48 Hours - 48 Hours: NCIS: Deadly Lies

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

Did a duplicitous online love affair between two people who never met lead to an innocent Marine being murdered?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. In this job, we see a lot of good. Police and service are out the door! We see a lot of bad. Police, do not move!

But this one always takes you back to why. Why would something be so random and so devastating? On January 2, 2006, NCIS, my office, got a call from the Navy and Marine Intelligence Training Center that one of their Marines, Justin Huff, did not show up for roll call. We didn't have any idea. He just disappeared off the face of the planet.

When they went in the barracks room, it didn't appear as though Justin had left permanently. It's almost like he just stepped out for a minute. The first time I heard about it, it was that he was UA. UA is unauthorized absence. Not all of your years. And Huff would never do something like that. And it was one of those things that every one of us

looked at each other and were like, that doesn't make sense. Justin Huff was a good person. He was a decorated Marine. He fought for this country in two tours to Iraq. I love you, Becca. A loving husband. A soon-to-be father. He would lay down his life for anybody.

You don't even have to know the damn people. And that's just the type of person he was. We pulled surveillance video of the night before he went missing. And we were able to see him leaving in the middle of the night his dorm room and leaving the building to go out of view. But the circumstances started getting more and more

suspicious as every day went along. Someone called him in his dorm room and asked him to come out and talk to him about a sexual assault, and that person was portraying himself as an NCIS agent. Our first investigative duty was to look into whether Justin Huff was under any type of NCIS investigation, and we quickly learned that he was not. So we were wondering who this guy was that was posing as an NCIS agent and talking to Justin. Early on in the investigation, we had another name, Cooper Jackson, but we didn't know who he was,

and we could not make any correlation between him and Justin because they did not know each other. Cooper Jackson was a good-looking young man, kept himself in good shape, worked out all the time. He was an intelligence specialist in the Navy, which himself in good shape, worked out all the time. He was an intelligence specialist in the Navy, which you have to be pretty smart to do that. Very polite, always yes sir, no sir. I mean, just to meet him, you wouldn't think anything out of the ordinary. On paper, Justin Huff and Cooper Jackson seemed very similar. Both all-American boys. One was a Marine, one was in the Navy. As the investigation continued,

there was a very strange connection between Justin Huff and Cooper Jackson that we could have never predicted. There was another individual that came into the picture by the name of Samantha. Samantha wasn't a real name. Oh, I saw the pictures of the young lady. Some of them, she was in a devil's outfit for Halloween.

You know, some pictures were naked. She portrayed herself as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, five-feet, gorgeous young lady. What Samantha was doing is what we now know as catfishing. And it basically involves creating a persona that you're not. And then Cooper became smitten with her. They were romantically involved in a phone relationship, but they had never met.

It didn't sound real, the whole story. Sounded fake. That's like movie TV stuff, you know? I mean, the whole thing started as a lie. That lie just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And I don't believe she knew what could have happened or what did happen. We could not find a correlation between Samantha and Justin, and that's what we needed to investigate. I think Samantha was the catalyst for this whole tragedy.

But for her, none of this would have happened. The NCIS mission is global. We're on aircraft carriers. We're in foreign ports. We watch after each other. We take care of each other. NCIS deal with every type of crime. Cyber, fraud, murder. General crimes, counterintelligence, counterterrorism. Every crime is a tragedy. It involves sisters, brothers, husbands. That's the only way to find the truth.

We live in dangerous times. And we're never gonna give up. NCIS, the cases they can't forget. You can look back on most crimes, and there are innocent victims out there every day. But they might have been targeted for a reason. They drive a nice car, or they're involved in a relationship, and it's an act of jealousy.

Justin had no involvement in this. He was an absolute stranger to these people. The disappearance of Marine Justin Huff made no sense to NCIS agents. This is the barracks where Justin Huff was staying. Who began investigating the day he went missing in January 2006. There was a lot of things that were left in the room,

and I believe the only thing that was missing was his wallet. They were able to get hold of Justin's wife, Becca, and the last time she had spoken to him was a night prior around midnight where he said he was going to bed. And the bizarre circumstances that led to identifying Cooper Jackson as a person of interest still baffles everyone involved in the case.

