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Convicted Killer Tex McIver to Walk Free? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I've always heard it's not
0:14
Speaker 1: what you know, but who you know, and I never
0:19
Speaker 1: believe that was actually true. But now I'm starting to
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Speaker 1: get very, very suspicious. A prominent Georgia lawyer who, as
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Speaker 1: juris says, killed his wife is set to be released
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Speaker 1: from jail after a plea deal. That's right, high profile
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Speaker 1: lawyer Tex McIvor plaguguilty to involuntary manslaughter. But is he
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Speaker 1: set to actually walk free? Is there any justice I
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Speaker 1: Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being
0:52
Speaker 1: with us here at Crime Stories and on Serious M
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Speaker 1: one eleven. All you legal eagles, remember take mac ivor,
1:01
Speaker 1: Remember in the backseat of a vehicle and claims he
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Speaker 1: was afraid of protesters from Black Lives Matter. That was BS.
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Speaker 1: That's absolutely not true. That did not happen. He claimed
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Speaker 1: he was so afraid that he pulled the trigger of
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Speaker 1: the gun and killed his wife. Really, that's a line
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Speaker 1: of BS technical legal term. And a jury agrees with me,
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Speaker 1: and they convicted him. Then, in an odd and bizarre
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Speaker 1: twist of the law, there is a problem in the trial.
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Speaker 1: The case is reversed and now he pled guilty to
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Speaker 1: a light sentence in voluntary manslaughter eight years for a death?
1:52
Speaker 1: Is it me, am I the crazy one?
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Speaker 2: I mean?
1:57
Speaker 1: Is he grace? This is crime Stories. Thank you for
1:59
Speaker 1: being with us here Crime Stories and on serious xem
2:02
Speaker 1: one eleven. Does anybody remember that just a few days
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Speaker 1: after his wife is killed by him, he throws this
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Speaker 1: giant cell and sells all of her jewelry, her luxury clothes, furs, everything, mementos.
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Speaker 1: He didn't care about her, he didn't care about keeping
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Speaker 1: her belongings. No, he wanted the money and he got
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Speaker 1: it all right. But now Tex McIvor, the pretend cowboy
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Speaker 1: lawyer in a silk stocking law from in Atlanta, could
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Speaker 1: be released from prison within a year after taking a
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Speaker 1: sweetheart plea deal. How did this happen?
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Speaker 3: Tex mcgiver has accepted a plea deal in the fatal
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Speaker 3: shooting of his wife in twenty sixteen. Macgiver had been
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Speaker 3: convicted of felony murder and was serving a life sentence,
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Speaker 3: but that conviction was overturned by Georgia's highest court, which
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Speaker 3: ruled that the jury should have had the option of
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Speaker 3: a misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter charge.
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Speaker 1: Take a listen to our friends at forty eight hours
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Speaker 1: and eleven alive.
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Speaker 4: This was an enormously high profile case. They were big
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Speaker 4: time power coupled. Here you have the vice chair of
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Speaker 4: the state Elections Board, who's a prominent Atlanta lawyer. You
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Speaker 4: have this strikingly beautiful, incredibly successful business woman.
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Speaker 5: On the night of September twenty fifth, twenty sixteen, Tex
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Speaker 5: mcgivers shot and killed his wife, Diane. They'd been married
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Speaker 5: for eleven years.
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Speaker 6: The Fulton County Medical Examiners ruled sixty three year old
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Speaker 6: Diane mcgiver died of a gunshot worn to the back.
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Speaker 6: She was shot inside a Ford expedition. She wrote it
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Speaker 6: with her husband, text and a close family friend as
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Speaker 6: they returned from their Putnam County branch.
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Speaker 2: They were very very good Putnam carrier.
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Speaker 1: Well, one of those so called good citizens of Putnam County.
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Speaker 1: Eaton in Georgia, ended up behind bars for shooting his
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Speaker 1: wife dead. One of the things I remember the most
4:07
Speaker 1: Mike Patchinic is that his story about how and why
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Speaker 1: the gun misfired in the car. Let's see, first of all,
4:19
Speaker 1: he was asleep and then he woke up because there
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Speaker 1: was a bump in the road, I think, and he
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Speaker 1: pulled the trigger and whoops, it shot his wife dead.
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Speaker 1: Then he claimed uh oh yes. Then he claimed it
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Speaker 1: was the black people's fault. Remember that that they were
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Speaker 1: protesting and he pulled the trigger. That's right, blamed the
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Speaker 1: black man again. Gosh, there was the sleeping, there was
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Speaker 1: the so called protest. Seems like there was another reason
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Speaker 1: he shot his wife dead. Mike Patentic is with me,
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Speaker 1: formerly with WSBTV Channel two, high profile reporter. Mike. I
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Speaker 1: can't believe they have reversed this case. But let's talk
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Speaker 1: about what happened at the beginning before we get to
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Speaker 1: another bad decision by the Georgia Supreme Court. Tell me
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Speaker 1: what happened the night the Diane McIvor, gorgeous, brilliant, beautiful,
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Speaker 1: worked her fingers to the bone to build up Carrie
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Speaker 1: Limo and was bailing this husband text McIvor, the high
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Speaker 1: profile lawyer bailing him out. I mean he was hemorrhaging money,
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Speaker 1: all those designer clothes, a full on farm in Eton
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Speaker 1: and Georgia when they lived and worked in Atlanta. He
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Speaker 1: had been put on was he put on of council?
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Speaker 1: Which means you're not bringing in enough money in his
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Speaker 1: fancy law firm. I mean she was bailing him out
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Speaker 1: with buckets and then when she died, he gets it all.
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Speaker 1: Isn't that the way it went down, Mike.
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Speaker 7: Well, that's certainly the way prosecutors portrayed their life.
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Speaker 2: But Nancy, this all.
