48 Hours - "48 Hours Suspicion": The Case Against Mary Katherine Higdon

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

A young woman says she accidentally shot her boyfriend. Police say she confessed to murder – but there’s no audio to prove it. What will the jury decide? CBS News correspondent David Begnaud reports. 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. What's the first step to growing your business? Getting people to notice you. But how do you do that? Two words. Constant contact. Your struggle with expensive, slow, and unmeasurable approaches to marketing your business is over. With constant contact, get email marketing that helps you create and send the perfect email to every customer. Connect with over 2 billion people on social media

with an all-in-one tool for posting and sharing, and create, promote, and manage your events with ease, all in one place. Join the millions of small businesses that trust Constant Contact with their marketing success. So get going and growing trust Constant Contact with their marketing success. So get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial.

ConstantContact.ca It's August 1st, 2018. I get a call from one of my investigators. Said we had a shooting victim on Sunnybrook Drive and it didn't look good. Spalding County 911, where's your emergency? Yes, ma'am. I actually, my gun was taperpered and I'm so sorry. I just got my boyfriend in the night. I'm so sorry. We actually had the perpetrator admitting to shooting the victim on the 911 call

before we even arrived at the scene. Ms. Higdon told us she did it. Please bring someone right now. before we even arrived at the scene. And Sigmund told us she did it. Please, please, please, please. Please bring someone right now. Ma'am, they're on the way. Look at me, Steven. Look at me. Look at me, Steven. I'm Lieutenant Chris Wilson.

I was the first investigator to arrive on scene. What kind of gun was it? It was a Glock 43. I was the first investigator to arrive on scene. What kind of gun was it? It was a Glock 43. I was just grabbing it. I did not know what that was. I was grabbing it to bring it to our bed. Basically, we had a young man down, not responsive, and also a young woman who was frantic, very emotional.

She was just pleading for help. I can all lift him. I can all lift him. I can not lift him. I can not lift him. Come on. Look, calm down for me. Calm down. Calm down. I didn't know I was standing down.

The gun going off, I don't even see how it even got him because I wasn't even really pointing it directly at him in the first place. I was able to look over any type of evidence, any type of forensics that could have been involved, trying to make sense of what might have happened in that living room that night.

I feel like I've been fighting him. I'm not missing a fight. Why, you lose me? I knew then that we could be possibly looking at a homicide. The confession's on this video, and we can't hear it. There's no sound there. There's sound, but it's just a noise, constant noise all the way through it. There's sound, but it's just a noise, constant noise all the way through it.

Ladies and gentlemen, please rise. This is malice murder. This is felony murder. This gun did not discharge on its own. Mary Catherine Higdon was angry. She lost control. And she pulled the trigger i didn't even know it was chambered i never wanted to hurt him i never wanted anything like that there may be people watching this who find it hard to believe what you're saying right now

what would you say to them all i know is what's in my heart and I know what happened that night. I loved Steven. I would never ever do anything to hurt him. Thank you. Police body cameras captured the chaotic scene. The night Stephen Freeman was shot and killed by his girlfriend of seven years, Mary Catherine Higdon, inside the home they shared. He's still got a pulse, okay? Let's work on him, okay? Mary Catherine Higdon is in the living room, and so is Stephen Freeman. He's laying right here on a mattress.

Mary Catherine is hovering over him, and he's literally dying in front of her. Calm down, okay? Calm down. He's alive. He's alive. Mary Catherine told the police that her gun went off accidentally, and she was handing it to Stephen. We like to keep it on the side of the bed at night for protection. None of our guns that we've had around our house were ever, you know, chambered. There was never a bullet in the chamber.

It was never my intention to ever injure him or kill him. Those words ring hollow to Stephen's grieving mother, Jennifer Freeman. Have you spoken to Mary Catherine Higdon since this all happened? I have not. She will never give me an answer

that's going to be good enough for me because this should never have happened. Stephen was 23 years old. Everybody just loved Stephen because he was just sweet, you know, just a good kid. Stephen's heart was huge. He was a devoted son. To the most wonderful woman in the world.