Cooper was from a small town in southwest Virginia. Grew up in the country. His dad was quite a bit older. He had passed away, kind of isolated, but he wanted to kind of see the world, and that's why he joined the Navy. In the fall of 2005, a woman who called herself Samantha connected with Jackson. Sometime in November, Samantha called a phone number,

which she randomly did. She had been doing this for about three years, meaning the catfishing. She'd just call numbers out of the blue to try to establish relationships over the phone. She was able to get the companionship that she wanted in someone without the risk that they would know exactly what she looked like. Being judged.

And being judged. For her appearance. She had other relationships with guys in the Navy, and so there was a certain prefix that she could call the barracks. And so it was that random, she just happened to pick out that evening the room that Cooper was in. Cooper Jackson, he answered the phone, basically said, they both said wrong number, and he hung up.

Cooper Jackson calls her back and basically says she sounds kind of cute. And Cooper said, well, you know, she had a very attractive voice, very nice, and so they start talking. And then this relationship developed from there. They were telephoning, talking on the phone numerous times a day, hours into the night. She was portraying herself as this unknown individual female that she pulled off the internet but she was able to get photographs and send those to Cooper Jackson. These are not the actual photos but they're representative of the provocative images she

sent to Jackson. She told Cooper that she was five foot, 100 pounds, blonde. She was an art history major from a rich family in Texas that owned three houses in the Outer Banks. Samantha lived in North Carolina, two hours south of where Jackson was stationed in Virginia. And she would send him pictures of this beautiful girl, and she was beautiful.

Cooper was a little bit socially awkward, I think, particularly with girls. Never had, from what I found out, a very lasting, long-term relationship. And now he had this beautiful, rich girl that was interested in him, that would talk with him for hours a day. I think he just became in love and infatuated with her. hours a day. I think he just became in love and infatuated with her. As much as Cooper Jackson was buying into this persona that Samantha was putting forward, he stated several different times that he was aware that she may have not have been truthful. I think he started questioning whether she really existed or whether she wanted to have this relationship because he was in love.

After about a month of telephone calls and all these texts and messages... Samantha would agree to meet Cooper, and Cooper Jackson would pick a time, pick a place. She never showed up where she was supposed to be. She said she was in a car accident. She was in a hospital. One time, she was supposed to fly in to meet his family over the Christmas holidays.

He went to the airport for like 13 hours, and she never showed up. Cooper was getting obsessed trying to find her. So the entire time, Samantha's lying to him about where she lives in North Carolina. At some point in time, Cooper Jackson actually says that he ends up getting her address from a friend The entire time, Samantha's lying to him about where she lives in North Carolina. At some point in time, Cooper Jackson actually says that he ends up getting her address

from her cell phone number. And Cooper actually had called Samantha on the phone and said that, hey, I think I found you. I'm going to go to this particular address. And so at that point, Samantha says, don't go to that house. That's my friend's house. Don't bother them. When Samantha says, don't go to that house. That's my friend's house. Don't bother them. When in fact, Samantha was actually inside the house and she described to us that she was actually scared at that point because he was getting ready to find the truth.

I think he became fed up. So they had a conversation, I think on a Friday night. And he said, look, I don't think you exist. I don't think you want to have this relationship. We're going to break up. Because he considered her his girlfriend. Samantha wanted to break it off, too. So she told him about a party she had gone to involving drinking and sex, which agents later learned was true.

She was trying to push Jackson away, but it backfired. Samantha had a consensual relationship with somebody at the party. She confessed to Cooper Jackson what she had done. I believe at some point, Samantha was like, okay, I need to separate myself from this because it's starting to scare me.

I don't know that it was a matter of her feeling guilty because she had consensual sex with somebody, but I think it was also kind of a way to maybe tell him that I'm really not in love with you and maybe you should move on. In Cooper Jackson's mind, he was unable to accept that Samantha, his girlfriend, had a consensual sexual relationship. And came up with the idea that she must have been sexually assaulted.