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Speaker 7: Started or earlier in that day. They were at that
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Speaker 7: branch out there in Pugnan County, making their way back
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Speaker 7: to Atlanta. Their friend Danny Jocarter was at the wheel,
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Speaker 7: Diane's in the front seat, Texas in the back, and
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Speaker 7: as they made their way into downtown Atlanta, there was
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Speaker 7: some traffic, so they got diverted, got off the highway,
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Speaker 7: and that is when text claims that he woke up,
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Speaker 7: looked out the window and saw a group of homeless
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Speaker 7: people and some Black Lives Matter of protesters gathering in
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Speaker 7: this area off what's called the Downtown Protector Light in
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Speaker 7: the heart of downtown Atlanta.
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Speaker 1: I'm glad you corrected me, Mike. I forgot it was
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Speaker 1: also the homeless people's fault. Go ahead.
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Speaker 7: So they get off the highway and he looks around.
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Speaker 7: He says, girls, I don't think we should have gone
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Speaker 7: this direction. Please hand me my gun. His gun is
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Speaker 7: in the console. It's in a plastic public shopping He
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Speaker 7: puts it in his lap and then claims to have
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Speaker 7: fallen back asleep. They're driving through downtown into an area
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Speaker 7: of Atlanta known as Midtown, just north of there, right
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Speaker 7: on Piedmont Avenue, right next to Piedmont Park, of sprawling
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Speaker 7: green space, right in the heart of Midtown Atlanta, where
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Speaker 7: folks come to congregate for festivals, very popularity, with restaurants,
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Speaker 7: highly populated, a lot of folks out milling about. And
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Speaker 7: that's when he claims the guns in his lap. He
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Speaker 7: gets jerked away by this bump in the road and
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Speaker 7: the gun goes off.
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Speaker 1: Okay, well, well wait, you know, Mike Pasink, You know
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Speaker 1: I've been a big fan of yours for a long time.
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Speaker 1: Not the creepy kind. It stalks you and tries to
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Speaker 1: look in your window. But following your work is a
7:43
Speaker 1: better way to put it. But I love the way
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Speaker 1: you just put that. The gun just went off. It's
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Speaker 1: like a snake coiled up in the corner. It just
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Speaker 1: strikes all on his own bs paginic. He pulled the trigger,
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Speaker 1: the gun man just go off. It didn't. Malfunction was
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Speaker 1: pulled and he shot his wife. Dad isn't that true?
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Speaker 2: Well, that was the.
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Speaker 7: Question was whether he had cocked the gun prior to that, because,
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Speaker 7: as you know, if the gun isn't cocked, it takes
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Speaker 7: a lot of pressure for someone to pull a trigger,
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Speaker 7: and so if the gun were cocked, a hairpin would
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Speaker 7: set it up, right, So that was sort of the.
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Speaker 2: Story.
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Speaker 1: A hairpin, Yeah, a hairpin, Yeah, one hairpin, Now, I'm serious.
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Speaker 1: A hairpin would have set it off. It was his finger,
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Speaker 1: Is that the hairpin to which you are referring?
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Speaker 2: Perhaps?
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Speaker 7: Perhaps, But that was never established whether the trigger was
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Speaker 7: actually pulled, I mean, whether the gun was cock.
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Speaker 1: Okay, it was never established whether the gun was cocked
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Speaker 1: or not. Agree, But was it established it was his
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Speaker 1: finger on the trigger.
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Speaker 7: Right for the gun to have gone off the way
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Speaker 7: he's asserting, it would have had to have been pulled
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Speaker 7: back if it were that simple. Otherwise he would have
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Speaker 7: had to apply good five pounds of pressure to pull
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Speaker 7: the trigger, which would mean that he was intentionally pulling
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Speaker 7: the trigger.
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Speaker 1: Right cocked or not cocked. Do you disagree that he
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Speaker 1: pulled the trigger.
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Speaker 8: He had to pull the trigger if the gun went off,
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Speaker 8: So the gun didn't just go off, He pulled the trigger.
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Speaker 7: The question is whether he applied the pressure to pull
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Speaker 7: the trigger if the gun were not cocked.
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Speaker 1: If you know what, that's the first time I've laughed today.
9:27
Speaker 1: Isn't that the first time I've laughed today? Okay? So,
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Speaker 1: Darald Cohen, I think Mike Patchinnik, as famous as he
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Speaker 1: has become throughout the South at WSBTV Channel two, he
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Speaker 1: may have lost his calling because he would make one
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Speaker 1: h double l of a defense attorney. Because I've never
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Speaker 1: heard anybody, really other than you, be able to suggest
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Speaker 1: that even though he pulled the trigger, it was an accident.
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Speaker 2: Well, Nancy, you're going to hear it from me. How
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Speaker 2: many times? How many times do we know that he
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Speaker 2: practiced firing a weapon from the back seat through a
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Speaker 2: front seat into a person before this? We don't how many?
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Speaker 2: How many times was the trigger pulled once? How much
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Speaker 2: do we know? Was he drunk? Was he sleeping? I
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Speaker 2: don't even think that matters.
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Speaker 1: He said he was sleeping and woke up and that
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Speaker 1: it was the black people and the homeless people that
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Speaker 1: scared him, so he shot his wife. Yeah. I don't
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Speaker 1: even understand this. Everyone keeps talking about Midtown, like his
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Speaker 1: son and the fairies. I lived there. It's not. I
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Speaker 1: lived right there, about three blocks from where this went
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Speaker 1: down for years and years and years and never had
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Speaker 1: a problem. But somehow it's the neighborhood, it's the homeless people,
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Speaker 1: it's the like man. It's all their fault because he
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Speaker 1: pulled the trigger. And you and Patinic can talk about
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Speaker 1: how was it an accident that he pulled the trigger.
