in a nice building a few blocks from the courts complex. lessie hookfin went with her. reporter: what areas did she start to stake out for herself? criminal. she wanted to do criminal so bad. reporter: prem burns watched her in action. chiquita was one to speak her mind and dress how she wanted in conservative lady lawyer pantsuits one day and stilettos and spiky hair the next. she would walk into a courtroom and she looked like she owned the place. reporter: you could hear her coming before you saw her, huh? you could, you could. and we always joked, because chiquita would wear four-inch heels and just strut in and you knew chiquita tate was in the courtroom. reporter: another thing, chiquita was all about family. she hired her sister denita to help in the office. and denita knew better than anyone that hard-driving chiquita could be sunny one minute and a gulf coast storm the next. she fired me, like, every week. reporter: she fired you? yeah, every week, and then
abuse call. while both chiquita and greg were charged, the call didn t sound as though they were locked in a fair fight. he grabbed my finger and he ring. i threw it at him. and then he and then he choked me, and i couldn t move. reporter: and the prosecution argued greg had another motive money. the night the murder happened, he called his boss and said, i need to get an advance or a loan on my 401k. and his boss said, you know, i can t do it. i m sorry, greg. reporter: but as prem burns told the jury, greg could get about $60,000 in insurance if chiquita were to die. i think money was motivation but more so i think chiquita had planned to leave greg and that s one thing greg could not accept. reporter: the prosecution told the jury greg may have been angry, but he was also cool and calculating, planning both the crime and a cover-up. case in point those long
i hear on a local news station, they interrupt to say that there is a downtown murder in a law office. reporter: attorney prem burns was on her way into work. which, of course, alerts me. initially, my my gosh is it an attorney? reporter: the office, now strung with yellow crime scene tape, belonged to an up-and-comer named chiquita tate. a local woman just a few years out of law school, but already making a name for herself in the competitive, pads and helmets, arena of litigation and criminal defense. she had recently won a half-million dollar jury verdict. that s pretty good for somebody out such a short time. reporter: chiquita was one of seven, her father, absent, raised by her grandma in a tired neighborhood of boarded-up houses. smart and determined, she rose above her impoverished early years and once her fuse was lit, she became a rocket.
coming over to pick up some money. so he went downstairs to pay this client and pick up some paperwork from this person for chiquita. reporter: greg said chiquita had more work to do and yet another client to see, so he took off for home he said. it was sometime around 8:30. what happened next was a bloody mystery. it would be up to the detectives and also prem burns to figure out. the attorney hearing the awful news on her car radio that morning the one who got such a kick out of chiquita in court was, in fact, a legendary baton rouge prosecutor. my boss, the district attorney, was out there. there were so many police officers there, the crime scene van was there. and so, i went into that and immediately said to my boss, i want this. i want this case. reporter: prem insisted as she always does on viewing the crime scene. as she entered the office she noticed chiquita had been fixing things up. but then, when you proceeded
their back files and proceeded to check out the tipster. they traced her call to a town in texas. they even drove there and after questioning a few locals, managed to reach a woman by phone with an oddly familiar voice. i immediately recognized her as the voice that i heard that had called the office that time. and i asked her how did she know chiquita tate. and she said, well, chiquita tate used to be married to my brother. reporter: this was greg harris sister. yes, that s correct. greg harris sister. reporter: so the tip that sent detectives off to texas had led them right back to greg, the husband. was greg or maybe his sister trying to plant a false lead? prem burns added that to her list of concerns about greg harris. she was also discovering that greg had a bad history with some of the women in his life. her investigators found greg had control issues and a temper according to chiquita s family members and some old girlfriends. he just wanted them within his eyesig