48 Hours - Accused

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

Sheila Bryan was driving with her mother when she suddenly lost control of the car and veered off the road into a ditch. Sheila escaped but her mother was locked inside when the car burst into flames. Sheila was charged with her mother's murder, but did she intentionally set her car on fire or was it a tragic accident? "48 Hours" correspondent Susan Spencer reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 7/9/2001. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays and stream on demand on Paramount+. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Sheila is a loving wife and mother. She was also a devoted daughter. She loved the mother. They had the best relationship. So everyone was shocked when she was charged and convicted of an unthinkable crime, murdering her own mother. You think it's ridiculous. Anybody who knows my mother knows she's not capable of anything like that.

But the prosecution says the evidence proves it. Sheila Bryan set that car on fire with her mama inside the car. Now, Sheila may have one last chance to prove she is innocent. I really believe that a woman had been convicted without any real evidence. This expert says it was an accident. I found the real cause. Can he save her from life in prison? Between him and God, we'll prove it.

Susan Spencer investigates. Did you have anything to do with intentionally starting that fire? No. Who is my mother. A 48 hours mystery accused. My focus has always been my family. I enjoy doing stuff with my children and for my children and for my husband.

Not long ago, Sheila Bryan was a typical American mom, living with her husband in Omega, Georgia, happily raising her two daughters. I'm a mom. I'm proud to be a mom. But in 1996, her life began to unravel. First, she lost her 82-year-old mother. You were close to her?

She'd always been there. Then, she says to her total shock, she was charged with her mother's murder. This is my room on A-Hall, room 116 at Pulaski State Prison. Charged, tried, and convicted. This is my bed. Sheila insists she insists she is is completely innocent.

It's hard to comprehend that somebody would even suggest that I did that. And her family and friends find the charges impossible to even consider. We've known her since she was about three years old. To know she'll is to love her, and she loved her mother. They had the best of the relationship. She couldn't do what they accused her doing.

You think it's ridiculous. This woman didn't kill her mother. But the state of Georgia says justice was served. About the only thing that everyone can agree on is that 82-year-old Frida Weeks and her daughter, Sheila, went for a drive on a hot August day in 1996. And before that day was over, what was left of Sheila's burned-out car was at the bottom of that embankment, and Frida Weeks was dead. We just went riding around for a little bit, you know, just reminiscing,

and which we've done that for years. Sheila says as she approached this bridge... I don't know what happened. She momentarily became distracted. She lost control. All of a sudden, I was just off the road. When her car finally settled at the bottom of the embankment, she says her mother was very still.

She didn't respond to me, and I was scared. And Sheila found she couldn't turn the car off. And I'm trying to get the car off, and I couldn't get the car, and I finally got it, and I'd snatch the keys out, and they dropped. She got out, but couldn't get to her mother. The doors had somehow locked. And that's when I really panicked. She climbed the steep embankment.

desperate for help. Then, turning, says she saw a horrifying sight. I saw a trickle of smoke, and about that time the car come around the curve. So you're coming down this road. Right. She was screaming, crying, shaking her head. She said that her mama was in the car. Danny Weeks jumped out of his car and sent his wife to call the fire department. So I went down there and seen the car. The smoke was like coming up over to the front wind's hill. He ran to get a bucket of water. And I just throwed the water over the top of the car.

But by then, the fire was raging. It didn't have no bearing on it. And where was Sheila during all this? Behind me. She was just shaking and crying. It sounds like by the time you got here it was too late. I think it was. I performed the funeral service.

We thought everything was just following order. You know, the family would go home and grieve. Sheila says she was completely unprepared for what happened next. Sheila told me they're going to exhumed my mother's body. We were contacted about 10 days after the actual incident. Georgia Bureau of Investigation Agent John Heinen was looking into the death. The accident was certainly suspicious. The medical examiner said Frida Weeks probably died of heart failure

and possibly before the fire began. But Heinen says other circumstances surrounding the case were very peculiar. No damage to the vehicle, no personal items in the car. The gas cap of the car was missing, the fuel door was open. Most incriminating of all, though, was the report from the state fire investigators. Their conclusion, it was arson. Though fire destroys everything in its path, investigators say it leaves its own clues. By sifting through what remains of Sheila's car, they can determine how the fire burned, how it grew, and how it began. What did the fire investigators evidence actually show? It was an intentionally set incendiary fire.