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Speaker 1: He I could hold a gun up right now, point
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Speaker 1: it at Jackie sitting here in the studio and pull
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Speaker 1: it and go oh, that was an accident, isn't it true,
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Speaker 1: Darryl Cohen? The law, the black and white letter of
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Speaker 1: the law, presumes you intend the natural consequence of your eye.
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Speaker 1: I can't hold a gun up to her and pull
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Speaker 1: the trigger and go oh, I just meant to scare her.
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Speaker 1: I didn't mean to blow her face off. The law
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Speaker 1: presumes you mean the natural consequence of your act. And
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Speaker 1: if he's holding a gun with his finger on the
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Speaker 1: trigger in the back seat and the barrel is pointed
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Speaker 1: at her seat, what does the law presume, Darryl.
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Speaker 2: If there was no back seat, if he was pointing
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Speaker 2: it directly at her and everything else. And by the way,
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Speaker 2: Nancy let's use a kids method. Keep it short, stupid,
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Speaker 2: keep it simple, stupid. This is simple in my view.
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Speaker 2: We don't know what type of material was in the
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Speaker 2: seat between Okay, you.
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Speaker 1: Know what, Sometimes I forget. This is your job to
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Speaker 1: make what is very clear, very muddy crime stories with
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Speaker 1: Nancy Grace Claude Lee. Tex MacIvor the third just plag
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Speaker 1: guilty to involuntary manslaughter in exchange for an eight year
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Speaker 1: prison sentence. That is a drastic change from the life
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Speaker 1: sentence he originally got after trial. He is now immediately
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Speaker 1: eligible for parole. Seriously, did anybody think about that before
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Speaker 1: they entered a sweetheart deal? Why not just retry him
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Speaker 1: and get another serious conviction. This guy show his wife?
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Speaker 1: Why is he going to walk free? Mike Pachinnik tell
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Speaker 1: me about the juries verdict and the nurses who testified
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Speaker 1: on one Friday morning in court, how macival was completely
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Speaker 1: emotionless at the hospital, and that Diane herself said MacIvor
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Speaker 1: had been holding a gun behind her back, and that
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Speaker 1: she chose not to see her husband before she died.
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Speaker 1: She was asked, do you want him to come in?
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Speaker 1: She did not want him in the room with her.
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Speaker 7: Mike that's right, And everybody said that he was not
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Speaker 7: acting like you would expect a grieving husband to act,
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Speaker 7: you know, emotionless, perhaps in shock, but not certainly acting
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Speaker 7: like somebody who had just shot their wife, whether it
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Speaker 7: was accidental or not. And you know, yes, she did
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Speaker 7: not want to see him there in the er. Now,
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Speaker 7: you could perhaps argue she didn't want him to see
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Speaker 7: her in that condition, but you could also argue that
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Speaker 7: she was mad at him for what had happened, and
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Speaker 7: you know, didn't want to have him around for that situation.
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Speaker 1: Mike, are you married?
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Speaker 2: Yes?
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Speaker 7: I am?
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Speaker 1: Okay, is there me too? And he better say the
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Speaker 1: same thing, Mike, has your wife ever been in the
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Speaker 1: hospital or been really really sick?
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Speaker 7: Unfortunately she has?
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Speaker 1: Okay. Did she want you to stay out of the
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Speaker 1: room because she thought she didn't look good? No, because
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Speaker 1: my husband when Lucy and I almost died childbirth, my
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Speaker 1: husband never left my side, not once, and I didn't
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Speaker 1: care how I looked. I wanted him to be there,
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Speaker 1: even if it was the bitter end. You're a Darryl
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Speaker 1: Cohen saying, well, had this guy ever had target practice?
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Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up as a defense Daryl Cohen,
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Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons I like to follow
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Speaker 1: the cardinal rule in court. Don't ask the question that
15:00
Speaker 1: you don't already know the answer to. Take a listen
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Speaker 1: to our cut five. This is Our Friend at forty
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Speaker 1: eight hours.
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Speaker 5: But Text was no stranger to guns, with a collection
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Speaker 5: of nearly forty including rifles and ar fifteen's you're.
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Speaker 1: A classes or anything like that.
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Speaker 5: You know, the idea that Tex macivers should have known
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Speaker 5: better was about to become a central theme in this case.
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Speaker 1: But it's what Text did after.
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Speaker 5: The shooting that to some made him seem more and
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Speaker 5: more like a killer.
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Speaker 1: It gets really crazy.
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Speaker 4: I think we've called it a textbook example of what
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Speaker 4: not to do after you kill your wife, and one of.
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Speaker 1: Those things was to immediately sell his highly successful wives
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Speaker 1: beautiful clothes or purses, her belongings, her jewelry. He basically
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Speaker 1: had a fire sell almost immediately after his wife is
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Speaker 1: shot dead by him. That's one of the things. Take
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Speaker 1: a listen our cut six are Friends at Fox five.
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Speaker 9: Listened as prosecutors asked a judge to delay any additional
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Speaker 9: sales of missus mcgiver's valuables.
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Speaker 10: If a defendant is allowed access to the proceeds of
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Speaker 10: either the benefits of the will and or the benefits
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Speaker 10: of the insurance policy, they can.
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Speaker 1: Conceivably deplete all of those assets.
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Speaker 10: And if a disposition is then entered where mister mcgiver,
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Speaker 10: for instance, was found guilty of murder or felony murder
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Speaker 10: of voluntary manslaughter under the Slayer statute, all of those
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Speaker 10: proceeds would have to be returned to missus mcgiver's estate,
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Speaker 10: and if he's not, all of those proceeds would then be.