Jennifer treasures the note he wrote her after she had gone back to school and completed her college degree. And know that if you put your mind to it, you could accomplish all of your hopes and dreams and more. I love you to the moon and back, Stephen. And that was our thing. It was either I love you more or I love you to the moon and back. That was our little thing. What's up, Stephen? Stephen had a happy childhood, growing up in the town of Griffin, Georgia. Always had a smile on his face, always. And that was from the time that he was a little bitty baby through adulthood. He loved the outdoors, loved it.

That was probably his passion above all else was to be outside. Duck hunting, deer hunting, fishing, camping. That was where he found his peace and his comforts. was to be outside, duck hunting, deer hunting, fishing, camping. That was where he found his peace and his comforts. Mary Catherine's father, Tom Higdon, and older sister, Sarah, say she too was a happy child. Then here's your host, Mary Catherine. Who liked to put on a show.

Bye. She always was the entertainment in the room, no matter what age. She's just fun-loving. I remember one time she had a pet frog that she used to walk around the neighborhood with a shoestring. We would say our life would be boring without her. Stephen and Mary Catherine began dating in high school. The romance quickly became pretty serious, and they moved in together after graduating. Stephen worked at repairing roofs.

Mary Catherine was a preschool teacher's aide. Did you like Mary Catherine? I did. I did. I loved her. She would eat at our house on Sunday night with my parents and our extended family, and we certainly considered Mary Catherine like a daughter. He was just, you know, he was just like my best friend that loved me and that was there for me and just listened to me, and we just really hit it off great. We were just, I guess you'd say like two peas in a pod. Mary Catherine shared Stephen's

passion for the outdoors. Before long, she won over his closest friends, Thomas Skinner, Andrew McCree, and Chase Pruitt. What did you like about her? That she made my friend happy. I mean, most girls won't even get in the woods for 30 minutes. If she'll go fish with you for four hours and go deer hunt with you, then that's awesome, man. I'm glad you found somebody that makes you happy. The couple also shared a passion for guns. How many guns did Stephen own? He had a couple shotguns, a couple rifles. Around 10, maybe. No, he probably had, yeah, probably around that.

Yeah, she would brag about how she would she knew more about guns than steven or us yeah that is because mary catherine landed a job selling guns at a local sporting goods store where thomas skinner also worked before you're able to sell a gun you're trained and taught how to handle it you you know, like how to hand somebody a gun. Do you believe her when she says, I just held it up and it went off? No, no, not for a second. Yet that was the first story Mary Catherine told police when they arrived at the house that night. This is a Glock Model 380. To Detective Adam Trammell, it also seemed like an unlikely story.

Is it possible for this gun to just go off accidentally? Not from my experience. The trigger would have to be pulled. This is not the weapon that was used? That's correct. It's just the type of gun. The type of gun. Can you show us the process of loading the weapon and firing it? Yes, I can.

First, you would load your ammunition. You would insert the magazine. You would wreck the slide. And fire the weapon. Police were also suspicious, for another reason. She's claiming it was accidental discharge. But based on some of the evidence we've seen in the house while we were in there attending to him, it looked like they'd been fighting.

Lieutenant Chris Wilson saw the evidence firsthand. Of course, there are new homeowners here and everything here looks very nice and well kept. That wasn't the case that night. There was food slung everywhere. On the cabins, on the floor, food thrown there. I guess it looked like they had been throwing it at each other? It looked like there had been some food tossed around here. As Mary Catherine Higdon was taken in for questioning, police knew there had to be much more to this story.

What do you think happened that night? Watch more of the police body camera footage on Facebook at 48 Hours. Steven was the calm in the storm. We used to laugh and say he would outlive everybody because he didn't stress out about anything. Jennifer Freeman struggles to understand how her son's life could have ended so violently at the hands of a woman he loved, Mary Catherine Higdon. Listen to me. We're going to work through this. Okay? We're going to work through it. We're going to work through it. It's all right. Okay? Just come with us. Come on. We'll get you to see this. They took you to the police station. They didn't take you in handcuffs. They just wanted to ask you some questions. You agreed to cooperate.

