll kill you and that was when it began at that point i didn't think about
trying to get away i mean i'm on this island thousands of miles you know from my family from everything
i knew and then he started threatening my family that if i left him if i tried to report him if i did anything he
would have my family killed on june 10 1978 to pay for their new life in hawaii the couple's crime spree
began he wanted me to pick up men in bars basically i was just this little wallflower
not approaching anybody until he would come back over and say hey go talk to that guy over there
at the bar the actors met their first victim joe leach who lived in hawaii according to
marianne william used her as the bait to lure in the victim william came up and introduced himself
as my brother [Music] and suggested that me and this man go someplace else and dance it was a better
place or whatever and hey while we're on our way can we drop him off someplace so we went out to the man's car he got
in the back seat and as we pulled out of the parking lot he pulled the gun on the man
and directed him where to go william pulls a gun on him and they drive him out to hanauma bay
they tie him up they take his money they take his car he wanted me to tie the man
up i said i don't know how to tie anybody up i you know you're crazy well here hold the
gun you know so i i held the gun while he tied the man up i was kind of on autopilot
i was doing what he told me to do i became utterly terrified of him marianne and her husband william left
their victim gagged and tied up on the side of the road at hanauma bay but after the ackers drove off he
managed to free himself and make it to the police station three miles away the police took leach's information but
no arrests were immediately made meanwhile 10 days after their first robbery the couple went back to the same
bar where william found their second victim he met a guy and struck up a conversation with him while we were
sitting around at the bar and he pulled me to the side and started talking about wanting
to rob this guy twenty-year-old lawrence hasker was a graduate of a local high school
he had been working as a boat deckhand but was unemployed the night he met the actors
i tried anything i could think of to talk william out of this by the same token i could
only go to a certain point before he would flip we went back to our apartment and while we were at our
apartment he pulled the gun on the guy said he was robbing him tied him up we left we took his car left
our apartment found out where he lived where the money was my co-defendant had me
go up to the apartment get the money i'm still trying to not do this i'm still trying
to get out of this but i go and i do what he tells me because he's still threatening
once inside the apartment marianne found four hundred dollars in twenty dollar bills hidden in a book inside a bureau
i come back he's tied up when they get to hanama which is a long drive they pull in
larry gets out of the car william gets out of the car and he tells me to wait for him so i'm
in the car waiting i had been driving and they walk off an embankment at the side of the road
and i hear gunshots he was shot twice once in the ankle once in the head and left to die here
and he comes back to the car and he says okay let's go i'm like what the hell are you doing he
said oh you wouldn't understand it was just something i had to do but according to the
testimony later given by william it was marianne who killed larry hasker william macker testified that he did
what she told him to do that she was the dominating person in the relationship he said that she shot hasker
[Music] when he killed lawrence hasker it put to rest any doubt i may have had that he would carry out his threats
against me and my family this man's life did not matter to william and by the same token like i said his
threats became even more real the next day it was like i told him i said look i just want to go home
i don't care what you do i just want to go home he said no we're leaving we're going back to the mainland
[Music] when women behind bars continues marianne and her husband take their crime spree across the ocean to
california and he looked at me and he said you want me to cop to a murder i didn't do and i
just looked him in the eye said didn't you do it you son of a [ __ ] in june of 1978 marianne acker and her
husband william robbed 20-year-old larry hasker after meeting him in a hotel bar
in waikiki hawaii they would each claim the other shot and left him to die on the side of a road
but the trail of blood would not end there as the couple fled hawaii to california they were hitchhiking from
northern california down to us at the los angeles area a young man named cesario araza picked him up in his
pickup truck and this guy stopped and gave us a ride and we were coming down chatting we stopped to get something to
eat everything was fine my co-defendant pulled the gun on him told him to pull off to the side of the
road took his wallet told him to get out of the vehicle and they walked down an embankment and i
heard the gunshots according to court documents the couple left cesario arousa dead on the side of
the road took his vehicle and drove to los angeles where they stayed in a motel a few days later police say the couple
robbed three convenience stores on june 28th marianne was driving arousal's car to get a pack of
cigarettes for william when the crime spree would finally come to an end for the first time in this month's span
he sent me to the store he gave me the keys to the car he gave me money and i'm thinking okay i'm out of here
and i got about another block away from the motel and got pulled over because they were
looking for the car when police arrested marianne in arousal's car they were able to link the
ackers to the robberies marianne claims that william watched the police arrest her from an alcove in the
motel he then fled to marianne's parents home where her father convinced william to
turn himself in and initially we were just arrested on the robberies three weeks later
they filed the murder charges according to marianne william told her that he would take full
responsibility for the murder we were supposed to start jury selection and my attorney came to me and said