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Speaker 9: His attorney William Hill challenged whether it was even necessary
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Speaker 9: to hold this hearing Tex mcgiver, who says the sale
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Speaker 9: is intended to award four of Diane's friends with settlements
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Speaker 9: called for in the will. He says he would have
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Speaker 9: been willing to first place all the proceeds in probate court.
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Speaker 9: Now it is the probate court that Judge Constance Russell
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Speaker 9: says should have handled the matter altogether, and she says
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Speaker 9: to the prosecution that's where it should go. She denied
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Speaker 9: the motion.
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Speaker 1: Okay, let me understand this. Daryl Cohen, so after he
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Speaker 1: shoots his wife in the back, after she says, don't
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Speaker 1: let him in my hospital room. Just before she dies,
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Speaker 1: he has a fire sell of all of her minks
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Speaker 1: and her jewels, and her designer's shoes and handbags and clothes.
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Speaker 1: Did I hear that correctly, Darryl Cohen?
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Speaker 2: I think you did, Nancy.
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Speaker 1: I think I did too.
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Speaker 2: What his actions were incomprehensible. But here's a man who
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Speaker 2: was absolutely incomprehensible. His actions, his demeanor. All of that
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Speaker 2: doesn't make sense. It goes under. It doesn't this stuff up.
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Speaker 1: It does make sense, It makes perfect sense. You know
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Speaker 1: what I've got right here in the studio with me,
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Speaker 1: My dad's shirt he wore all the time, his favorite
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Speaker 1: shirt in my closet. What you see every morning, Keith,
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Speaker 1: my fiance. That was baseball. He was on baseball scholarship.
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Speaker 1: And sometimes they make me sad, and sometimes they give
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Speaker 1: me strength. But somebody would have to go through hell
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Speaker 1: and high water to get either one of those things
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Speaker 1: away from me. And here he's having a yard sell.
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Speaker 1: Doctor Sherry Schwartz joining me forensics psychologists specializing in crime
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Speaker 1: and law, where law and psychology intersect. Doctor Sherry, I
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Speaker 1: don't find it difficult or incomprehensible as Darryl Cohen makes out.
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Speaker 1: I find it very simple and easy to understand. He
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Speaker 1: killed his wife and he wants her money and none
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Speaker 1: of her possessions. Nothing that was dear to her means
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Speaker 1: anything to him. He's selling it all. He might as
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Speaker 1: well just throw it out all the sidewalk.
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Speaker 11: Absolutely, here's what we know. Here's what grief research tells us.
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Speaker 11: One of the biggest challenge for widows in particular is
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Speaker 11: to clean out the closets of their loved one. They
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Speaker 11: want to hold on to the belongings because it makes
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Speaker 11: them feel close to the person.
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Speaker 1: They have guilt.
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Speaker 11: They don't want to get rid of the belongings because
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Speaker 11: then it's almost like you're staying out with the old
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Speaker 11: in with the news. Knew, but Tex mcgiver didn't seem
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Speaker 11: to struggle with that.
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Speaker 1: What exactly happened in that car, The aiming that Diane
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Speaker 1: was the murder was I'll just say shots. As we're
19:28
Speaker 1: still arguing about the fact of the murder, take a
19:31
Speaker 1: listen to our cut three. This is Valerie Hoff at
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Speaker 1: eleven Alive.
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Speaker 6: As police investigate how a gun went off inside the vehicle.
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Speaker 6: Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills is remembering a close friend
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Speaker 6: of many years.
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Speaker 1: He says.
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Speaker 6: The mcgivers, who divided their time between Buckhead and Eatenton,
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Speaker 6: were philanthropists who were very involved in the community, often
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Speaker 6: entertaining at mcgiver ranch.
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Speaker 2: Diane, they say, five facious, beautiful, entertaining a woman who
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Speaker 2: was a lot of fun to be around.
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Speaker 6: Atlanta police have not yet completed their investigation, though they
20:06
Speaker 6: say they are fairly close. Sheriff sil says tex Maguiver,
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Speaker 6: a prominent Atlanta attorney, is distraught and grief stricken.
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Speaker 1: So distraught and grief stricken, he has a yard sell
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Speaker 1: in the last days we learn that high profile lawyer
20:21
Speaker 1: out of Atlanta techs MacIver, the wannabe cowboy will quote
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Speaker 1: Max out in the fall of twenty twenty five that
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Speaker 1: what does that mean he's going to be released by
20:32
Speaker 1: that date? And actually through parole there is a very
20:37
Speaker 1: strong possibility he will be released earlier. In fact, the
20:41
Speaker 1: parole bor could decide to release him today. I'm telling
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Speaker 1: you this is the case of rich Man's justice, and
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Speaker 1: I don't like it. Now take us to our cut
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Speaker 1: for our friends from forty eight hours.
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Speaker 4: Diana is seated in the passenger seat. Texas seated right
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Speaker 4: behind his wife.
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Speaker 5: Not far from home. They in traffic and exited the highway.
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Speaker 5: Tex says he woke up, saw homeless people and became worried.
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Speaker 5: A spokesman would later say that Tex asked for his
21:14
Speaker 5: gun because he was afraid of carjackers and Black Lives
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Speaker 5: Matter protesters. With that loaded gun now in his lap,
21:22
Speaker 5: Tex says he fell back asleep.
21:27
Speaker 2: I realized it was in my lab and writing.
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Speaker 5: Gun expert Davis, can a thirty eight special just accidentally
21:35
Speaker 5: go off?
21:35
Speaker 1: Never known it to happen. You have to pull the trigger, Jimmy, Oh,
21:40
Speaker 1: what is your challenge with this gun?
21:42
Speaker 12: Well, I think you just put your finger on it.
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Speaker 1: Clearly a trigger was pulled.
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Speaker 12: The question is it was that a voluntary knowing, an
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Speaker 12: intentional action, or an involuntary action based upon an accident.
