welcome back. the jury was about to decide rick gagnon s fate. but the verdict would not be the end to this twisted tale. could the resolution to this case finally put a bitter family feud duress? here s dennis murphy with the final chapter of the deed . jurors in rick gagnon s murder case deliberated for only a few hours. when they filed back into the courtroom, he read their faces and new. they had found him guilty. two counts of murder. received two life sentences. it s called the pine box sentence . you re going to get out of the system in a pine box, when you re dead. bambi bennett said she didn t want to be in court for the verdict. her attorney jim irvin called
they followed a bloody trail of evidence deep inside the families dispute, exposing ugly secrets and suspicions. but unmasking the murderer would prove far more complicated. here is dennis murphy with the deed . the old bernese in shambles now. the fields, back in the day, so lush and productive, gone to see. the farmhouse, empty. time was the farmland in this county, some of carolina s finest. bambi bennett s granddad owned this spread, and was had plans for generations to come. that barr needs to be a tobacco barn. my grand daddy built that. so it was a tobacco property? yes.
he was prepared to fight for her freedom. returning to the deed hears dennis murphy. bambi bennett sat in horry county jail cell, stunned. she had just been charged with two counts of murder. i thought, i m just having a bad dream. this cannot be happening. not only were my parents just murdered. now, i m being accused of being the one that killed them. i said, y all have lost your mind. i said, this doesn t make any sense. i didn t do anything wrong. but to prosecutor fran humphries, it made perfect sense. the motive is unavoidable in this case. bambi needed her step father and mother dead so she could get her property back. property valued at north of 1 million dollars. the classic question that people in your line of work pose as well, who benefited? bambi. as far bambi s, boyfriend,
everyone, maybe. but their own daughter who admitted to a bitter, simmering dispute. it s been a long family feud. her stepfather won her dead so she could get her property back. evidence pointed to her boyfriend as an accomplice. you have that blood on your shoe, he was there. or, was he? no hair, no fingerprints, no dna. nothing. a once loving family now gripped by suspicion. i had a lot of people in my ear saying she did it. with the terrible truth rip them apart? this cannot be happening. welcome to dateline. a daughter, battling her demons and her mother and stepfather for a control of 1 million dollar property. after their double murder, police started to wonder just how far bambi bennett will go to get what is hers.
that, said the prosecutor, actually supported what mullins said, that rick had an accomplice. humphries believe the evidence was enough to put the defendant away. he only wished he could make the same case against rick s old girlfriend. what about bambi? she was not being tried in this courtroom? it was a travesty. you think it s honest? i think so, figuratively. and that is just how rick played it out in his cruiser. he told the jury, this was the story about a spoiled woman, bambi bennett who manipulated her boyfriend, rick gagnon into doing her murderous dirty work. get back he did, get her mother in law. he had heard from bambi how her parents were not fair to her, that they had her land, her parents were horrible people, they were taking advantage of me. to make things right, argued the prosecutor, the dutiful boyfriend and his right-hand man entered the house and hunted down bambi s parents in