Jackson filled in the details in his own mind you were drunk and you're my girlfriend and i love you and i know you would never do this so that's kind of i think his way of understanding what had happened that night on the phone jackson kept pressing pressing Samantha for information about what happened at the party. So she changed her story. Through his interrogation of Samantha, she breaks down and decides it's better to just agree with him on certain things than to keep telling him this is not what happened. At some point, Samantha confirms that she was sexually assaulted to keep Cooper Jackson from badgering her about it. Jackson believed that the party was on the base,

and Samantha went along, embellishing the tale to say Marines were there. And he had that mentality that he wanted to be a protector, and I think when he thought that she was threatened, he was going to do whatever it took to protect her. Now he had in his mind a villain who he believed had raped the girlfriend he had never met. He believes it's a Marine and she provides him a description of a Marine that was involved. Tall, muscular, Marine. Dark hair, white.

Soon after, Justin Hough would go missing. We had these three people, Cooper Jackson, Samantha, and Justin Hough. As far as we knew, none of them have ever met each other. We needed to figure out the connection between Justin Hough going missing and Cooper Jackson's involvement with Samantha. Hough's wife, Becca, was living in California, pregnant with their first child. And then Hough was always in the background, being like, just smiling.

When his friends heard about his disappearance, they feared the worst. It was one of those things where it's like, no, that doesn't make sense. Like that, no. We go through two combat tours in Iraq, lived through all that stuff, and this is what happens? We're supposed to be safe here. The strangest thing about this case is that Justin had no part in this at all. Absolutely not. He did not know any of these people.

Cooper Jackson had become obsessed with avenging the supposed rape of his girlfriend. And his mission was to find the Marine he believed had done it. He was walking around the base, and he ran into Justin Huff, and it was as simple as Cooper Jackson staring at Justin Huff and Huff looking back at him, inquisitively, like, why are you looking at me? It was a brief encounter

that would change the lives of both men forever. It was just a chance meeting. Huff may not even be looking at Cooper, but he looked at him strangely, and in Cooper's mind, now Huff was involved. It was just that chance meeting

in a cafeteria at the wrong place, wrong time. It's hard to imagine, but that's exactly how we believe it happened. He was looking for someone. Huff most likely fit a physical description that he made up in his own mind. And from there, he was able to get Huff's name because military members wear their name on their uniform.

And then from there, he imprinted on his name and went back to Samantha and kept pressing her with the name Huff. She's never heard that name before, but she may have just caved and repeated that someone named Huff was involved. I think Cooper Jackson was so persistent with her. Samantha was going to agree to anything that he said. It was almost like you couldn't shut the lies off.

And you couldn't shut whatever Cooper Jackson was going to say about this alleged sexual assault. I believe she was just at the point where he's not going to stop bothering me. He's not going to stop asking me. If I just agree to whatever he's saying, he's going to leave me alone. He made the decision that he was going to find this individual,

interrogate them, and get the details of what happened to Samantha. On January 2, 2006, when Huff went missing, NCIS jumped into action. We had all hands on deck. We probably had roughly 20 to 30 agents that were pulled in. The investigation began when Huff failed to show up for class. Shortly after that, NCIS got their first lead.

One Marine, a private first class, William Richard, stood up and told his staff sergeant that he had a conversation with Justin Huff a couple days prior while they were bowling together on base. Today, William Richard is a gunnery sergeant in the Marines currently deployed in Iraq where we spoke to him by Skype. He told me that an individual came had a conversation with him about a rape and that he was possibly involved in during Thanksgiving time frame. He just told me that the guy said he was an NCIS agent doing an investigation. Justin Hough also told Richard that he did not believe

it was an NCIS agent because he asked this person for credentials, and the agent failed to produce credentials. He said at first his attire that he was wearing wasn't something you would normally figure for an NCIS agent. It was a little personal, because we had somebody that was impersonating one of us.

You know, that was probably the biggest thing that hit us. And we were like, what? Somebody's impersonating an NCIS agent? And the mortars hit the fuel farm, flames everywhere. And Huff, he's like, dude, this is awesome. Huff's close friends who served with him in the Marines say it's not surprising at all that Huff would help out, even someone he was skeptical about. I'm imagining he probably heard something happen to this girl or whatever, and he was

like, yeah, okay, well, how can I help you? I mean, I'll do whatever I can to get to the bottom of this. I mean, I'll do whatever I can to, you know, get to the bottom of this. Agents would later learn this dark parking lot is where Jackson, pretending to be an NCIS agent, had confronted Huff in the middle of the night. He wanted to clear his name or to see what he could do to help with whatever the allegation was.