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Speaker 1: I mean, Lisa, Daddy, he's wanting to me form and
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Speaker 1: police lieutenant when you have in PD and now director
22:04
Speaker 1: of the Center for Advanced Policing, Lisa, thank you for
22:07
Speaker 1: being with us. You hear this guy has the collection
22:10
Speaker 1: of forty guns, including an AR. You also hear the
22:14
Speaker 1: ballistics experts say a thirty eight is not going to
22:16
Speaker 1: go off. Quote on its own, what do you make
22:20
Speaker 1: of it.
22:20
Speaker 13: It's an excuse he's using it, and that's just my
22:23
Speaker 13: personal feeling. You don't have that volume of firearms, and
22:30
Speaker 13: one would assume he has adequate training and he knows
22:33
Speaker 13: what he's doing with the firearm for something to go off,
22:36
Speaker 13: quote accidentally having your finger on the trigger, being able
22:41
Speaker 13: to pull that trigger with however many pounds is required
22:44
Speaker 13: for the weapon that was used in this murder. It
22:48
Speaker 13: just doesn't make any sense.
22:49
Speaker 2: And hearing it.
22:51
Speaker 13: And seeing it, it's just it's honestly mind boggling the
22:56
Speaker 13: claims in this case that it was anything but murder.
23:00
Speaker 1: And let's talk about the trajectory path in the case.
23:03
Speaker 1: Doctor Kendall Crowns is joining me, Chief Medical Examiner of
23:06
Speaker 1: Trett County. That's fort Worth Lecturer, University of Texas and
23:10
Speaker 1: Texas A and m and On Faculty, University of Texas
23:14
Speaker 1: Medical Branch. Doctor Crowns, thank you for being with us.
23:18
Speaker 1: What can you tell us about the trajectory path?
23:20
Speaker 14: So the trajectory path of the bullet was listed by
23:24
Speaker 14: the medical examiner going from back to front, right to
23:27
Speaker 14: left and downwards. There was some question of whether it
23:31
Speaker 14: was upwards, but based on what the medical examiner said
23:34
Speaker 14: it did have a downward trajectory path.
23:37
Speaker 1: Okay, doctor Kendall Crowns, could you translate that? What does
23:42
Speaker 1: that mean? If he's sitting in the back seat and
23:44
Speaker 1: you've got obviously back to front, which means he's shot
23:49
Speaker 1: from the back seat, she's sitting in the front seat
23:52
Speaker 1: from right to left. Must mean he scooted over or
23:56
Speaker 1: in the very middle. If the trajectory goes from her
24:00
Speaker 1: right to her left, and you're saying up to down,
24:05
Speaker 1: up to down, like right under the breast, downward toward
24:10
Speaker 1: the hip in that, what does that mean? Where would
24:14
Speaker 1: he have been sitting? How would that have happened?
24:17
Speaker 14: So if the gun itself would have to be slightly
24:22
Speaker 14: to have a downward wound course, kind of slightly elevated
24:27
Speaker 14: based on the entrance wound, So it's you know, if
24:30
Speaker 14: it's sitting in his lap like the he is saying,
24:34
Speaker 14: it's a possibility that the guns firing from a waste
24:38
Speaker 14: height of him hitting her in the back and then
24:41
Speaker 14: going in a slightly downward course.
24:43
Speaker 1: And he's right handed, that if it were to go
24:47
Speaker 1: off in that direction and he's holding it in his
24:51
Speaker 1: right hand, he'd have to turn. I don't see how
24:58
Speaker 1: that would be achieved by just sit in the back
25:00
Speaker 1: seat with your hand holding the gun in your finger
25:04
Speaker 1: on the trigger. If that were to you and you're
25:06
Speaker 1: right handed, it would have gone off toward the driver's side,
25:10
Speaker 1: not the passenger side.
25:12
Speaker 14: That's correct, if he's sitting that Yeah, I mean, you
25:16
Speaker 14: make a good point. It would be difficult if he's
25:18
Speaker 14: firing it from his right hand for it to have
25:20
Speaker 14: a right to left trajectory based on her position in
25:23
Speaker 14: the car.
25:24
Speaker 1: Okay, so, doctor Kennel Crowns, I was thinking left to right.
25:27
Speaker 1: You said this was right to left. Correct? Correct? Okay,
25:32
Speaker 1: that makes more sense if he's right hand and he's
25:35
Speaker 1: on the right and he's turned that way. Yeah. Still,
25:37
Speaker 1: but still you've got up to down. That doesn't make
25:41
Speaker 1: sense if he's sitting behind her holding the gun in
25:45
Speaker 1: his lap, as he says, how would the trajectory path.
25:49
Speaker 14: Be up to down again, I mean it's it's difficult
25:53
Speaker 14: to say. Based on the level of the chairs in
25:57
Speaker 14: the car, I would assume they're all level. He would
26:00
Speaker 14: expected to be more of a just no upward downward deviation,
26:04
Speaker 14: just to be a straight shot through. So it does
26:07
Speaker 14: show that the gun is slightly above her position when
26:12
Speaker 14: it's fired to give it a downward course. Again, I
26:16
Speaker 14: don't have a good explanation for that too.
26:18
Speaker 1: Mike Patan joining me, former reporter WSB TV channel to Atlanta.
26:24
Speaker 1: How did the defense, if you can recall, explain away
26:28
Speaker 1: that trajectory path.
26:29
Speaker 7: Well, I mean they claimed that, you know, the way
26:33
Speaker 7: he was sitting, you know, that the gun would have
26:36
Speaker 7: been on his lap. And you know, they had a
26:39
Speaker 7: defense expert who testified that the gun would not have
26:45
Speaker 7: been against the seat, that it would have been, you know,
26:47
Speaker 7: back a few inches when fired. Test for gunshot residue
26:51
Speaker 7: were not conducted by APD according to this expert, and
26:56
Speaker 7: that he said, the gun really wouldn't have been pressed up.
