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An Innocent Nursing Student Shot Dead Outside Her School _ Homicide_ Hours To Kill · History Dark

0:06
Speaker 1: It was so callous, like she was an animal, just
0:11
Speaker 1: murdered in cold blood.
0:13
Speaker 2: A brutal killing.
0:15
Speaker 3: We were all floored.
0:18
Speaker 4: She was very beautiful, just a sweetheart of a person.
0:23
Speaker 2: A dark mystery with multiple suspects.
0:27
Speaker 3: I mean, this guy matches so many people in Houston.
0:32
Speaker 1: His close relationship with her would have provided for opportunity.
0:38
Speaker 5: You have the woman scoring. She started acting crazy.
0:44
Speaker 3: Here's a man that just killed his girlfriend. He's telling
0:48
Speaker 3: us this.
0:49
Speaker 2: The truth will be revealed.
0:51
Speaker 3: We asked him, do you have any idea who may
0:54
Speaker 3: want to harm Jennifer Lewis? And without hesitation, he said yes.
1:04
Speaker 2: Every day in North America, dozens of people are murdered.
1:09
Speaker 2: The key to solving the toughest of these homicides lies
1:12
Speaker 2: in the final 24 hours of the victim's life. To
1:16
Speaker 2: crack the case, detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline. The
1:22
Speaker 2: minutes and hours containing evidence that can help unlock the
1:25
Speaker 2: mystery and catch the killer. Houston, Texas. The southern metropolis.
1:41
Speaker 2: Home to 2.3 million.
1:44
Speaker 5: Houston is a fine city. I love it.
1:47
Speaker 1: Lots of good people here. but it's one of the
1:51
Speaker 1: largest cities in the United States. So you're going to find,
1:55
Speaker 1: you know, crime.
1:59
Speaker 3: There is no community that I'm aware of that all
2:02
Speaker 3: good people are in. It just doesn't happen. And some
2:06
Speaker 3: of these cases are really horrifying.
2:13
Speaker 2: Even for experienced detectives, some murders stand out.
2:18
Speaker 3: We had a young female walking along with a friend
2:24
Speaker 3: from a parking lot to the front door of Houston
2:27
Speaker 3: Community College for Health Professions. And all of a sudden,
2:33
Speaker 3: she's shot in the back.
2:37
Speaker 2: The victim is 27-year-old nursing student Jennifer Lewis.
2:43
Speaker 1: By the time homicide in the rest of the East
2:46
Speaker 1: got there, Miss Lewis had been transported to the hospital.
2:52
Speaker 3: She was dead on arrival.
2:57
Speaker 2: Homicide investigator Clarence Douglas begins the search for her killer.
3:03
Speaker 3: Jennifer's case was one of those horrible cases. Why would
3:07
Speaker 3: someone want to shoot this young woman that's going to
3:12
Speaker 3: a nursing school to be an RN? We were six
3:18
Speaker 3: weeks from graduation.
3:24
Speaker 4: Going around innocently in life, thinking nothing like this will
3:29
Speaker 4: happen to me. Jennifer and I met as nursing students.
3:37
Speaker 4: It was an automatic chemistry. We would study together, we
3:42
Speaker 4: would talk about These transitional issues of 20-year-old women, boyfriends
3:48
Speaker 4: and dreams and hopes. Jennifer was energy in a human being.
3:55
Speaker 3: She was just like a magnet.
3:58
Speaker 1: Here you had a woman that was innocent, totally innocent.
4:03
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, this tragic event takes place.
4:14
Speaker 2: Investigators begin the task of tracing the last 24 hours
4:18
Speaker 2: of Jennifer's young life, starting with the shooting itself.
4:27
Speaker 3: We knew that we had a witness, Cheryl Allen, that
4:33
Speaker 3: was walking right beside Jennifer.
4:37
Speaker 4: That day, we drove up to school. We parked in
4:42
Speaker 4: our normal spot. you know, hopped out. The day was bright.
4:48
Speaker 4: There was lots of people, school buses. We had our
4:52
Speaker 4: arms intertwined. And we both heard this loud blast. I
5:10
Speaker 4: said to her, did you hear that car backfire?
5:14
Speaker 3: There was seconds of a pause, and she says, no,
5:18
Speaker 3: I've been shot.
5:21
Speaker 4: And when she said that, her body immediately got limp,
5:25
Speaker 4: very heavy. And she couldn't take any more steps. So
5:47
Speaker 4: I laid her down and everything slowed down. It was
6:00
Speaker 4: a very beautiful day in the midst of an extremely
6:04
Speaker 4: tragic scene.