Oh, yeah, most definitely. First one says you had the right for my asylum. But detectives Adam Trammell and Chris Wilson found the story that Mary Catherine told them in the interrogation room hard to believe. Mary Catherine told the police that Stephen asked for the gun, so she claims she tossed it to him. Now, he's in the living room on a mattress right there, and she says when she tossed it, the gun went off. When she said she tossed the gun, that didn't match what I would think a normal person would do. It also didn't match what she told the investigators at the scene. She told them she was simply handing the gun to Stephen, not tossing it.

And that's when she accidentally shot him below the neck. Lieutenant Wilson decided cool on her. Not really. That's the tactic. At that point, we weren't buying the story. So we slapped my hands. I said, stop lying to me. Tell me the truth right now. Last time.

What did she do? She said, I did it out of anger. Yeah, just like that. Believing that they had an ironclad confession on tape, they arrested Mary Catherine Higdon for murder. But there was a big problem. The only thing it was... There was nothing but feedback on most of the recording. And it couldn't be fixed. Oh no.

What can we do? So at this point, all you've got to say what she said was what you two remember. That's correct. But they still had the forensic evidence that convinced them Stephen's shooting was no accident. So her story was, I don't keep around in the chamber. Correct.

Okay. What did you find on the weapon that said to you, I don't know if I believe that. It looks like she loaded it that night. There was cooking grease on the weapon that said to you, I don't know if I believe that, looks like she loaded it that night? There was cooking grease on the magazine. There was also grease on the slide of the gun, which tells me that the magazine had to be out at one point. Browns loaded, slid back into the gun, and wrecked. Mary Catherine had told police she was cooking dinner for Stephen that night, the same dinner they found thrown on the kitchen floor.

She's just very loud, very dramatic, very always on the top, looking to go start an issue. As investigators began to question the couple's friends, they discovered this teenage love affair had turned toxic. And most of the blame was being placed on Mary Catherine. Eight, seven times out of ten, she'd yell, she was bitching at Stephen for something. Stephen would often walk out during an argument and block Mary Catherine's number from his phone. That's because she would call him obsessively, according to his co-worker Elijah

Varela. Some mornings, several different occasions, he would get to work, and before we even got to the first job, he had 30 missed calls from her. Like, she was just blowing him off the line. His friends also told detectives Stephen feared she was unstable and dangerous. Stephen feared she was unstable and dangerous. Each one of you was told by Stephen that Mary Catherine pointed a gun at him. Is that correct? Yes. As soon as they said he was shot, I knew what happened.

I knew Mary Catherine did it. On April 21, 2018, three months before he was killed, Stephen texted his friend Andrew. MK is running around screaming at the top of her lungs outside. And now she's trying to shoot me and herself. As alarming as that sounds, it was another alleged incident the following month that left Stephen badly shaken. Did Stephen ever report that to the police? To my knowledge, no.

I think he thought he could handle it, or I don't know. He said he cared for her. He doesn't want her to go to jail. The relationship was on again, off again. And it was a rollercoaster ride right up to the end. On July 30th, 2018, two days before Stephen's death, he texted, Good morning, beautiful. Mary Catherine. Have a great day. Stephen. You too. Love you. But by the next day...

I said, are you Mary Catherine arguing? And he said, yes, ma'am. I'm not going back there tonight. And he said, I'm running from Satan. I'm not going back there tonight. And he said, I'm running from Satan. Stephen slept at a friend's house, ignoring Mary Catherine's calls and text messages. The next evening, she had prepared dinner. And Stephen was again MIA. You called him a lot on that date.

9-10, 9-12, 9-17, 9-23, 9-29, 9-38. Mm-hmm. Why so many times? I guess because it is, like, irritating. I need to know if I need to just, you know, make me a dinner. I'm trying to wait to eat with you. It's just one answer. Are you coming home, yes or no? She found out through Stephen's mother that he was still at his friend's house.