26:58
Speaker 2: Against the seat, had to have been at least six inches.
27:00
Speaker 7: Away and potentially in that plastic bag, as they had said,
27:06
Speaker 7: And that, you know, with the gun resting on his
27:09
Speaker 7: thigh in that way, due to what they called spatial
27:13
Speaker 7: constraints inside the suv, holding the gun vertically would not
27:16
Speaker 7: have been possible.
27:17
Speaker 1: Okay, I hear you talking about what the defense said.
27:22
Speaker 1: With spatial constraints in the car, I know this. They
27:26
Speaker 1: can spatial constraint, constraint all they want to, But he
27:29
Speaker 1: pulled the trigger, and she's dead, and she did not
27:33
Speaker 1: want him in the room with her as she was dying.
27:40
Speaker 1: That's got to count for something. And you heard people
27:45
Speaker 1: describe his behavior afterwards as what not to do after
27:49
Speaker 1: your spouse dies. Take a listen now to our cut seven.
27:54
Speaker 5: So in the car, you have the man who pulls
27:57
Speaker 5: the trigger, the woman who dies, and the driver. All
28:00
Speaker 5: three of these people initially say it was an accident.
28:03
Speaker 5: What happens after they get out of the cars.
28:06
Speaker 1: Text changes his story.
28:07
Speaker 5: A couple of times, and the driver of the car,
28:09
Speaker 5: who originally said it was a terrible tragedy, a terrible accident,
28:13
Speaker 5: she changes her story, and she says that Texts asked
28:16
Speaker 5: her to change her story as well. He also then
28:19
Speaker 5: goes on to auction off all of her belongings. She
28:23
Speaker 5: had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry and
28:26
Speaker 5: furs and Coulture clothing. And now he says it was
28:31
Speaker 5: at the behest of a lawyer who was running her estate.
28:34
Speaker 5: But each thing he does individually it looks a little odd,
28:38
Speaker 5: but collectively it just doesn't look good at all.
28:40
Speaker 1: What does she mean by that, Mike Pichinning joining me
28:44
Speaker 1: formly with WSBTV, What does she mean that the driver
28:48
Speaker 1: of Danny Joe Carter also changed her story.
28:51
Speaker 2: Well, you know, in the days after the shooting.
28:55
Speaker 7: We know that text Baguiver called her left a voicemaan
29:00
Speaker 7: on her husband's phone, essentially saying she's going to send
29:05
Speaker 7: me to prison. You got to help me here, buddy,
29:07
Speaker 7: And that's, of course why he was convicted of witness
29:10
Speaker 7: camp ring. But she was she was fearful, She was
29:13
Speaker 7: worried that he was going to come after her.
29:15
Speaker 1: When he wanted her, the driver Dannie Lin Carter, to
29:18
Speaker 1: change her story. What did he want her to say, Mike,
29:21
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I.
29:21
Speaker 7: Mean you wanted her say this was this was an accident.
29:24
Speaker 7: He wanted her to corroborated story.
29:26
Speaker 1: So in the end everything changed. I want you to
29:29
Speaker 1: hear what we know about Diane before her death, refusing
29:34
Speaker 1: to have her husband with her as she was rolled
29:37
Speaker 1: into the er. Take a listen to hour cut twelve
29:40
Speaker 1: Our Friends at eleven Alive.
29:42
Speaker 8: Before Diane went into the operating room, doctor Hardy asked
29:44
Speaker 8: Diane if she wanted to see her husband. Here is
29:47
Speaker 8: doctor Hardy recalling that question, followed by Diane's response to
29:51
Speaker 8: questions about the shooting itself, and.
29:55
Speaker 7: She appeared to be coherent when she said, no, correct right.
30:00
Speaker 1: She said it was an act.
30:02
Speaker 2: She wasn't arrest.
30:04
Speaker 9: What she said, no, you.
30:07
Speaker 2: Steered her one direction.
30:08
Speaker 12: You know, it's again to say something.
30:12
Speaker 1: In her compuriscy she said was yes, Prime Stories with
30:31
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. I'm looking at text Machaiva right now, all
30:36
Speaker 1: dressed up in his uh Brooks brother suit, wearing the
30:41
Speaker 1: American flag on his lapel, looking pretty darn smug with
30:45
Speaker 1: his fleet of lawyers Michael Chenning, What exactly was the verdict?
30:50
Speaker 1: On which level offense was he convicted?
30:54
Speaker 7: So he was convicted of felony murder, which, as you know, Nancy,
30:58
Speaker 7: in the state of Georgia, means that the jury believed
31:02
Speaker 7: that he was committing that felony of aggravated assault to
31:07
Speaker 7: wound his wife and she died during the commission of
31:10
Speaker 7: that felony. But what was curious was after the verdict
31:16
Speaker 7: a juror wrent on TV and was asked, point blank,
31:19
Speaker 7: do you feel like this was you know, malicious in
31:23
Speaker 7: any way? Of course, he wasn't convicted of malice murder,
31:25
Speaker 7: but he was convicted of selling murder, and the juror
31:27
Speaker 7: was seemed kind of confused and was like, you know,
31:30
Speaker 7: I think he did what he had to do. He
31:31
Speaker 7: shot her to incapacitate her so he could somehow control her.
31:36
Speaker 7: So there was a lot of confusion after that verdict.
31:39
Speaker 1: Nancy, take a listen hour cut thirteen. The jury, four persons.
31:43
Speaker 2: A verdict into the record.
31:48
Speaker 11: Murder reminded.
31:52
Speaker 2: On not to fell, murder reminded.
31:56
Speaker 7: Defendant guilty murder uncopreehraated a fault.
32:02
Speaker 11: We find the defendant.