6:09
Speaker 3: From all appearances, Jennifer did not know the shooter. because
6:14
Speaker 3: when she was shot, she said, that man shot me.
6:19
Speaker 3: She didn't call out a name or anything. At that point,
6:25
Speaker 3: Cheryl could see the blood coming out of her chest there,
6:28
Speaker 3: the front of her chest. Cheryl was trying to help Jennifer.
6:35
Speaker 4: I said to the teacher that was doing CPR, stop,
6:38
Speaker 4: she's dead. When I looked in her eyes, I just
6:42
Speaker 4: already knew she was present with the Lord. I did
6:47
Speaker 4: see a figure running away from the corner of my
6:51
Speaker 4: left eye.
6:54
Speaker 3: But she couldn't really get a good look at him
6:56
Speaker 3: because she was trying to assist Jennifer. We had witnesses
7:02
Speaker 3: that heard the gunshot and then saw the shooter run
7:06
Speaker 3: away and told us he wasn't afraid to be seen.
7:13
Speaker 3: All the witnesses agree that it was a thin black man.
7:19
Speaker 3: They agreed that he had a dark hat on his head.
7:24
Speaker 3: It's not that he walked with a limp or he
7:28
Speaker 3: had one arm. I mean, this guy matches so many
7:32
Speaker 3: people in Houston.
7:36
Speaker 2: Witness accounts do yield a key detail.
7:40
Speaker 1: After the shooting, he ran and got into a red car,
7:45
Speaker 1: and the red car sped off.
7:48
Speaker 3: We weren't close enough to see who was in the car.
7:52
Speaker 3: They could only see a silhouette of the driver. At
7:57
Speaker 3: this point, everybody's a suspect. Everybody.
8:03
Speaker 2: Detective Douglas turns his attention to the crime scene.
8:09
Speaker 3: Containing the crime scene is very difficult because the containment
8:14
Speaker 3: starts when the first officer arrives on the scene. Things
8:19
Speaker 3: that happened prior to his arrival, we can't control that.
8:24
Speaker 3: Things like the nurse's instructors that came out to give
8:28
Speaker 3: Jennifer CPR and try to keep her breathing.
8:32
Speaker 6: When a crime scene has been altered, either because of
8:36
Speaker 6: resuscitative efforts or because she was shot while she was
8:41
Speaker 6: in this crowd. It makes the crime scene work up
8:45
Speaker 6: much more challenging.
8:49
Speaker 3: One of the things that you look for at a
8:52
Speaker 3: shooting scene is firearms evidence. We didn't find any spent
8:59
Speaker 3: shells at the scene. So we believed that it would
9:03
Speaker 3: be a revolver, not a semi-automatic weapon. but also there
9:09
Speaker 3: was no bullet. It went from her back through her chest.
9:14
Speaker 3: It came out right below the neckline here. You couldn't
9:19
Speaker 3: find the bullet because there was so much going on
9:21
Speaker 3: at the scene. But from the size of the exit
9:28
Speaker 3: wound and the travel of the bullet from the back
9:31
Speaker 3: to front, the estimate was that it was a. 38
9:34
Speaker 3: caliber handgun.
9:40
Speaker 1: Homicide investigators found her cell phone. She was carrying a
9:47
Speaker 1: lunch with her, and that was found there. When you
9:51
Speaker 1: don't have direct evidence to connect to a suspect, it
9:59
Speaker 1: can be very dangerous. challenging for homicide investigators to develop
10:03
Speaker 1: leads because it is a real whodunit.
10:08
Speaker 2: There is one conclusion they can draw.
10:11
Speaker 3: There was no confrontation at all with the shooter. No
10:17
Speaker 3: words spoken. The person with Jennifer was not harmed. This
10:26
Speaker 3: was a hit on Jennifer alone. Somebody hated her. So
10:34
Speaker 3: we had the challenge of finding out who that hater was.
10:41
Speaker 3: To try to solve a case like that in a
10:43
Speaker 3: huge city the size of Houston, we knew it was
10:48
Speaker 3: going to be difficult. So you got to go figure
10:51
Speaker 3: out who does she associate with, who is her friends,
10:57
Speaker 3: who is her enemies.
11:01
Speaker 2: Cheryl gives detectives insight into Jennifer's timeline.
11:06
Speaker 4: Every day, I would pick her up before school started.
11:11
Speaker 4: School started in the afternoon, something like 5. And her
11:14
Speaker 4: home was in the direction of the school. So it
11:17
Speaker 4: was nothing for me to go by there. That day,
11:21
Speaker 4: she needed me to drop her boyfriend off at home.
