guilty of murdering his wife, juanita, with a mandatory sentence of life in prison. the richardson kids sat in shock and in tears. the tragedy at pictured rocks had now taken both their parents away from them forever. a month later, juanita s sister, jeannette, spoke for her family at the sentencing. two years ago, you chose to take her from us. not only did you take our daughter, our sister, and our aunt, but you also took the mother from your very own children. tom has filed an appeal. he remains defiant. the truth is the truth. and making me a villain doesn t change anything. we ve been through a trial. don t we know the truth? no. isn t the truth that you killed your wife? no, that is not the truth. because you didn t want a divorce, because you wanted to live debt-free with kell
when juanita richardson died on the cliffs at pictured rocks, the tragedy didn t end there. the aftermath would tear her family apart. with her parents and sister certain that her husband, tom, had killed her, and her kids just as sure that he didn t. is this family ever going to be put back together? i hope so. you think it will? i guess it depends on what happens for the verdict. i m not sure it does because half this family is not going to like the verdict. that s true. i hope that one day, you know, we can be back, because i really do, i honestly love them. i may not like them right now or what they re doing, but i will always love them. they re my family. now tom richardson s trial was ending. for her closing argument, prosecutor karen bahrmann returned jurors attention to
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?
juanita s sister, jeannette, had the same suspicions. you hear your sister s dead and your first thought is? he did it. when i heard cliff, i could understand car accident or something. but i said what happened? and mom told me. she fell from a cliff. her and tom were there. and just instantly i knew. that make sense? i don t know. jeannette and her parents both openly admit they never much cared for tom. juanita loved him, and so they tried to as well. but tom made that difficult. you never saw him be physically abusive to her? no. emotionally all the time. verbally abusive? oh, yeah. like what? oh, get your head out your ass, you re so stupid. anything she did it was never right. and he would say get your head out of your, in your presence? yes. to your daughter? yes. how did you keep from knocking him flat? well, it was a struggle.
and i believed him. shortly after juanita died, tom showed up at kelli s house with another gift, a plant from juanita s memorial service. he didn t tell you why he was giving you the plant? no. but it meant something to you, didn t it, that plant? no, not really. juanita s sister jeannette thinks it means a lot. what kind of a girl would if she knew where it came from, would accept a gift like that? i think that is a disgrace to my sister. whatever had been going on between tom and kelli ended after that visit. with juanita dead only a month, tom started asking friends to fix him up. we always said tom was pretty much our best witness throughout this whole investigation. tom could not keep his mouth shut. so herweyer had an idea. he d arrange to set tom up with a new woman who also happened to be a michigan state trooper. that worked.