happy family picture suddenly disfigured by the ugly murder of shirley carter. dci mark ludwick took the lead for the investigation. first of all, we want to identify all witnesses, we want to separate them and we want to conduct a face-to-face sit down interview as soon as we can. early on, the most important witnesses were bill, the husband, and jason, the son. ludwick assigned deputies to take the two down to the pleasantville pd. and she said do you want a cookie, coffee? in an interview room bill told investigators the same story he told us. how he took shirley home then took a load of corn to the granary. and how he raced home tofind his wife still on the floor. when i went in and i felt her she was cold. jason in turn said his day started pretty much the same. he d also taken a load of corn to that same granary. i went back down the drive and headed down to eddyfield.
bill carter, he said, was the likely killer. shirley, he argued, complained about him all the time. she had to get permission for everything. jason s wife testified that shirley told her, bill was to controlling. whether it be to go get her here, make a hair appointment, or to help with the kids. whatever it was, she had to get his permission before she could do that. steve said it almost came to a head on that june morning. something happened on that friday that made him snap. and he is the one that killed his wife. after two weeks of trial and mutual accusations, that battle between father and son went to the jury. the court will now read the verdict. it took a little over two hours to answer the question. did jason carter cause the death of his mother? did the defendant, jason carter, after shirley carter, causing damages to plaintiffs? answer, yes. jason had been found liable for the death of his mother. the jury cleared build. it had to come sooner or later
dna, nobody walked in front of a security camera. right. so, to understand shirley carter s death, they d have to learn more about her life, a back story to a murder. turned out she was a local girl. her dad a grocer, her mother an assistant at a law office. in high school she met bill. where d you go on your first date? i took her to the homecoming dance. she was quiet. prettiest thing you d ever seen. as bill tells it, they were kids in love, deeply. maybe carelessly. during her sophomore year shirley got pregnant. we were married at a very young age. i was 18 had just turned 18 and she was 16. soon, daughter jana was born and then came billy. 8 years later jason completed the family. with three kids to raise, bill and shirley went into farming. on a small plot of starter land they grew some
is it your belief jason shot his mother? yes. painful as it was bill had been suspicious of his son early on, and remembers a moment it all became clear. not long after the murder, bill says, jason found out he was going to visit his lawyer. he came barging through the door and he said what are you going to go see your lawyer about? and i said, i just need to get some things straightened out. there s some things that don t add up, and that s when he slammed his fist on the counter top and he said, my life is over. his life, jason s life. his life is over. i knew then he had done it. it was a shocking realization. you re telling me your boy became a monster. he did. he did. i m ashamed. you shouldn t be ashamed. you did everything you could for the boy. i didn t do something right. shirley and i did something wrong. bill carter tired of waiting for the prosecutor. he the father, would take the almost unprecedented step of bringing his son before a civil jury. j
point, the old the bank more than half 1 million dollars on their loan. but she said, that was business as usual for farmers. repeat that off, just like repeat it off every year, so we could renew our line and start again. and then steve bullock offered the alternative to theory of the case. steve is right. the killer of shirley carter is in this room. and it s not jason carter. it s him, the accuser.