11:28
Speaker 1: Melvin Reed was an associate minister at a church in Houston.
11:37
Speaker 1: And he had a good job as a postal worker.
11:41
Speaker 1: He met Miss Jennifer Lewis at church. And things took
11:47
Speaker 1: off from there. She was gonna marry Mr.
11:51
Speaker 7: Reed.
11:53
Speaker 3: Cheryl told us that she picked Jennifer and Melvin up.
11:59
Speaker 3: And they drove Melvin to his apartment. Then Cheryl drove
12:03
Speaker 3: her straight to the parking lot of the school.
12:09
Speaker 1: So he's on the timeline. Very close on the timeline.
12:14
Speaker 1: And he would know her daily routine. He knew how
12:18
Speaker 1: she traveled. And he knew that she would be going
12:23
Speaker 1: to school on certain days and at certain hours.
12:30
Speaker 8: It's often standard to investigate the spouse or partner of
12:34
Speaker 8: a victim for a number of reasons. Primarily it's because
12:37
Speaker 8: that person may be the one responsible for the murder.
12:40
Speaker 8: They may have hired someone to commit the murder. And
12:44
Speaker 8: police have to pursue that. They have to go down
12:46
Speaker 8: that avenue and see if that person has any sort
12:48
Speaker 8: of direct or indirect involvement in the crime.
12:53
Speaker 2: Detectives discover Melvin recently filed a police report that his
12:57
Speaker 2: gun has gone missing.
13:02
Speaker 5: It was suspicious.
13:04
Speaker 1: It could be, you know, you did it also with
13:07
Speaker 1: human emotions. So they needed to take a closer look
13:13
Speaker 1: at his relationship with her.
13:21
Speaker 2: Detectives investigating the murder of Jennifer Lewis have identified their
13:26
Speaker 2: first person of interest, her boyfriend, Melvin Reed.
13:31
Speaker 3: What you do in that case, you talk with him
13:35
Speaker 3: and you ask him questions. Did you have anything to
13:38
Speaker 3: do with her getting shot? She just left your place.
13:43
Speaker 3: Have you had any arguments with her?
13:46
Speaker 2: Police asked Melvin for his account of what happened in
13:49
Speaker 2: the hours before the murder.
13:53
Speaker 3: You said they read the Bible. Jennifer got ready for school.
13:58
Speaker 3: Cheryl picked them up. And they drove Melvin to his apartment.
14:06
Speaker 3: Jennifer waited for Melvin to run upstairs and get his
14:09
Speaker 3: cell phone and bring it back to her. They embraced
14:14
Speaker 3: one another, kissed. Cheryl and Jennifer drove off.
14:21
Speaker 2: Melvin denies any knowledge of a red getaway vehicle and
14:25
Speaker 2: says he had no means of getting to campus.
14:29
Speaker 1: Either he didn't have a car or his car was
14:31
Speaker 1: in the shop being repaired.
14:34
Speaker 3: He said that when the shooting happened, he had just
14:38
Speaker 3: been dropped off and he received a call from a
14:43
Speaker 3: relative of Jennifer's. telling him that Jennifer had been shot.
14:52
Speaker 3: There were very, very few cell phones at that time.
14:55
Speaker 3: So they called him at his landline and he was home.
15:00
Speaker 2: Police need to determine if Melvin had enough time to
15:03
Speaker 2: commit the murder.
15:07
Speaker 4: Melvin's house back to campus was maybe, maybe 10 minutes.
15:14
Speaker 3: We didn't think that He could follow them and shoot
15:17
Speaker 3: Jennifer and run back to the house that quickly. And
15:20
Speaker 3: the gun that he had didn't really match. It's a.
15:25
Speaker 3: 380 semi-automatic, not a revolver. Melvin was upset. He couldn't
15:31
Speaker 3: believe that this had happened to Jennifer. There was really
15:36
Speaker 3: no reason at that point to think that Melvin was
15:40
Speaker 3: actually involved. but we also had to look at other
15:48
Speaker 3: people that he may have been involved with or knew.
15:52
Speaker 3: When we asked him the question, do you have any
15:55
Speaker 3: idea who may want to harm Jennifer Lewis? Without hesitation,
16:00
Speaker 3: Melvin said yes. My ex-girlfriend, Sheila Dillard, she and I
16:09
Speaker 3: have a son together, but we've been separated for about
16:14
Speaker 3: a year. When he said that, it gets your attention.
16:19
Speaker 3: Why would he say that about his ex-girlfriend, the mother
16:22
Speaker 3: of his child?
