meghan, was awakened from a deep sleep. 3:00 a.m. knock at my door from the detectives. what s that like? the scariest thing that you will ever go through. and they said, your dad s been shot and he s been killed. i said i screamed, obviously, and it was terror and loss. it s not something any 21-year-old wants to hear at 3:00 in the morning. meghan was not the only one assaulted with the news that night. i was called that night. and in lonnie lancto s case, a particular remorse a regret for a lifetime. lonnie was recovering from surgery just then, and earlier that day, j.j. called, offered his company, his help. and she said thanks, but no she was going to sleep. you must have gone over that in your mind a million times. i live with it every day. i take comfort in the fact that the last words we had to each other were i love you and i love you more.
may be seriously hurt, and feared she was in deep trouble. jan, it s cara. i need your help. please call me, i think i hurt john. the ambulance hasn t left. i m scared. the day after police sent cara home, she consulted an attorney named roger futerman, a british born, american educated lawyer who flies the union jack outside his clearwater, florida, office. when i first heard the facts from miss ryan i didn t think they were gonna charge her. you know, from the defendant the facts are always a little different. i believed her. she seemed very believable. cara and her attorney waited to see what would come next. and meanwhile, detectives continued their investigation. one thing that struck them was the reaction of j.j. s family and friends. daughter meghan. i said, was it her? and they said, was it who? i said, was it cara? and they said, yes. and my whole world crumbled.
department, he collected a pension as well as his salary at the medical examiner s office. but he never saw any of the money. both checks went directly into a bank account controlled only by cara. all he did was deposit his checks. he couldn t tell you how much they even were. he was very controlled. he couldn t go out to lunch without bringing home a receipt. if he wanted to help his daughter meghan, he had to ask cara. like, i once needed help with a deposit for my phone and he had to call and have a conversation over $100, just to help me out. and so he was like, yeah, cara said okay. and it s like, okay, thanks. meghan s mom, and j.j. s first wife, sherry tribby, said it was always like that with cara. once when meghan was in elementary school, i didn t have the money to buy her shoes. so, i asked john so help me and he was reluctant, reluctant at first and then he finally helped me but when he did, he said, don t tell cara. but cara said, she had her
that s about the time j.j. started planning his exit. as he whispered to meghan. he was secretly opening up his new bank account and he changed everything so that nothing was going into her account anymore. and then, the time that she started to notice was when he was like, okay, it s time to get out now. that sounds like somebody who has made a firm and final decision. he was dead-set on not being with her anymore. he was done. and i was proud of him. so he d left her. taken up with another woman. cut off a substantial income. ended her ability to control him. sounded like a motive, said the detectives. the rug was pulled out from underneath her. she was she was shocked dismay. and she was angry? the shock turns to anger at some point. and there was j.j., apparently happy, getting his own place, his own car.
what he always said, if anyone came in the house unannounced, to shoot to kill. the monotone, the you know, the lack of sympathy. how are you doing? horrible. i m sorry. i don t know what to say. she s talking to the daughter of the man she just shot and killed. the jury also saw these selfies from cara s phone, they were taken three days after the shooting. she just killed her lover of so many years and here she is out drinking. it seemed very odd. and remember all those stories about cara s control over j.j.? meghan told the jury how he had to sneak around with his own daughter. he would give me money in gas gift cards or grocery gift cards, to make it look like he had bought gas or had bought groceries because if he took cash out or money out to give me, it would cause some type of ordeal.