together, jean and jim got married in las vegas. and i was asked by jean if i would walk her down the aisle. was she happy? oh, yeah. all smiles. both of them were all smiles. but the smiles did not last long. in june 2002, jim huden returned here to washington state for the funeral of an old friend. and it was here that fate intervened. a tall red-haired beauty caught jim s eye. it was the beginning of a love triangle, one that would wreck the lives of a lot of people involved and some who were not. the woman in question was peggy thomas, a whi drdbey hairstylist who also dabbled in beauty pageants. in fact, she entered a las vegas
documenting the couple s movements in 2003 where russell douglas was murdered. we put out descriptions of the vehicle he was driving. just a few days after it hit the media we got a phone call from dona ana county sheriff s office in new mexico saying someone had turned in as a firearm that they believe might have been used in a homicide on whidbey island. talk about luck. it doesn t get any better than that. the gun came from a former las vegas sheriff s deputy who recently retired to new mexico. the deputy had known jim huden and peggy thomas in las vegas and in october 2003, the deputy said huden had come to his house and asked to be shown how to shoot the gun. according to the deputy, the next time he saw either huden or the gun was in january 2004 when jim huden handed it to him in a paper bag and asked him to hold it for safekeeping. we took the weapon for
hoping to reconcile with her husband jim. he then dropped a bombshell. that dark secret he shared when he said he wanted to know how it felt to kill a man? well, now he had his target. once again, here s josh mankowicz. in vegas stays in vegas. no one wanted that slogan to be true more than jean huden did. especially since vegas was where her husband had told her he intended to kill a complete stranger. he wanted to know what it felt like to kill somebody. nobody s ever said that to me before. yeah, me either. this was not to be a thrill killing. according to jean, her husband believed murdering the victim he had in mind would be a kind of public service. he just said he beat his children and beat his wife and didn t take care of his family and just an abusive
could concentrate on music. i kind of pushed him towards doing that because i knew that was his love and that s where he was most happy. were you in love with him? very much so. i loved that man very much. so much so that in december 2001, after six years of living together, jean and jim got married in las vegas. and i was asked by jean if i would walk her down the aisle. was she happy? oh, yeah. all smiles. both of them were all smiles. but the smiles did not last long. in june 2002 jim huden returned here to washington state for the funeral of an old friend, and it was here that fate intervened. a tall, red-haired beauty caught jim s eye. it was the beginning of a love triangle, one that would wreck the lives of all of the people who were involved, and some who were not. the woman in question was peggy
saying that they had heard from jim and jim was at a motel down in houston. josh mankiewicz: the lawyer put jean in touch with jim and filled her in on his latest plan, a plan that could only succeed if jean agreed to send jim money. his plan was to get across the border and go from there. and so i d send him yet more money, and allowed him to get out of the country. josh mankiewicz: which wasn t, at that point, a crime since there were no charges against jim. at this point, no. josh mankiewicz: and here s where our story takes another bizarre turn. while jean huden, the wife jim had cheated on for years, was willing to stand by her man and help him escape the mexico, police learned that peggy thomas, jim huden s lover and alleged accomplice, was now willing to give him up. i m not involved in this. ok. josh mankiewicz: in this interview with detectives, peggy thomas said that in a phone call shortly