16:24
Speaker 9: The police will always look at family members to see
16:27
Speaker 9: who has an ax to grind. And it's usually pretty
16:31
Speaker 9: easy to find out because if you don't like a
16:34
Speaker 9: family member, those feelings aren't usually secrets.
16:41
Speaker 3: What happened was Melvin and Sheila had broken off their relationship.
16:48
Speaker 3: But because they had a son together, they would see
16:53
Speaker 3: one another. Sheila still looked at him as her man.
17:00
Speaker 2: Melvin recounts a specific incident from months before.
17:05
Speaker 3: On one particular day, Melvin had his son, who he
17:09
Speaker 3: calls Little Melvin, He tells Sheila, when you come to
17:14
Speaker 3: pick up little Melvin, call me. But instead of Sheila calling,
17:19
Speaker 3: when she got to the apartment, she went upstairs. She
17:26
Speaker 3: saw Jennifer. Melvin introduced her to Jennifer. It's my girlfriend.
17:35
Speaker 3: From that day, Sheila began to call him repeatedly. And
17:41
Speaker 3: then just before Valentine's Day, a few weeks before the murder,
17:48
Speaker 3: Sheila's over at Melvin's and he tells her, I'm gonna
17:52
Speaker 3: ask Jennifer to marry me. Sheila was hysterical. She went
17:59
Speaker 3: into his apartment and she took a photograph that he
18:02
Speaker 3: had on his dresser there of Jennifer. And she ripped
18:08
Speaker 3: it apart.
18:10
Speaker 2: Melvin reveals another key detail about the day of the murder.
18:16
Speaker 1: That day, Jennifer told Melvin that she had received some
18:21
Speaker 1: telephone calls where the person would just hang up. Nobody
18:27
Speaker 1: was on the phone.
18:31
Speaker 3: Those calls came between 2.30 and 5.
18:34
Speaker 5: He suspected it was Sheila.
18:40
Speaker 1: But if Sheila Dillard had anything to do with Jennifer Dillard,
18:45
Speaker 1: she hired.
18:46
Speaker 5: Someone to do it.
18:48
Speaker 1: Because all the witnesses identified the shooter as a young
18:53
Speaker 1: black man.
18:55
Speaker 3: So after talking to Melvin, you have to talk to Sheila.
19:00
Speaker 3: And that was the next step that we did in
19:02
Speaker 3: this investigation. She agreed to come down to the homicide
19:10
Speaker 3: division We talked to Sheila extensively. Her alibi was, I
19:18
Speaker 3: was at home fixing my mother's hair.
19:24
Speaker 2: Detectives need to confirm her alibi with her mother.
19:28
Speaker 3: The mother was very, was an angry person.
19:31
Speaker 1: Police went to Sheila's mother's house and there was a
19:36
Speaker 1: big argument going on.
19:39
Speaker 7: When people prevent you from doing your job, that's borderline obstructionist.
19:46
Speaker 7: But it's rare for the police, even with all the lines.
19:50
Speaker 7: that goes on, to charge people. Because if you start
19:54
Speaker 7: charging people for lying to you, then you may have
19:56
Speaker 7: people who will not cooperate with you down the road.
20:01
Speaker 3: We still had to get more information on Sheila. So
20:06
Speaker 3: we asked her if she would take a polygraph test.
20:11
Speaker 8: Guilty people sometimes put themselves forward and willingly offer.
20:15
Speaker 3: To do a lie detector test or a polygraph.
20:17
Speaker 8: And the reason they do this is because they're basically saying, look,
20:20
Speaker 8: I'm innocent, I didn't do it. And I'm willing to
20:22
Speaker 8: do this test as a means of covering for themselves.
20:27
Speaker 3: She admitted that, yeah, I was upset. Melvin hurt me.
20:32
Speaker 3: And she said she wanted to go back with Melvin.
20:37
Speaker 3: That was her child's father, and she wanted to be
20:40
Speaker 3: with him. We asked her, did you shoot Jennifer Lewis?
20:47
Speaker 3: Do you know who shot Jennifer Lewis? Were you there
20:53
Speaker 3: when Jennifer Lewis was shot and killed? All those questions
20:59
Speaker 3: were asked, and she passed all those questions according to
21:03
Speaker 3: the examiner, showing that she was not involved. We knew
21:11
Speaker 3: Sheila didn't shoot her, but we believed she somehow had
21:17
Speaker 3: some kind of connection, and we still had to figure
21:19
Speaker 3: out what that was. We wanted more direct information that
21:24
Speaker 3: would try to connect her to that red car, to
21:28
Speaker 3: the shooter. Sheila had a small Ford, and it was
21:35
Speaker 3: kind of a goldish color, and she denied having anything
21:39
Speaker 3: to do with the red car. So we called a
21:41
Speaker 3: special unit that's attached to Houston Police Department and asked
21:46
Speaker 3: them if they would do surveillance for us.