Justin Huff told him that he didn't know what he was talking about. And Huff says, look, I've just got back from two tours in Iraq. I'm recently married. I have a child on the way. I don't do anything but go bowling. I don't know what you're talking about. And I have no involvement in any rape. And Cooper Jackson believed him. The two men parted ways in the night. But it was not the last time that they would meet. 48 Hours NCIS. We'll be right back.

We begin with a story that sounds like a movie, but it's not. Have we heard anything from the White House on this? There is an incredible amount of news this morning. You're watching CBS This Morning. We thank you for that. In the days after Justin Huff went missing, NCIS agents examined his life, looking for clues about his disappearance. Damneck Annex is a small sub-base of Oceana Naval Air Station,

and both of them are located in the city of Virginia Beach. It's probably maybe a 10-minute drive to the actual oceanfront, which is the resort city of Virginia Beach. It's where the Navy Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center is. He chose to go into the intelligence community because he wanted to take his Marine Corps career a little bit further.

This right here is Hough. That's the definition of Hough right there, through and through. Justin was a very good looking guy. He was six foot four, very physically fit, very proud to be a Marine. He was your ideal Marine. He wanted to look good. You know, Marines pride themselves on looking good in uniform.

He was a Marines Marine. One of the funniest guys I can ever remember meeting. I'm pretty sure he woke up every morning and was like, who am I gonna make laugh today? Like... But after two tours in Iraq, the always upbeat Huff had had enough, his friends say. Because he was like,

no, I can't wait to get out, done. And then Becca came around and was like, boom. It flipped the switch in him. It was like, oh, there's a future now. You know what I mean? Stopped living day to day, and then all of a sudden he sees her, and it's like, whoa, there's more to this life than just tomorrow. He talked about his wife, how excited he was to be a father.

He was really looking forward to it. You could just tell when he talked about her and soon-to-be-born child, he just lit up. He met Becca, he fell in love quick, they got married, and then next thing you know, she was three months pregnant. That's when he enrolled in intelligence school. I'm pretty sure he told me that it intrigued him. He was one of those guys that he wanted to try something. He tried it.

He always said how he wanted to help people. He thought intel was going to be the way that he could help people. I think it was just a better start for him. I mean, intelligence was something better. You know, I want something where I know I can take care of my family. Agents knew Huff had no reason to disappear, but they were still trying to figure out what happened to him. He was seen leaving without a bag, without a coat.

It looked like he was just walking out of the building to go grab something from his vehicle. They got another clue from Private Richard. Two days before Huff went missing, he had run into a man looking for Huff outside the main entrance to the housing complex. I overheard a conversation of an individual asking the lady at the front desk

if she knew where Corporal Huff was at. I was like, are you looking for the Marine, Corporal Huff? He said yes. I explained to him, hey, we're on Christmas block. I don't know when he's supposed to get back because I wasn't too sure. And he goes, oh, okay, well, thanks for the help, and then just started to leave.

Private Richard also gave NCIS agents a description of the man he saw. PFC Richard was able to provide that the individual was wearing a LeBan tulle t-shirt and a black biker jacket, leather jacket. I was leaving the building and saw him actually drive away. I just gave the description of the vehicle. Key things in my in my head that actually stood out at that point in time was that it was a pickup truck and that there was a motorcycle actually in the back of the vehicle specifically, and that's what kind of really stood out to me.