So once you told her where he was. She went after him. Yes. Of course, I didn't realize that it was going to escalate and I was going to escalate as it did. And I have guilt to this day because I I responded because I don't want to lie to her. Stephen was already driving home with Thomas Skinner. She comes out of nowhere, riding our tail, like right on our bumper. And she pulled up beside my truck, like right beside Stephen, rolled her window down, and she started yelling at him. She said, are you coming home now? And he said, yes, calm down, I'm coming home. But she was like screaming at the top of her lungs. Less than two hours later, Stephen Freeman was dead. While police believe it is an open and shut case of murder,

fueled by Mary Catherine's anger, her defense attorneys say not so fast. They claim there was a side to Stephen Freeman that no one knew. What do you think is the strongest evidence against Mary Catherine Higdon? See more of the evidence at 48hours.com. 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. Hot shot 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 defence 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 Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. If Stephen Freeman truly feared that Mary Catherine might shoot him, why didn't he leave the relationship for good?

I played that over my head a million times why I couldn't finally walk away. Hindsight's 20-20. Maybe we should have done more. Maybe we could have done more. But Mary Catherine denies she ever pointed a gun at Stephen. That is, until the night she killed him.

Well, let me just read a text, and I want to be specific here. Stephen texts you this. I know you pointed a gun at me a bunch of times, but the last time you did, it scared the bleep out of me. Mm-hmm. Did you point a gun at him? No. No, like, I didn't, because when he was saying that, I had pulled a gun to kill myself. I was thinking about hurting myself.

If true, it wasn't the first time Mary Catherine's father told detectives. Both he and Stephen were concerned about her suicide threats. And I didn't realize until after he died that she would tell him that if he didn't come home, that she was going to kill herself. I think that's why he stayed. would tell him that if he didn't come home, that she was going to kill herself. I think that's why he stayed. But by July of 2018, Stephen had had enough. He made plans to move to another town with his friend Thomas and not tell Mary Catherine, according to prosecutor Kate Leonard. All of the signs were that she was unraveling. He was planning on moving while she was at work. He never got the chance.

Mary Catherine shot him two days before he was supposed to leave. Did it seem like a pretty straightforward case? Yes, yes. There was never really any question that she shot him. She was the only one in the house besides him. She confessed to doing it. What we're looking at is what we call the murder board. The prosecution claims it discovered Mary Catherine had revised or added details to her story

10 different times. The 911 dispatcher asks her what happened and she says that she was just grabbing the gun to bring it to bed. Remember, Mary Catherine said she didn't know the gun was loaded. Then... Once officers arrive on scene, then she starts telling the officers that she was handing Stephen the gun and that it accidentally went off. According to detectives, she told them in the interrogation room, the gun went off when she tossed it to Stephen. The story you first told them was not true. Yes, I knew that obviously it was a lie, but I just, I guess I was just scared. Then police say she admitted shooting him in anger. But she told her father and her sister that she and Stephen had been arguing

and that she shot him in self-defense. He just threw everything that I made in my face. And I just picked up the gun just to scare him, just to get him out of the house because I was scared. When you raised the gun at him, did you say anything to him? I just said, get that blank out of my house. And what did he do? I remember him leaning down, and then it just happened all so fast. And then he leaned down, and then he lunged at me, and I got scared, and I kind of reared back. And then just the next thing I know, he was just, I'm sorry. And then he was just bleeding.

She never tells the police that he lunged at her. She has every opportunity to tell the police that he lunged at her. She doesn't do that. Mary Catherine says she was embarrassed to tell police that Stephen had a history of violence towards her. Did Stephen ever hit you? Yes. Not so much like where it was like physical like punches or anything, just like grabs there. There was one time where, you know, he smacked me across the face.

A lot of times he just kind of, you know, like, like popped me on the back of my head. But Stephen's friends insist she was the violent one in the relationship. You saw Mary Catherine hit Stephen. Yes. I you see it? Face, chest, shoulders, everything. One time she slapped him and he kind of grabbed her like she slapped him hard and he kind of like grabbed her and was like don't hit me. But Sarah Higdon believes her sister. She says she saw bruising on Mary Catherine's arm two weeks before the shooting. And I wish that I would have taken a picture of it

and she wouldn't tell me at first. But eventually I pulled her off to the side and I was like, what is that? And she was like, well, Stephen just grabbed me a little bit too hard. And I was like, what are you talking about? But investigators believe the forensic evidence shows that far from defending

herself, Mary Catherine shot Stephen in cold blood while he was simply sitting on their bed. There's very little blood anywhere except for right here on this corner. It's all in one area because Stephen didn't move. It tells me that this story of him lunging at her doesn't really add up. The thought being, if he had gotten up and started to make his way toward her, there would have been some blood that moved beyond the bed. Correct. Everyone made a rush to judgment. Mary Catherine's attorneys, public defenders George Carbajal and Michael Granhams,

insist Stephen could have started to get up and go after her. And they say she had good reason to be afraid, because of his alleged history of abuse. What kind of abuse was Mary Catherine subjected to? Pretty much every kind. Telling her that she needed to be a certain way, showing where all the money's going every moment of the day, making her let him know where she's going to be every moment of the day. And what physical assaulting?