21:51
Speaker 2: As they do so, detectives receive a new lead.
21:57
Speaker 3: Another officer to work the street uniform called us and said,
22:02
Speaker 3: you need to look at Jennifer's ex-boyfriend. His name is
22:07
Speaker 3: John Johnson.
22:09
Speaker 4: I remember her talking about him a lot.
22:14
Speaker 3: It was months before Melvin.
22:16
Speaker 4: I don't know quite how to define the relationship, but
22:20
Speaker 4: they were extremely fond of each other. She talked about
22:22
Speaker 4: him all the time. They did a lot of writing.
22:27
Speaker 4: She never talked about any specifics.
22:30
Speaker 1: They discovered that Johnson murdered his girlfriend, a woman named
22:36
Speaker 1: Paula Hunter.
22:40
Speaker 3: Now here's a man that just killed his girlfriend. We
22:45
Speaker 3: just wanted to get his side of the story as
22:48
Speaker 3: far as he and Jennifer was concerned. How did she
22:52
Speaker 3: fit into that murder?
22:59
Speaker 2: Detectives follow up on Jennifer Lewis's ex-boyfriend, currently in jail
23:05
Speaker 2: for murder.
23:08
Speaker 3: John Johnson had a girlfriend named Paula. He was also
23:14
Speaker 3: seeing Jennifer. One night, Jennifer spent the night with Johnson.
23:21
Speaker 3: Johnson gets up, takes Jennifer's car keys, and drives to
23:26
Speaker 3: his girlfriend Paula's. Ended up shooting and killing Paula. As
23:37
Speaker 3: he leaves, One of the witnesses writes down the license
23:41
Speaker 3: plate number. They put the license plate number on the
23:46
Speaker 3: police radio and it came back to Jennifer Lewis on
23:50
Speaker 3: Daphne Street. The police go to Daphne Street and they
23:55
Speaker 3: question Jennifer about her car being at a murder scene.
24:02
Speaker 3: She tells the police she don't know anything about it
24:05
Speaker 3: because she didn't realize that he had taken her car.
24:10
Speaker 3: She talked John into, look, turn yourself in for what
24:14
Speaker 3: you've done. John turned himself in and he was put
24:21
Speaker 3: in Harris County Jail where he was awaiting trial.
24:28
Speaker 1: If Johnson knew that she would testify against him and
24:32
Speaker 1: provide damaging testimony to him, you would think that he
24:38
Speaker 1: probably would want to eliminate her, you know?
24:44
Speaker 3: We learned that prior to his murder case, there was
24:47
Speaker 3: a civil case that John had received a $ 9, 000 payment.
24:53
Speaker 3: Of course, we looked at that as a possibility that
24:56
Speaker 3: he could use this money maybe to harm Jennifer.
25:01
Speaker 9: It's relatively common that a person in jail recruits somebody
25:06
Speaker 9: else to commit crimes on the outside. If you serve
25:10
Speaker 9: time in a federal penitentiary where other people around you
25:14
Speaker 9: are in there for violent crimes, it's easier than you
25:16
Speaker 9: might think to find somebody who's willing to kill somebody
25:20
Speaker 9: else for two or three or $ 4, 000.
25:26
Speaker 2: Detective Douglas pays Johnson a visit.
25:30
Speaker 3: In the interview with John, John acknowledged, yeah, I did
25:33
Speaker 3: get that money. It was a civil case that I
25:37
Speaker 3: was involved in, and I gave the money to my mother.
25:41
Speaker 2: Douglas probes into the pair's relationship.
25:46
Speaker 1: John Johnson confirmed that he had been involved with Jennifer Lewis.
25:50
Speaker 3: She would visit him every Tuesday and Friday. They also
25:54
Speaker 3: wrote letters back and forth. Now, here's a man that
25:59
Speaker 3: just killed his girlfriend. He's telling us this. I would
26:02
Speaker 3: never harm Jennifer. Jennifer was special.
26:08
Speaker 2: Johnson shows police the letters she sent to his jail
26:10
Speaker 2: cell as evidence he's telling the truth.
26:14
Speaker 3: He had no animosity toward Jennifer. There wasn't any ill
26:18
Speaker 3: feelings for him being in jail.
26:24
Speaker 2: They find no evidence of a hired hit that would
26:27
Speaker 2: place him on the timeline.
26:32
Speaker 1: They just could not make a direct connection between John
26:37
Speaker 1: Johnson and the murder of Jennifer Lewis.
