Transcripts for MSNBC Dateline 20201122 07:20:45 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
how did the weapon come to you? my oldest son bought it for me in 2005 for christmas. reporter: bill kept the rifle in a gun safe in his basement. the question is, where is this 270 remington and is that our murder weapon? that s correct. reporter: the crime scene investigators had examined the two slugs they d collected. and it could be ammo used in a 270 remington? it was a 270 round? round. reporter: couldn t say absolutely, positively, but certainly consistent with being they were consistent. reporter: rounds fired from that type of weapon? that s correct. reporter: bill stored that rifle, unloaded, deep in his basement. the killer would have to have gotten lucky finding the gun and the ammo. or investigators thought, maybe the shooter was someone who knew where that gun was. maybe, someone in the family? that didn t go over well with the carters. we go back out to the crime scene and then the family is mad. reporter: jason, his wife shelly, bi
the remington rifle ejects a shell casing between shots. at least one of those would have flown out, as the killer racked another round in the chamber to shoot shirley twice. it was never found. so somebody had the presence of mind to gather it up? that s correct. reporter: and since webb promised to look at every possibility, he examined bill s movements the day of the killing. phone records show shirley making a call from the house phone at 8:45 a.m., after bill had dropped her off. and by 9:00 a.m., bill was spotted did he grainery, 50 miles from the house. webb said bill s only opportunity to kill her, was after that. bill has to leave the grainery. he has to get home, kill his wife, shirley, and then leave before jason can get there. is it impossible for bill to do all this toing and froing in the time allowed? it would certainly be a very tight timeline. squeaky to get it done, huh? certainly. reporter: then the private analyst looked at jason s timeline. he
reporter: jason would carry on the farming tradition for another generation. and best of all he and his wife, shelly, lived close by. bill and shirley soon had grandchildren to dote on. a happy family picture suddenly disfigured by the ugly murder of shirley carter. dci agent mark ludwick took the lead in the investigation. first, we want to identify all witnesses and we want to separate tehem and we want to conduct a face-to-face sit-down interview as soon as we can. reporter: early on, the most important witnesses were bill, the husband, and jason, the son. ludwick assigned deputies to take the two down to the pleasantville pd. and uh, she said do you want to go get coffee? reporter: in an interview room, bill told investigators the same story he told us. how he dropped shirley off at home and then ran a load of corn to the grainery and then he raced home to find his wife still on the floor. and when i went in and i felt her, she was cold.
welcome to dateline. bill and shirley carter built a comfortable life and raised a family on their sprawling farm in america s heartland. as their golden years approached, the couple fell into a routine. daily coffee, working the fields, and spending time with the grandkids. one morning, gunshots rang out, leaving shirley dead, planting the seeds of a mystery that would turn one family member against another. here is dennis murphy with the farm. reporter: council bluffs, iowa.te in a small courtroom, the new, and final, scene of a four-year long drama was playing out. count one, murder in the first degree. the defendant did, having malice aforethought, willfully, deliberately, and with ug premeditation kill shirley dean carter. reporter: it s a case that ripped the stitches out of a te