I think that he hit her on the back of the head. He literally kicked her out of the bed with such force that she flew and hit her head on the doorframe. Did Mary Catherine ever call 911 to report any of this abuse? No. She always thought that it was her and that she needed to do something better, and it was her fault that she was making Stephen angry. You know, some of Stephen's friends say that she was the abusive one. Verbally pointed a gun at him more than once.

Nobody ever saw that. All of that came from Stephen. The defense team claims it uncovered evidence of Stephen's Jekyll and Hyde personality in an angry tirade of text messages that Stephen sent to Mary Catherine a year prior. The 63 pages or whatever of hateful, horrible, threatening text messages, that was what really, really corroborated it. These texts are from an old phone of Mary Catherine's. The prosecutors didn't even know existed. Stephen had discovered that Mary Catherine slept with a friend of his while they were broken up. The language is so ugly, we can't repeat most of it. But there was also a photo of him holding up a dead fish with the caption,

This is you, bitch. As well as a threat, I'm going to effing wreck you for wrecking me. Did you know he was talking to her like that? I didn't. But I do know that he was a human being, and he was hurt. He was angry, and I don't condone the language. I don't condone what he did.

The defense claims this is just the tip of the iceberg. As Mary Catherine takes the stand at her trial, her testimony takes the courtroom by surprise. What is the red room? It's like one of those, I guess, sex rooms out there, Fifty Shades of Grey. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still a virgin.

It just happens to all of them. We're still a virgin. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique,

lonely Pacific Island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. 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, with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Balling County Superior Court is now in session. The Honorable Scott L. Ballard is judge presiding. Thank you. Y'all be seated, please. The report is now in session.

The Honorable Scott L. Ballard is judge presiding. Thank you. Y'all be seated, please. On June 17, 2019, almost a year after Stephen Freeman's death, 24-year-old Mary Catherine Higdon goes on trial for murder. What do you think is your strongest evidence? The physical evidence. The grease on the gun. That there was no other person present.

That all of the blood is in one area. There's nothing that shows that he was moving or coming at her at the time that he was shot. The text messages of her trying to get him to come home, calling over and over and over. Prosecutor Kate Leonard says the physical evidence supports her theory that Mary Catherine shot Stephen in anger after he hadn't come home for dinner and ignored her calls and text messages. But there were still some hurdles to overcome. If you want to tell me what went on tonight, you know, in the very beginning. The only thing that was...

That is your confession. Sure. And it's pretty much inaudible. Yes. How do you mess up the confession? Especially when it's such a powerful confession. And there was this. The gun is in an evidence bag because we secured it when we made entry.

First responders moved the gun found next to Stephen Freeman, claiming they feared that Mary Catherine was reaching for it. We didn't take pictures of it before we were moving. Before we moved it. All right? As a prosecutor, when you heard the cops say, we moved the gun, we moved it for safety reasons, why did that bother you?

Because you could just as easily have moved her for safety reasons. Leave the gun where it is. That's rule number one. You don't mess with the murder weapon. You're under the defense called Mary Catherine Dignan. Now, facing the possibility of life in prison, Mary Catherine Dignan made the risky decision to take the stand. The whole truth, so help me God.

Yes. When it was good, it was good. But when it was bad, it was bad. Mary Catherine tearfully paints a portrait of Stephen as an abusive and controlling boyfriend. He'd expect, you know, his clothes all ready and folded and his shoes where it needed to be. He'd want me to make sure his shower was started for him.