26:41
Speaker 3: You feel frustrated, but we still had a lot of
26:44
Speaker 3: work to do. Somewhere there's some connection from Jennifer to
26:52
Speaker 3: the person that shot her. What we have to do
26:58
Speaker 3: is to, through Jennifer's connections, put that person back at
27:05
Speaker 3: the scene shooting Jennifer.
27:09
Speaker 2: As Douglas continues to probe, he gets a call from
27:14
Speaker 2: the surveillance team watching Sheila Dillard.
27:19
Speaker 3: They watched people walking back and forth, people going up
27:21
Speaker 3: to the apartment and coming down. Then they see a
27:25
Speaker 3: small red vehicle pull in. They see the vehicle pick
27:34
Speaker 3: up three females, take those females to a parking lot
27:40
Speaker 3: of a store. Sheila gets out of the car. The
27:45
Speaker 3: driver looks like a thin black male wearing a cap.
27:53
Speaker 5: They knew that a red car was involved.
27:56
Speaker 1: Now they could connect the red car to Sheila Dillon.
28:05
Speaker 2: Police surveillance has identified the potential getaway vehicle seen on
28:09
Speaker 2: the day of Jennifer's murder.
28:14
Speaker 1: They got a license plate number. And that license plate
28:17
Speaker 1: number registered to a Roderick Franklin.
28:23
Speaker 3: We ran Broderick through the national database. We found the
28:28
Speaker 3: location of where he lived with his mother. She said,
28:34
Speaker 3: he doesn't live here anymore. I don't know where he is,
28:38
Speaker 3: but when he calls me, I'll tell him that you
28:43
Speaker 3: all want to talk to him. Wasn't long that Broderick
28:48
Speaker 3: did call us. Said, I heard you're looking for me.
28:51
Speaker 3: Something about some murder, something, I don't know nothing about it. Well,
28:56
Speaker 3: we asked him if he'd come down and talk with us. Eventually,
29:00
Speaker 3: he did come down. And he said, I don't know
29:03
Speaker 3: a Sheila. So, well, you dropped her off at her
29:09
Speaker 3: apartment on this day, at this time. You showed him
29:13
Speaker 3: a picture. I don't know her. Well, you picked up
29:16
Speaker 3: three females. Oh, oh yeah, I remember that. I took
29:20
Speaker 3: them around the corner. But I don't know no Sheila,
29:24
Speaker 3: and I don't know nothing about no murder.
29:28
Speaker 2: Broderick says he was nowhere near Jennifer's college on the afternoon.
29:33
Speaker 3: Of the shooting. So we asked him if he'd take
29:38
Speaker 3: a polygraph, because your car, we believe that car was
29:41
Speaker 3: involved in the murder. He said, sure, I'll take a polygraph.
29:45
Speaker 3: He takes a polygraph.
29:46
Speaker 5: He passes.
29:48
Speaker 3: I said, OK, well, look, we need to examine your car.
29:52
Speaker 3: Would you allow us to do that? He said, well,
29:54
Speaker 3: that's going to be a problem. I said, why is
29:57
Speaker 3: that a problem? where the car was burned up. What
30:01
Speaker 3: do you mean it was burned up? Oh, on May 8th,
30:05
Speaker 3: the car caught a fire down on May. It burned up.
30:11
Speaker 3: We followed that deed. We went to a junkyard where
30:14
Speaker 3: the car was taken to. Only to find out the
30:18
Speaker 3: car had been cut up into pieces. We couldn't examine
30:24
Speaker 3: the car to see if it would lead us back
30:27
Speaker 3: to the murder itself.
30:32
Speaker 1: They had nothing to go on at this point. I mean,
30:36
Speaker 1: they had no evidence to tie him to the scene.
30:40
Speaker 1: So they was about to scrap one.
30:44
Speaker 3: So what do you do? You just, you continue to work.
30:47
Speaker 3: You continue to look at your case. You cannot harass
30:53
Speaker 3: the suspects. You can't harass the witnesses. So you have
30:59
Speaker 3: to wait.
31:02
Speaker 4: The months after Jennifer's murder, you're not the same.
31:09
Speaker 3: Nothing's the same.
31:11
Speaker 4: I would stop by from time to time to see
31:14
Speaker 4: her family. My father would call the police station just
31:19
Speaker 4: as much as her father would, wanting to know what happened,
31:25
Speaker 4: because we all did not know why, who. It wasn't random.
31:33
Speaker 4: So you have all of these questions. I remember being angry.