Private First Class Richard was instrumental in this investigation. Elfline spread the word of Richard's description of the man he saw to the Marines on the base. That Saturday evening, the Marines that I'd been interviewing all week were out on base, and they saw a truck with a motorcycle strapped to the back they went up to the vehicle which was occupied by three men the Marines

accused the driver of being responsible for the disappearance of their friend Huff and he denied it but they had the wherewithal to grab his identification and for the first time we had the name Cooper Jackson so I and the master arms that I was working with went over to his room to talk with him and find out if he was indeed the person that had this run-in with the Marines the night before when I knocked the door and identified myself Cooper Jackson said to me oh I'm glad you're here, I want to talk to you. Right away myself and the Master at Arms looked at each other that this is gonna be interesting. One of the first questions that I had for Cooper Jackson was did he know Justin Hough and Jackson stated that he did not. So I decided to play a hand and

bait him on a little bit of a ruse and I asked him if he would be surprised to know that there was video and audio recording of the barracks Lobby Jackson didn't know it but elf line was bluffing when I informed him that there was a video recording of the lobby, he put his head down and he said, quote, let me tell you a story. It was a dubious story involving a Marine with a name similar to Justin Hough. Jackson was trying to come up with a reason he had shown up looking for Hough.

He told me that he was in a bar in Virginia Beach and there was a drunk Marine named David Hoff that came up to him and started bothering him and he left his cell phone at the table. He then proceeded to tell me that he went to the lobby of the barracks on two occasions to try to return this phone to David Hoff. I then asked him what he did with the phone and he said that he felt bad that it looked like the appearance that he might have stolen it, so he threw it away, which that story just supported that he was lying and that it was all made up.

The lies impersonating an NCIS agent. Elfline was convinced Justin Huff was dead, and they had their killer. That hair on the back of my neck stood up like it is right now because I knew I was sitting across from a murderer. I remember that moment, and I was like, what do I do now? 48 Hours, NCIS. WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK. This story, it doesn't make any sense. So many different twists and turns because there were so many different stories

that were being told. There was a motive in Cooper Jackson's head, but the motive was not true. It wasn't real. Agents were convinced Jackson was responsible for Huff's disappearance and likely murder. But they needed more concrete evidence

before they could make an arrest. Justin's building and Cooper Jackson's building were almost at the two furthest ends of the base, about a mile apart. They also happen to be the only residential buildings that have video cameras. On the night that Justin goes missing, there was even more videotape evidence

from Cooper Jackson's dorm. Prior to Justin moving outside his dorm for the last time that we see him, Prior to Justin moving outside his dorm for the last time that we see him, Cooper Jackson is moving duffel bags from his room down the stairwell to his car. We actually collected video footage of Cooper Jackson actually walking down that particular ladder well

a little after 4 o'clock in the morning. He's dressed in a suit. You could actually see in the video the imprint in the small of his back, a Glock firearm. We had enough evidence that we felt as though we could bring him in and interrogate him. On January 12, 10 days after Huff went missing, NCIS agents arrested Jackson on base

and brought him in for questioning. I told him that we were going to put him in custody for the trip back to our office, and he agreed. And he did not look surprised at all. And this is the actual interrogation room where Cooper Jackson was interrogated. For several hours, agents grilled him. And for the first few hours, he denied knowing Justin.

He denied any involvement in the disappearance of Justin. And then it was just good interrogation that he decided that the lies weren't working and that he had nowhere to go but to finally confess and tell us what he did. I really clearly think that he thought he was going to get away with this. But when he got caught,

I believe it brought some calm to himself to let him to confess to it. At that point, agents still didn't know exactly what had happened to Justin or where he was. One of the things we discussed is the family deserves to bury the body, bury Justin.

And I think he agreed that that would probably be the best thing to do. He proceeded to lay out the entire story of what happened and why. Jackson admitted he had gone back to confront Huff for a second night in this dark parking lot. He was tormented by his mixed feelings of wanting to avenge Samantha's sexual assault and believing that Justin Hough had nothing to do with it. So on the evening of New Year's Eve, Cooper Jackson did some drinking in his room.

He convinced himself over and over again that Justin Hough lied to him and that he did know what happened to Samantha. He was convinced that Huff had raped the girlfriend Jackson was in love with, but it never met. He made up the story that Samantha was down in a hospital in North Carolina and that she was injured by the individual that allegedly sexually assaulted her. He decides he has to get to the bottom of what happened.

