but tom and juanita s children say they never saw anything like the marriage their aunt and grandparents describe. you never saw any verbal abuse from your father to your mother? not that wasn t playful. they would have playful talk but nothing that was ever harsh or demeaning. it s been portrayed as a kind of a stormy marriage. when you hear that, what do you guys think? we were around them the most, and there was never a stormy marriage. it was just a normal marriage. when tom got home, he let them know about the questioning he d faced up at pictured rocks and that some found his behavior suspicious. but in their hearts, the three kids knew their dad would never have hurt their mom, much less kill her. i honestly questioned, what if he did do this. and just about as immediately as that thought came into my head, i told myself there s no way he would be capable of that. the three would form a united front supporting their dad as the police began investigating
kelli brophy, the life insurance, and tom richardson s three different tales of how juanita died. we had three uniformed troopers approach him first to arrest him. it came on february 6th, 2007. the charge? first-degree murder. but with only circumstantial evidence, could the prosecutor make the charge stick? coming up a husband on trial as prosecutors present disturbing pictures from a not-so-perfect marriage. i ve heard him call her a dumb b-i-t-c-h. he always acted like he just despised her. but was that a motive for murder? you and me and the big old tree side by side, one, two, three count the birds in the big old tree la la la [ male announcer ] the inspiring story of how a shipping giant can befriend a forest may seem like the stuff of fairy tales.
and each side in the courtroom thought they knew the answers. on one side, tom and juanita s three kids firmly convinced their dad didn t kill their mom. on the other side, juanita s parents and sister, equally certain of tom s guilt. with no eyewitnesses, prosecutor karen barhmann s case would have to focus on tom richardson himself. you ll learn that he wanted out of this marriage and that he chose murder over divorce by weighing the pros and cons of being widowed versus being divorced. she began with tom s story, actually those three conflicting stories he first told investigators in the hours after juanita s death. he walked to the cliff and his wife was standing there. story one, he didn t see anything. story two, he saw juanita commit suicide. and story three, he saw her accidentally fall. which of those stories did you believe?
i didn t believe any of them. now add those conflicting stories to tom s behavior just after juanita s death. it was enormously surprising to me that he never wanted to know, well, how far did she fall? what is her condition? how soon can i be with her? and he only became emotional one time when he was telling me about how they d gone to his honeymoon spot. he put his face in his hands like this and made some sobbing noises. then when he took his hands away from his face, i didn t see any tears. it struck me as very bad acting. you thought it was phony? i did. then dozens of friends and neighbors from the richardson s hometown of mcbain would provide scenes from a marriage with an abusive husband. i ve heard him call her a dumb b-i-t-c-h, you know, she s stupid.
the investigation of tom richardson was now underway and moving to tom s hometown. michigan state police detective jeff herweyer grew up in mcbain and knew juanita from high school. now he would be investigating her possible murder. people that you knew that you grew up with were calling you and telling you stuff? exactly. and they were saying what? they didn t feel they fell off the cliff. they felt that potentially tom was involved. we re talking about just a couple of people but a lot of people? dozens. one thing he found out, the richardsons perfect marriage wasn t so perfect. seven years earlier, tom had an affair with another woman. you knew your parents had trouble in their marriage, your father had an affair? earlier on, yes. did your mother ever talk with any of you about divorcing your father? not about divorcing him. she had talked to us about her vows, that when she made her