31:40
Speaker 4: How this could have happened, not a clue. And I
31:46
Speaker 4: just can't remember being really so naive not to think
31:51
Speaker 4: that that type of evil would cross your path.
31:57
Speaker 3: These cases are not easy. When you get working in homicide,
32:02
Speaker 3: You know right away that your responsibility is first to
32:05
Speaker 3: the victim and to the victim's family and to the
32:10
Speaker 3: rest of the community. The families always want clarity. I
32:15
Speaker 3: felt frustrated, but I never lost faith. You just have
32:20
Speaker 3: to do your job and try not to leave any
32:24
Speaker 3: stone unturned.
32:29
Speaker 2: 13 months after the murder of Jennifer Lewis, Investigator Douglas
32:33
Speaker 2: receives an unusual call.
32:36
Speaker 3: Patrick Curry was a jail inmate at Harris County Jail.
32:41
Speaker 3: He talked to a deputy, told him that he had
32:46
Speaker 3: information regarding the girl that got killed about a year
32:52
Speaker 3: ago at the school. And he wanted to talk to
32:57
Speaker 3: the homicide detectives. You have to be suspicious, but you
33:02
Speaker 3: have to also interview that person and find out what
33:06
Speaker 3: it is they want to tell you.
33:10
Speaker 9: A jailhouse informant is the lowest of the low. You
33:14
Speaker 9: cannot trust a single word they say unless it can
33:19
Speaker 9: be corroborated by external pieces of evidence. Simple reason is,
33:23
Speaker 9: if you're in jail, you'll do whatever you can to
33:26
Speaker 9: get out of there earlier.
33:31
Speaker 3: He was, you know, very calm. He said that a
33:35
Speaker 3: couple days or a day after the girl got shot,
33:38
Speaker 3: he said, Sheila came to their house. And Sheila tell
33:47
Speaker 3: her friend, Samara, come here, I want to talk to you.
33:53
Speaker 3: They went into the bedroom. He said he listened at
33:58
Speaker 3: the door.
34:01
Speaker 1: He talked to Sheila Diller and his friend, talking about
34:05
Speaker 1: the death of Jennifer Lewis.
34:09
Speaker 3: Patrick Carey said, you need to talk to his friend,
34:12
Speaker 3: Samara Dobbins. He believed that she knew what was going on.
34:18
Speaker 3: She knew what had happened. That was really like a
34:22
Speaker 3: bell going off. Wait a minute. Samara is a young
34:26
Speaker 3: lady that I knew from working in uniform.
34:32
Speaker 2: Douglas's knowledge stems from Samara's long history of drug abuse.
34:37
Speaker 1: A homicide investigator went to visit Samara at the rehab facility.
34:47
Speaker 3: I decided, since I knew her so well, that I
34:51
Speaker 3: would not interview her. I wanted someone else to interview
34:55
Speaker 3: her to see what she would say. What you're looking
35:03
Speaker 3: for in that interview is something that Samara can tell
35:09
Speaker 3: us about the murder that we don't know, that has
35:13
Speaker 3: not been on the television, that has not been printed
35:17
Speaker 3: in the news media, that has not been on the radio.
35:23
Speaker 3: We learned that Samara had been staying with Sheila for
35:26
Speaker 3: a while. She said that the day that Jennifer was killed,
35:33
Speaker 3: She was watching little Melvin. She said Sheila left in
35:38
Speaker 3: the morning, driving her car. Sheila came back late in
35:43
Speaker 3: her little red car.
35:49
Speaker 2: This blows a hole in Sheila's alibi and clearly links
35:53
Speaker 2: her to a car similar to the one.
35:55
Speaker 3: Used in the murder. Sheila was very upset. She was
36:03
Speaker 3: pacing back and forth. Sheila told her, she said, I
36:09
Speaker 3: got that bitch.
36:13
Speaker 2: Detectives honing in on murder suspect Sheila Dillard have found
36:17
Speaker 2: a witness who can break apart her story.
36:21
Speaker 3: Sheila tells Samara what had happened. Samara was friends with
36:28
Speaker 3: Sheila's brother, Darryl Dillard. The day before Sheila had gone
36:37
Speaker 3: to the crack house where Daryl was selling drugs. At
36:44
Speaker 3: the crack house that day, Daryl introduced Sheila to a
36:50
Speaker 3: man they call a hitman, Gary Chop.
36:55
Speaker 2: Here, Sheila made the deal that would seal the fate
36:59
Speaker 2: of Jennifer Lewis.
37:01
Speaker 3: Sheila paid Daryl $ 700. Darryl was going to get $ 400.
37:09
Speaker 3: Chop was going to get $ 300.
