oh, my got. he shot me. it came out of nowhere. a sweet stay-at-home mom from a strong family of faith shot point blank at her own garage door. my dad is like collapsed on the ground. it was very traumatic to see, very very emotional time. her survival seemed like a miracle. i didn t know if i would live. was this some awful random crime, or did someone want her dead? that was mystery number one. someone was out there. yeah, we were scared. mystery number two, a secret 1,600 miles away. there were several text messages. it s just slowly snowballing. it was like a punch in the gut. and mystery number three? i m going to hurt you. who would they turn out to be? i m like damn, what did this lady do? faith, temptation, and a twist the size of texas. let s be very clear. justice needs to be served. i don t think it has been. carrollton, texas, just north of dallas, is the kind of place where the upwardly mobile go to buy their dreams. the sc
In carrollton, texas. Remarkably, she survived. Ek nancy howard was Shot Poi Blank at her home In Carrollton, texas. Remarkably, she survived. A week into the investigation, detectives got a lead from an inmate who claim to know he knew the real story behind the crime. His name was billy earl johnson. The cops nude he was a tough guy from east texas, an area about 90 miles from carrollton, home to those piney woods. Billy was the ringleader of a colorful crew. Many petty criminals, related to billy by blood or marriage. Certainly a strange cast of characters. East texas folks and some people might depict them as the he hog gang. A gang just getting by in a region struggling to make it. Theres a lot of drugs and methamphetamine. Someone makes money, extra money, they handed out to each other. It is meeting with investigators, he was a Man On A Mission who wanted to cut a deal and fast. I got grandkids that i want to spend the rest of my life with. I want to be free. And i went out this
i m so sick of being alone. you need to file by this friday or move on. i ve waited long enough. prosecutors said that affair was frank s motive. so all eyes were on suzanne when she took the stand. she believed he was in a loveless marriage. that he was basically separated from his wife, that living under the same roof for convenience sake. but in separate bedrooms. how important was the mistress s testimony, suzanne? you know, i don t think suzanne had any kind of knowledge about any of this. i don t think she knew that there was a murder for hire plot. i don t think she knew about any association with criminals. i think suzanne fully believed, just like everybody else around frank, they take him at his word and they believe him. reporter: prosecutors told the jury that for a family man like frank, divorce was not an option. but, they argued, murder was. i mean, it didn t have to happen. a divorce was the solution. reporter: frank was with suzanne in california on the
Having an affair and that he d paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a bunch of make-believe hit men, they also had a picture of him meeting with one of them. still, a crucial element for solving this case was missing. we re still knee deep in the middle of this. we don t have the shooter identified. and everyone that we have arrested up until this point, we can only confirm that they re involved in a solicitation to have nancy killed. reporter: which is not to say that they didn t get some useful hints from the east texans. dustin hiroms, he gives us the name of michael speck. and michael speck is billie johnson s nephew. reporter: the investigators zeroed in on that name, michael speck. a search of jail recordings of billie earl johnson s phone calls soon revealed a surprise. not only did they hear billie earl talking about somebody named michael, they also heard
Fell in love with a girl from his church. her name was nancy shore. a brunette with dazzling blue eyes. it was a great time. you know, i still look back at that and think it was a good time. reporter: frank s father married the happy couple in 1983, and two years later they had their first child, a daughter they named ashley. that wasn t an easy birth. no. there were problems. yeah, there were complications. she spent the first ten days of her life in the in the neonatal unit at the hospital. it was a close call but one that seemed to deepen and enrich the couple s faith. soon the family grew to include a son, jay, and another daughter, brianna. growing up was great. i had a wonderful older sister and older brother who kind of helped guide me through stuff and obviously a wonderful mom and dad.