32:03
Speaker 7: Guilty uncount for the vision of a.
32:07
Speaker 11: Fire or admission of abel.
32:09
Speaker 2: We find a.
32:10
Speaker 1: Dependent guilty on copio influencing a witness.
32:15
Speaker 2: We find the dependent.
32:18
Speaker 1: Darryl. You know we've all heard of ear witnesses. I
32:24
Speaker 1: was just listening and I heard a voice that I
32:27
Speaker 1: could identify anywhere. It was a longtime friend, a protege,
32:33
Speaker 1: a person I trained myself, quint Rucker, a prospectute, one
32:38
Speaker 1: of the prosecutors in this case. Darryl, could you explain
32:43
Speaker 1: how it feels when you put your heart, your soul
32:48
Speaker 1: into a case and you know the person is guilty
32:54
Speaker 1: and has done a horrible thing, and an appellate court
32:58
Speaker 1: in their ivory tower versus Nancy.
33:03
Speaker 2: It's almost impossible to explain Clint Rucker won this case
33:08
Speaker 2: in my view because of his purpasis. He was so saying,
33:13
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, he was so good at what he did.
33:16
Speaker 2: He made the jury realize, he brought the jury into
33:20
Speaker 2: the car, He brought the jury into the life of
33:23
Speaker 2: Text and Diane mckiv He was able to convince them
33:28
Speaker 2: that what happened was not an accident. And when you
33:32
Speaker 2: put your heart it sold into a case and you
33:34
Speaker 2: believe everything that you've done, and then you have someone
33:39
Speaker 2: or some ones in this case who are not in
33:41
Speaker 2: the courtroom, who are only looking at the transcripts. It
33:45
Speaker 2: destroys your whole fiber of your being for this particular case,
33:51
Speaker 2: because you know what you did was right, You know
33:54
Speaker 2: what you did was the correct thing to do, and
33:57
Speaker 2: you argued and you persuaded this jury to do what
34:00
Speaker 2: they should have done. And to see people who were
34:04
Speaker 2: not there, who don't really don't know what the feelings
34:09
Speaker 2: are the emotion. It's destroyed you from within.
34:12
Speaker 1: And especially a good prosecutor, a decent, good person like Clint,
34:19
Speaker 1: who gave it his all. And now this you know
34:22
Speaker 1: what I want to talk about. I want to talk
34:24
Speaker 1: about money, Mike Pitchinnik. You just heard Darryl Cohen, who
34:29
Speaker 1: was a prosecutor in the same office with me under
34:33
Speaker 1: mister Slayton. As you will recall describing the feeling you
34:38
Speaker 1: get when an appellate court who really has no idea
34:42
Speaker 1: what went on in the courtroom reverses your case. He's
34:46
Speaker 1: mentioned the life they led. They lived pretty high on
34:51
Speaker 1: the hog, Mike. It was all her money. He was floundering.
34:55
Speaker 1: She was bailing him out, wasn't she.
34:57
Speaker 8: Yeah.
34:57
Speaker 7: I mean he worked at a big law firm. But
34:59
Speaker 7: you mentioned it the beginning that he was sort of
35:02
Speaker 7: set out the pasture right because he wasn't pulling his weight,
35:05
Speaker 7: and she was definitely the breadwinner in that house. She
35:09
Speaker 7: owned the ranch out in Eatington. There was testimony that
35:13
Speaker 7: she was lending him hundreds of thousands of dollars to
35:16
Speaker 7: bankroll his lavish lifestyle. In fact that during the trial
35:20
Speaker 7: it came up that he sort of joked with her
35:22
Speaker 7: that he had to win the lottery because he was
35:25
Speaker 7: spending more than they were bringing in. And you know,
35:28
Speaker 7: the prosecution put on a case that here's a guy
35:31
Speaker 7: who stood to gain millions of dollars with Diane dead.
35:36
Speaker 7: She was worth more to him dead than a lot.
35:39
Speaker 1: You know, I think that's an illness dot to Shery Schwartz,
35:42
Speaker 1: I really did not rising to the level of insanity.
35:45
Speaker 1: But I mean, you know, doctor Sherry, we grew up
35:49
Speaker 1: with nothing on a red dirt road in Middle Georgia.
35:52
Speaker 1: And when you grow up that way, you know how
35:57
Speaker 1: blessed you are when you finally get a job, you know,
36:01
Speaker 1: when you finally get your first car. I mean, it
36:04
Speaker 1: sounds like spending money and being used to a lavish
36:08
Speaker 1: lifestyle was something he could not forego.
36:13
Speaker 11: It does seem like that, and you're right there. It
36:16
Speaker 11: may not in and of itself be a diagnosable mental illness,
36:20
Speaker 11: but there is usually some sort of psychopathology underlying that,
36:25
Speaker 11: whether it's mean. You know, we see it a lot
36:28
Speaker 11: in narcissism, you know, we see it in histrionic personalities,
36:33
Speaker 11: various things where people are spending and spending and spending
36:36
Speaker 11: to try to fill some void and they think that
36:39
Speaker 11: the stuff is going to help them fill that void.
36:42
Speaker 1: I think you just get used to being rich. I
36:44
Speaker 1: mean Darryl Cohen, You and I have prosecuted people that
36:46
Speaker 1: were broke. We prosecuted really, really rich people up from
36:53
Speaker 1: North Atlanta. Have you ever noticed how rich people they
36:58
Speaker 1: are so cheap. They will spend all kinds of money
37:02
Speaker 1: on themselves in a lavish lifestyle. They wouldn't give a
37:05
Speaker 1: man on the corner a dollar if their life depended
37:09
Speaker 1: on it.
37:09
Speaker 2: We Well, Nancy, I think that's narcissism.