He calls Huff up and says, if you want to clear your name, you have to go with me. Even though Huff had doubts he was dealing with a real NCIS agent, he went along. So Huff, being a good Marine, says, sure, gets in the car with Cooper, and they head off to the Outer Banks. We believe, of course, Justin had nothing to do with this, that he would willingly go to clear his name up.

And Cooper Jackson handcuffed him and put him in his vehicle. Now they had a drive down to North Carolina. It was over an hour drive. Cooper Jackson is interrogating Justin Huff the entire way. Justin's repeatedly denying any involvement with Samantha, and to Cooper Jackson's own acknowledgement, he's starting again to believe Justin

that Justin is not responsible for this. But Jackson had reached a point of no return. And this is probably the saddest part of this sad story. Cooper Jackson picked out a kill spot in North Carolina off the main road in the woods, and he drove Justin to this spot. Engineman Third Class Jackson is gonna take us for a walk this morning.

He may talk a little bit. He voluntarily agreed to let us take him to the death scene. We asked Cooper Jackson to reenact the night that he killed Justin Hough. To my right is Special Agent Bill Ethlin. It was very disturbing to hear him tell the story so emotionless and like he was just reiterating

activities of his day. I never really got the impression that he felt he was telling reiterating activities of his day. I never really got the impression that he felt he was telling us the details of ending someone's life and the horrific matter of what had happened. Just go ahead and talk to us about whatever you need from me. He got Huff out of the car. He put him on the ground.

I put one knee to his back. I instructed Corporal Huff to get down to the ground and I would release him. I identified who I really was and I showed him the pistol. He took out his 9 millimeter and said, hey, I'm not really with the NCIS. My name is Cooper Jackson and you raped my girlfriend. And I asked him for any true involvement

that he had with Samantha. And Huff said, I swear I'm an unborn child. I didn't. I had nothing to do with this. I asked him to swear on his life and everything that he held dear to his life that he meant the truth, and he said he did. Cooper Jackson realizing by his own omissions again that Justin's not responsible for this. I don't think I ever truly planned to let him go.

I wanted to, but... I just know I couldn't get away with that. He felt that he took it too far, that he's now impersonated a federal agent, he's now impersonated a federal agent. He's kidnapped somebody. And he thought that if he was just to walk away from this, that he knew his Navy career would be over and he'd be in a lot of trouble.

And so that's when he took out his knife and cut his throat. I tilted his chin up and brought my knife around. I got up and brought my knife around. And I looked to try to discover a spot that I could drag his body to. There's a marker there. There's the big hole. This is the grave right here. For Agent Evans, Huff's makeshift grave

brings back painful memories. You know, just kind of think back and remember. And you know, it's just a very, very sad story. This guy didn't want to hurt a fly. Yeah. I mean, he would do anything to protect anybody. But why in the hell would somebody do that to him? to anybody. But why in the hell would somebody do that to him?

In this case, Cooper pled guilty, so there was no trial. But in the military, you have a sentencing hearing, and that was with a jury. And that hearing would be the first time Jackson would lay eyes on Samantha. And even the jury found that Samantha, she was a catalyst for this whole tragedy. Cooper Jackson decided to plead guilty to the murder,

and then he chose to have his sentencing hearing decide what his fate was going to be, whether he was actually going to be put to death or whether he was going to serve life in jail. Cooper Jackson and Justin Huff are basically their own version of good versus evil. Cooper Jackson was evil. He committed a homicide

and killed somebody that he did not even know. NCIS had his guilty plea, but they still needed to find all the evidence to cement the case against Jackson. You can't go to trial just based on a confession alone. You have to have the evidence that kind of supports what happened. This lake is where Corporal Justin Huff's cell phone and wallet with his ID card was found. The water level on the lake at Dam Neck was low. And so we had some several individuals

that were fishing that day. And one of them noticed a silver item. And 16 miles away. The water in the Elizabeth River is in the 30s. And the Pungo River Bridge is a brand-new bridge at this point. So the waterway is filled with concrete and rebarb, and the visibility is zero. Navy divers, at our request,

went down there and did an amazing job. This is where Cooper Jackson disposed of the handcuffs, the knife, and the shovel, all of which were used in the murder of Justin Huff. NCIS recovered the knife, the murder weapon, and with all the other evidence in hand, they were ready to present it at the sentencing hearing, where prosecutors would seek the death penalty.