While he often seemed to have one foot out the door, Mary Catherine says Stephen would angrily accuse her of cheating on him. I was like, Stephen, you saw that we were just in there talking, and he just said, no, I know, you know, you're just a whore. and they're talking, and he just said, no, I know, you're just a whore. The defense introduces those ugly, threatening messages that Stephen said after finding out Mary Catherine had slept with one of his friends. At least now I know what you once again were, what everyone told me not to get with when I picked your scrub ass up

out of the mud and made you bitch. Mary Catherine claims his texts frightened her because the relationship had become violent. He said the more you talk the more you get punished when I get home. How did you understand the threat of being punished when you would get home? He'd you you know, smack me around. Sometimes he would grab me and shake me and say, you know, why can't you just do better and be better and just do what I tell you to do? The details are graphic, but they are just the beginning. He said, I miss you too much.

I'm coming home to you, and you're about to get it bad. You're going to the red room tonight. What is the red room? It's like one of those, I guess, sex rooms all the 50 shades of gray. I don't want out. I just am not exactly jumping at the opportunity to get whipped and tortured in your red room of pain. It wasn't any specific room, but it was just when we would bring out these certain things that we had bought.

What would happen in the red room? He would just tie me up and hit me. Mary Catherine tells the court that on two occasions, the rough sex turned into rape. One time, she says it was just after the couple had returned from a trip to Disney World. He started hurting me really, really bad. I said, Stephen, please stop.

And he said, he said that since he spent so much money on me at Disney, I need to give him what he deserves. To get up there and call a dead man a rapist that's disgusting she had never told anyone that before how convenient to wait until you're sitting on the stand accused of his murder and he can't defend himself but mary catherine insists that's why she was so afraid of Stephen the night she shot him. And she adds a new detail, claiming Stephen became angry after finding out she wanted to end the relationship. So he started throwing things, started, you know, pushing me around. And that's when I got scared.

And I just wanted him out of the house. And then that's the next thing I remember is him lunging at me. And then the next thing I remember then is him standing there saying, call 911. What she leaves out of her testimony is the moment she pulled the trigger. I never wanted to hurt him. I never wanted anything like that. I didn't even know it was chambered in room. Kate Leonard isn't buying any of it. In her cross-examination, she confronts Mary Catherine

for never having complained about Stephen's alleged abuse. Can I give you a minute to show me in those text messages between you and he and you and every other person that was in your cell phone where you talk about him being physically violent? I never talked about it, only with friends. I never texted out. Then the prosecutor has her own surprise for the court. Hours before killing Stephen, Mary Catherine was searching violent internet pornography sites while at a babysitting job. All of those and many more you looked up when Stephen was not with you. But it was him that liked the red room. Is that your testimony? Yes. I looked up things for ideas because obviously he's gone. I wanted to please him.

The woman who just told you that she was raped looks at gang rape porn, bondage porn. Why would you relive that trauma? Now, Mary Catherine Higdon is about to in her emotional testimony about alleged abuse by Stephen Freeman so when anytime I would stand up for myself or you know kind of retaliate he said don't don't hit me because if you hit me I'm going to get you to numb's harder you make your thank you now it's the prosecution's last chance to argue that none of it is true. This is not a case of self-defense. This is a case of manipulation.

In closing arguments, Kate Leonard reminds the jury of the different stories Mary Catherine told the police. The gun was tampered. It was an accident. I tossed it. I don't know what happened. I was scared. I was angry. But she did not tell them that she was abused. And the prosecutor does not believe she was.

When your abuser is out of the house and you are safe, are you as a victim of domestic violence going to track down your abuser where he is with his friends? Are you going to go and track him down? Does that make sense? The prosecutor says Mary Catherine's rage boiled over on the night of August 1st, 2018, after Stephen finally came home and then refused to eat the dinner that she had prepared. Look at me, Stephen. Look at me, Stephen. And when he doesn't, he is shot in the left side of the neck where you know that he's not facing her.

He never sees it coming. In his closing argument, defense attorney Michael Granum focuses on Stephen's alleged history of abuse. Those were his words. The more you do this, the more you're going to get punished. Granum's brings up those ugly texts that Stephen sent Mary Catherine a year prior. That torrent of demeaning hatred texts is probably the worst tirade that I've ever seen. And I'm a criminal defense lawyer. Then he recounts Mary Catherine's most serious allegation, that Stephen raped her. And she's crying and she's telling him it hurts Stephen.