37:12
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I didn't realize you had your psychiatric degree
37:16
Speaker 1: as well, but go ahead, it's.
37:19
Speaker 2: My personal psychiatric degree. I just think that's narcissism, and
37:24
Speaker 2: it's all about me. And this is what much of
37:27
Speaker 2: this country has turned to be.
37:28
Speaker 1: I mean that farm in Eatonton, that that was his idea.
37:34
Speaker 1: The ranch, the farm, they had a full on staff,
37:38
Speaker 1: there was a home, there were hundreds of acres that
37:41
Speaker 1: had to be kept up for what so they could
37:44
Speaker 1: drive an hour out of Atlanta and go sit on
37:46
Speaker 1: the front porch on the weekend. I mean, that's a
37:49
Speaker 1: huge ticket.
37:50
Speaker 2: Item makes no sense to me. Never did. But you
37:53
Speaker 2: can't make this stuff up.
37:55
Speaker 1: You know, you just can't figure out rich people. I'm
37:58
Speaker 1: just telling you that, I mean, might put it what
38:00
Speaker 1: was their lifestyle.
38:01
Speaker 7: I mean, they give me an example. They had a
38:04
Speaker 7: private messuse that would come to their fancy condo and
38:07
Speaker 7: Buckhead and you know, rub them down a couple of
38:10
Speaker 7: times a week.
38:11
Speaker 2: That had to have been expensive.
38:12
Speaker 1: Okay, well, well, white white, white, white, white white, please,
38:15
Speaker 1: Mike talking to me, I feel like I'm drinking out
38:17
Speaker 1: of the fire hatch too much, too fast. Wait, could
38:19
Speaker 1: you slow down and say that again? I need to
38:21
Speaker 1: hear that one more time.
38:22
Speaker 7: They had a private messuse who came to their fancy
38:26
Speaker 7: Buckhead condo several times a week to give them a massage,
38:30
Speaker 7: which had to have been very expensive. In fact, she
38:33
Speaker 7: was called as a witness in the trials.
38:36
Speaker 1: You know, I completely forgot that part. Tell me about
38:39
Speaker 1: that part.
38:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
38:40
Speaker 7: This was a young female messuse who became very close
38:45
Speaker 7: with Diane an text over time, who would come and
38:49
Speaker 7: give them massages. And frankly, during the trial, those of
38:54
Speaker 7: us who were covering it were kind of waiting for
38:58
Speaker 7: the prosecution to drop some shoe and claimed that there
39:01
Speaker 7: was something untoured happening between Text and this miscuse that
39:04
Speaker 7: did not happen, and that there was no evidence of
39:06
Speaker 7: that that they were certainly kind of leading jurors down
39:08
Speaker 7: that path. But that's just an example of the kind
39:11
Speaker 7: of spending.
39:13
Speaker 2: That they did.
39:13
Speaker 7: They were, you know, they were high society folks.
39:18
Speaker 1: You know, doctor Kendall Crown's chief medical Examiner, Terran County
39:22
Speaker 1: as fort Worth, doctor Crown's. I'm sure you've heard the
39:25
Speaker 1: phrase dying declaration many many times. That's an exception to hearsay,
39:31
Speaker 1: and hearsay when you ask a witness to state under
39:35
Speaker 1: oath to a jury or in court what somebody else said,
39:39
Speaker 1: that's not there to be cross examined. That's the problem
39:42
Speaker 1: with hearsay. You can't cross examine the speaker. Dying declaration
39:47
Speaker 1: completely different. And in this case, Diane said no, I
39:52
Speaker 1: don't want to see him. That was her dying declaration.
39:55
Speaker 1: She did not want him around her. Have you had
39:58
Speaker 1: other cases of your let me just say, patients that
40:02
Speaker 1: gave dying declarations, and do you believe that based on
40:06
Speaker 1: what you know, Diane understood what she was saying at
40:09
Speaker 1: the end.
40:10
Speaker 14: You know, I have had other cases in which there
40:13
Speaker 14: was you know, they asked for family to be by
40:15
Speaker 14: their side, or asked to go home, things of that nature.
40:19
Speaker 14: Based on her injuries, I don't feel like she had
40:23
Speaker 14: anything that would have caused her cognition or her ability
40:28
Speaker 14: to think clearly to be disrupted. So I feel like
40:33
Speaker 14: she knew what she was saying at the time she
40:36
Speaker 14: passed away and had a whatever purpose in her mind
40:40
Speaker 14: for it. I don't think it was a confused statement.
40:44
Speaker 14: I think it was something that she just didn't want
40:47
Speaker 14: him around at the end.
40:49
Speaker 1: Mike Patinik with Me, high profile reporter formerly WSBTV Channel two.
40:55
Speaker 1: Why did the supremes claim they had to reverse this decision?
41:00
Speaker 7: They claimed that there was then evidence at best that
41:05
Speaker 7: there was an intentional murder committed here.
41:09
Speaker 1: But it wasn't unintentional murder conviction. It was a felony
41:12
Speaker 1: murder conviction right right.
41:14
Speaker 7: And they are claiming that the jury should have been
41:16
Speaker 7: given the option to convict Tex mcgiver of the much
41:21
Speaker 7: lesser misdemeanor involuntary man splutter charge, which would say that
41:26
Speaker 7: this was a reckless act and accident, and they were
41:30
Speaker 7: not given that instruction, so because of that they overturned
41:33
Speaker 7: the conviction.
41:34
Speaker 1: He doesn't fool me. He shot his wife dad, and
41:41
Speaker 1: I do not believe for one minute any any one
41:44
Speaker 1: of as many stories he came up with as to
41:47
Speaker 1: why he pulled the trigger. But this is what I
41:50
Speaker 1: do know. He is set to walk free. We wait
41:57
Speaker 1: as justice unfolds. Goodbye friend,