37:13
Speaker 1: It was so cold-blooded and callous. The amount of money
37:17
Speaker 1: there was exchanged between the mastermind and the hitman were
37:23
Speaker 1: ridiculously low.
37:26
Speaker 2: Samara provides the final pieces of the puzzle, explaining what
37:30
Speaker 2: happened as Jennifer's timeline wound down to zero.
37:36
Speaker 3: Sheila had written down Jennifer's address from a letter that
37:43
Speaker 3: she had seen in Melvin's apartment. She knew the phone number.
37:49
Speaker 3: Sheila and Chop decided to call the house and see
37:53
Speaker 3: if Jennifer was there. Jennifer comes to the phone and
37:57
Speaker 3: they hung the phone up. They drove over to Daphne
38:01
Speaker 3: Street where they parked and they watched the house. The
38:08
Speaker 3: red car belonged to Daryl's girlfriend.
38:16
Speaker 5: Cheryl shows up.
38:19
Speaker 1: Jennifer and Melvin gets in the car and they drives off.
38:26
Speaker 3: So they followed Jennifer to Melvin's apartment. And they watched
38:34
Speaker 3: Melvin get out of the backseat. Jennifer and Melvin hugged
38:41
Speaker 3: each other and kissed. Jennifer gets back into the car.
38:45
Speaker 3: They drive off to school. So they follow them. She
38:54
Speaker 3: said that she told Chop, there she go, can you
38:56
Speaker 3: get her? So Chop said, yeah, I can get her.
39:02
Speaker 3: Chop got out and he walked in the parking lot.
39:09
Speaker 3: He shot him. Chop came running back. He jumps in
39:21
Speaker 3: the car. and he tells her, go, go, go.
39:26
Speaker 2: Sheila's brother Darrell then disposes of the gun.
39:29
Speaker 3: Darrell throws it into the bayou. I tried to get
39:36
Speaker 3: the dive team to locate the gun, but the gun
39:39
Speaker 3: was never found.
39:41
Speaker 2: Samara says that Sheila claims to have passed her polygraph
39:45
Speaker 2: by mixing anxiety medication with beer.
39:49
Speaker 6: It's possible with the spectrum of therapeutic drugs out there
39:53
Speaker 6: that there can be a medication that could reduce the
39:58
Speaker 6: anxiety and therefore allowing somebody to pass it even though
40:04
Speaker 6: they're not being truthful. Another possibility here is that she
40:08
Speaker 6: passed the polygraph test because she's a pathological liar.
40:15
Speaker 2: Police now have everything they need.
40:20
Speaker 1: They got an arrest warrant for Sheila Dillard, her brother
40:25
Speaker 1: Dale Dillard, and Gary Lane Chop.
40:28
Speaker 3: Sheila was found in Melvin's bed when we arrested her.
40:35
Speaker 3: The fact that Melvin said over and over that he
40:38
Speaker 3: was going to marry Jennifer and to learn later started
40:45
Speaker 3: the relationship again with Sheila. That was very upsetting. We
40:55
Speaker 3: secured confessions from Sheila and Chop. The only reason that
41:01
Speaker 3: Sheila could give was that it's her jealous rage. She
41:06
Speaker 3: wanted Melvin and she was gonna do anything to get him.
41:12
Speaker 1: Sheila Dillard figured by having Jennifer Lewis murdered, she could
41:17
Speaker 1: continue to be with Melvin Reed. In the end, she
41:21
Speaker 1: lost because she went to prison. Sheila Dillard pled guilty
41:27
Speaker 1: to murder. She was given 50 years. Gary Lane Chop
41:34
Speaker 1: pled for life in prison. Dale Dillard, her brother, he
41:41
Speaker 1: went to trial. He was found guilty of tampering with evidence,
41:45
Speaker 1: and he was given 20 years in prison. Jennifer, her
41:53
Speaker 1: life was so precious and ended, all because a woman
41:57
Speaker 1: could not accept the fact that her lover had decided
42:03
Speaker 1: to move on.
42:07
Speaker 4: Several days before, Jennifer and I were driving somewhere, carrying
42:12
Speaker 4: on our 20-year-old shenanigans, and she said to me, if
42:17
Speaker 4: I died, Cheryl, today or tomorrow, It'll be OK. And
42:25
Speaker 4: I said, why would you say something like that? She says,
42:28
Speaker 4: I know that heaven is my home, and it'll be OK.
42:33
Speaker 4: And I didn't know that she was speaking to me then.
42:47
Speaker 5: About today.
42:56
Speaker 4: She needed me to know that she was going to
43:00
Speaker 4: be okay.
43:21
Speaker 3: Thank you.