marianne they're offering you guys a deal they will give you the robberies if he
pleads to the murder but william had something else in mind and he looked at me and he said you want
me to cop to a murder i didn't do i just looked him in the eye and said didn't you do it you son of a [ __ ]
after her arrest marianne discovered through her attorney that william had an extensive criminal record
the judge ordered william and marianne's cases to be tried separately in 1979 in a trial heard only by a judge
marianne was found guilty of first-degree murder robbery and grand theft auto i was sentenced to
seven years to life in a separate trial william did not contest the charges against him
and was convicted of first-degree murder and robbery he was also sentenced to seven years to life
and sent to a maximum-security prison in california marianne was convicted of what amounts
to felony murder because she participated in a robbery in california if you are a participant
in a felony crime where anyone is killed you are as responsible for that murder as
the person who actually did the shooting the judge convicted me but he stated it's not because i think he pulled the
trigger i don't believe you did but you were there and you did nothing about it marianne was sent to a medium security
facility in california to serve her time meanwhile the murder of lawrence hasker
in hawaii still remained unsolved after marianne had been in prison for less than two months marianne's husband
william acker also in prison in california asked to speak with the authorities at
one point he sits down with the detective here in los angeles and says oh by the way
there is a homicide in hawaii that i know about he proceeds to tell the detective in los
angeles that marianne was the shooter in hawaii the investigation was a joint effort between
the local police force honolulu police department and the los angeles county sheriff's
department william had struck a plea agreement he would plead guilty to the robbery of
lawrence hasker but the murder charges would be dropped in exchange for his testimony against marianne
linda spaulding was a juror in the second trial when marianne came to the stand she sat there in a slight sort of daze
she was so frightened or so repressed that she didn't leave much of an impression
on the jury the only evidence that they had was acker's statements that she had shot and killed the hasker
in hawaii they gave him a polygraph test concerning his statements about marianne
he failed but the polygraph test was not admissible in court the prosecution presented their case
jamsu to the prosecutor argued throughout the trial that marianne was in control of william
that she told him what to do the defense argued that william threatened marianne and forced her to
participate in the crimes our defense was to show that william was not a credible witness
they had reason to lie during the trial the physical evidence did not support williams
version of what occurred at the murder scene when william was on the stand he he was he was incredibly sort of
charismatic and very cocky and he did change his story a bit but it was always always that marianne had shot larry
hasker at hanauma bay the trial concluded after three weeks of testimony deliberating for less than two hours
marianne's fate was in the hands of the jury what i got second and third hand was
that the jury was looking at the fact that she was present she was a participant
in at least the robberies and therefore with regard to the murder that she necessarily had to be punished
for it i thought that the evidence did not support the conviction of murder marion acker committed these crimes in
conjunction with her then husband william acker she was responsible for the murder of mr
haskett the prosecutor didn't really care i believe who did the murder as long as they got a conviction
marianne was given 30 years to life for the murder of lawrence hasker william was sentenced to 20 years
marianne is serving concurrent life sentences she was returned to california and has been
serving those two sentences here in california since um 1979. when i first arrived here it
was it was rather difficult to adjust i was young i was still a teenager i needed to learn and grow up
and deal with what i had done what i had been through over time marianne has adjusted to
prison life i just completed a correspondence course on veterinary assistance we have a prison puppy program here i'm
a primary trainer it helps me overcome so much with working with the dogs we train them to
be service dogs for handicapped people and that gives me something bigger than all my stuff
it still is one thing that's very hard for me to deal with the devastation that i caused
to so many people to my family to the families of these young men so many people suffered behind this
in 2005 marianne acker's murder charge in hawaii was overturned but later that year hawaii's district
attorney's office decided to retry her marianne is currently waiting to begin her new trial in hawaii
william remains in prison in california [Music] my hopes for my future are really simple
life after prison i want to be reunited with the family that i do have i want to get a job i want simple things
and mainly just make a life for myself

Brief Summary

Deborah Perringer and Marianne Acker face murder charges in brutal cases involving family and coercion.

Key points

The Brutal Murder of Lloyd and Agnes Courtney. Lloyd and Agnes Courtney were found dead in their home, brutally stabbed and bludgeoned.
Deborah Perringer's Alibi. Deborah claims she was at her parents' house doing dishes when the murders occurred.
The Discovery of the Crime Scene. Police discover a violent crime scene at the Courtney residence, leading to a murder investigation.
Deborah's Arrest. Deborah Perringer is arrested five months after her parents' murder when DNA links her to the scene.
Guilty Verdict. The jury returns a guilty verdict for Deborah, leading to a life sentence.
Life Sentence. Deborah faces an automatic life sentence after the death penalty is waived.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I just shut down. I just went inside myself.

Deborah's reaction to her parents' murder.

9:11WatchJan 12, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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