Stop Stephen, you're hurting me. His answer, well I spent money on you Disney, so I'm entitled to this. He insists Mary Catherine saw the same frightening look in Stephen's eyes just before she shot him. Mary Catherine Higdon knew exactly what was coming. Granhams demonstrates his point with an unusual prop as a metaphor. Does anybody have any doubt about what's going to happen next? You may now retire to the jury room. As the case heads to the jury, the drama is far from over. I just knew it was a major responsibility. Two of the jurors, Victor and Chris, were feeling the weight of their burden.

And I knew pretty much no matter what you vote, one family gets hurt. You destroy one side of that courtroom no matter what you vote. Within minutes of getting the case, the jury took its first vote. Ten to two. Guilty. But then... And I knew that I was about to be the one to upset that apple cart. So I went ahead and did that. Both Chris and Victor told their fellow jurors

that they shared the defense's concerns about the investigation, starting with that lost confession. In the very beginning... I think... Inside, I was like, are you kidding me? I mean, I know this isn't a major city, but it's audio equipment. She's still in custody. Why are you not going to bring her back in to at least speak with her again?

But Mary Catherine had already obtained a lawyer. Where's the gun? It's right there. And they questioned why the police moved the gun that was used to shoot Stephen. It's ludicrous to argue that it's easier to move the gun than it was to move her. What also troubled them? Prosecutors had cracked open Mary Catherine's cell phone for texts, social media, and search histories. But they decided not to spend another $1,800 to unlock Stephen's phone.

It was too expensive to pay another two grand to crack his phone open and let's see what kind of person he was to try to dispute the rape and abuse allegations or back him up. They didn't do that. But you could already get those messages on Mary Catherine's phone. No, we get the message between them two. We don't get what he was talking about with his homeboys or what he was looking up online. Chris and Victor say they were left with serious doubts about all of the prosecution's evidence.

All of it's tainted from the way the cops handled the investigation. Well, if you don't have any evidence, you don't have a case. I didn't have any proof that she had done much of anything except for lying. And those lies didn't seem to bother either juror. If I was being arrested for potentially murdering somebody, I would, I probably would get scared enough that I would just come up with whatever story I could. But that almost seems like you're making an excuse for her. Not making an excuse. I'm just, I'm just empathizing with the situation. And in toxic relationships, there are mountains and mountains and mountains of lies.

By the next afternoon, it was clear. Their arguments had made an impact. And so the jury had a verdict. We, the jury, find as follows. Count one, malice, murder. We find the defendant not guilty. Count two, felony murder, we find the defendant not guilty. Not guilty of murder, as well as the lesser charges of assault

and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. And I'm just sitting there and I'm thinking, I have failed this family. And that was hard. We did good work on this case. Say that you don't trust the police because of the interview. Say you don't trust the forensic evidence. You still have the 911 tapes where she says, I shot my boyfriend.

Two hours later, Mary Catherine Higdon was a free woman oh i cannot believe this is happening right now as she watched the woman who killed her son walk free jennifer freeman could barely contain her anger toward the jury stephen definitely got the short end of the stick because I don't believe that they even listened. Victor insists he was just following the law. I think she killed him, and that's wrong. But you voted not guilty. Because of the evidence. Am I understanding you correctly to say that

because the police screwed up, she's not guilty? I didn't say she's not guilty. She's not in prison. The jury found you not guilty on all the charges. Do you feel any guilt? Because I love Stephen. And I never meant that to ever happen to him. has at least one game of Monopoly. Introducing the best idea yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with

and the bolder risk-takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products.

Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. Mary Catherine Higdon has moved to another state. To honor Stephen, Jennifer Freeman volunteers to raise awareness about domestic violence.

Everyone knew Amy Mullis. All of a sudden, one day, she's dead. Amy's body is face down. Sticking out of her back is a corn rake. She fell on a fork. You don't fall on a rake that has four tines and suffers six puncture wounds. 48 Hours, Saturday at 10, 9 Central on CBS.

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.