Cooper's mother called me, and she said, you know, my son is being charged with capital murder and the Navy seeking the death penalty, which they hadn't done since the Kennedy administration. At the hearing, there would be one witness everybody wanted to see, Samantha. It would be the first time Jackson came face-to-face with the real Samantha.

When she came in the back courtroom, I do remember him turning his head to look. When he first saw her come to the courthouse doors, I mean, he froze. He couldn't even look at her. In reality, Samantha was probably, you know, 5'2", probably 300 or 400 pounds. Actually, once he stopped and thought, he realized how ridiculous this whole thing was,

and he actually killed somebody over a girl that he never met. Once he stopped and thought, he realized how ridiculous this whole thing was. He actually killed somebody over a girl that he never met. He basically apologized to Huss' family. He apologized to his family. He apologized to the Marine Corps and said he was sorry that all this happened. He told the court, there were signs along the way, signs that told me I was being deceived, that I was being too pig-headed to pay enough

attention. Then there were coincidences that seemed to verify Samantha's story, and I believed in those coincidences because I wanted to believe in Samantha. We would be better off today had I used better judgment. Corporal Huff would be alive, his family much happier, and not filled with the misery that I've instilled in them. Corporal Huff's wife, she would never have lost her hope, and her child, his child, would have lived a life that would include his father's love. So they end up ultimately giving him life without parole. But Samantha's fate would be much different. When Samantha was interviewed by the NCIS agents,

she was told that Cooper Jackson murdered the person that he thought raped her, and she was really shocked by that. I don't think she understood the magnitude of how this telephonic relationship that she had with Cooper Jackson ended in someone being killed. She wouldn't spend a single day in prison. Samantha was a pawn in this investigation. She's a very sad part of it, but she was not involved directly in the death of Justin Hough.

This was not a conspiracy between her and Cooper Jackson to kill Justin Hough. Samantha didn't commit a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. She was a civilian. Samantha was never charged with anything. The Marines were mad at her. The jury was mad at her. But like she said on the stand,

I didn't tell anybody to kill anybody, so there was no law that she broke. Because if there was a law that I thought she had broken, we would try to get somebody to charge her with that. And she walks away scot-free. Well, she might not have done anything criminally wrong. There's a higher law to this world than what we live by here on Earth,

and she's got an answer to that. If she makes a different life choice in saying that I'm not gonna randomly call guys and lead them on to believe that I'm somebody else, we still all have our friend here. Jake, he still has his dad, and Becca still has her husband. You remove her from the entire situation, this guy, whatever his name is, he might have gone off to do other bad things, but it wouldn't have ended like this without her. Samantha says her actions have ruined her life,

and she wanted no part of this story. We told her we would not show her face. I think the agents, of course, because they're also human beings, they're not just assets, they end up making emotional connections with a great deal of empathy and sympathy for victims of crime.

During the course of this investigation, I actually had a personal relationship with Rebecca Hough and his parents and his aunt. I might get a little teary-eyed here. These feelings and the sadness, they're reminded every day about it. Because Rebecca was pregnant when Justin was killed. So they have a little boy now.

And that little boy's growing up. And Rebecca says every day he becomes and looks more and more like Justin. To have his life destroyed, his wife's life destroyed, his son will never meet his dad, I mean. From talking to Becca, it sounds like he has the exact same personality as his dad. He could have had a whole career in the Marine Corps. Look at the people that he could have brought around him.

How many great Marines could he made out of the Marine Corps? You know, he took that all away from everybody. It's just... Sorry. No matter where we're at, if Hough was there, the world was good. It was great. I mean, that's the grin. You couldn't see past that grin.

He filtered out all the bad crap. It might sound cliche, but if everyone, everyone in the entire world lived a little bit more like Hough, we'd have a lot better world than we live in right now. It's really, really sad that this family suffered this loss so brutally. They have to live every day without him. And I think the world is not in a better place because I think he had a lot to do. And I think he would have done a lot and impacted this world. I love you, Becca, very, very, very, very much. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app.

Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey. Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Hotshot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast,

Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informance Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

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