District Attorney David Miller's theory of what happened that day was far different from Sheila's. Sheila Bryan drove that car down the side of that embankment and set that car on fire with her mama inside the car. The whole situation was so ludicrous that at first it was just like, you know, you gotta be kidding. And then as it progressed, it becomes... it becomes, these people are really serious. In 1998, two years after that fatal drive, Sheila Bryan, a homemaker who'd never been accused of any crime, stood trial for arson and murder.

I would have loved for the woman to have been not guilty. It's not something that we wanted to do. Sonja Willett, her husband, Aaron, and Monica Funderberg, all sat on the jury and all agreed. That's a tremendous fire. This fire did not start itself. The fact showed that. to me that the fire was set by her hand.

Did you think up to the last second that you would be found not guilty? Yes, I sure did. After eight hours of deliberation, the jury voted to convict. You think that you're because you're innocent, that things won't go wrong, you're mistaken. And Sheila Bryant was sentenced to life plus 20 years.

One minute, you're Sheila Bryan, normal mother. mother, housewife, the next minute you're in prison for the rest of your life. Yeah. You just went numb. Sheila's husband Carlos, a house painter, was suddenly left to raise their daughters on his own. I had resigned to the fact that our life together would be four or five hours once a week at the prison. But Sheila's friends never have given up. She's innocent.

We will fight the case with all our strength, with all our heart and all our minds. There's no doubt about it. And now, after nearly a year in prison, Sheila may get a second chance when 48 hours continues. 10-year-old Kerry Bryan and her sister Carla remember when they could visit their grandmother every day, just by walking out the back door to her house. Every day, we used to take a walk up here, and we had a little path where the grass had worn out because we'd walked it so much, and we'd have little witty tea parties with the little cups and the little saucers and little crumpets and things. But when 82-year-old Frida Weeks died, the girls lost their grandmother, and then they lost their mother too.

It has been traumatic at times to not be able to hold them. Sheila Bryan was sentenced to life in prison for murder for setting fire to her car with her mother inside. Why? Did you have anything to do with intentionally starting that fire? No. That was my mother. If you could see in my heart, it would know that I could never do anything to harm her. And yet the state found that you did.

The state was mistaken, badly mistaken. But now, after serving nearly a year in prison, Sheila has new hope. The Georgia Supreme Court has overturned her conviction. Why? Sheila's alleged motive. With broad strokes, prosecutors began painting Sheila Bryan as a woman who murdered her mother for her insurance money. The court said the state had misled the jury by suggesting that the liability insurance on the Brian's car was somehow the motive, erroneously implying that Sheila Brian had a lot to gain from her mother's death. So when her friends post bond... It's a happy day.

because Sheila's coming home from prison. Sheila is coming home. We're just ready for her to come home. To have her back at the house with us. At least for a while. I'm expecting to go home. And just hug my young and Carlos. And Della, my arms get tired.

You're coming with my babies. I've learned to. I've learned to. Put all my trust in to the Lord. is the Lord. This has been the longest time that he's carried me. I think your richness was measured by the friend that you have. I feel pretty wealthy.

Let's go home. Okay. Home, Sheila. But for all the people who believe in Sheila's innocence, others believe that a murderer has just been set free. And District Attorney David Miller is taking her to court again. couldn't sleep at night if we didn't retried. Though it tossed out her conviction, the Supreme Court did not throw out the state's key evidence,

testimony of its fire experts. The experts told the jury the fire was started with a highly flammable liquid. Though two labs found no trace of it in all the materials they took from Sheila's car, the expert said definitely liquid was used. Their evidence? The telltale burn pattern it left behind.

what we were shown. Showed a definite flame pattern. The fire was hotter in certain areas than others. The jury found that very convincing. It was like a straight line. It was like a trail. And there was no testimony that this could have been caused in any other way. No other way.

You know, with all of the flame retardant materials that are in cars these days, you know, they're put there to keep a car from catching on fire and burning as quickly as it did. If the facts and evidence has presented show that she intentionally killed her mama this way, then this 82-year- woman died a horrible death, and she should be held responsible for it. But today, she looked like you growled at foot. Sheila is trying to forget that a new trial looms.

She's home. Come on. She's nice. For now, she's treasuring the present. Most people just take every little thing for granted. Walking in the front door. Stepping back into the lives of her daughters. Being able to, um,

Hold your child who we want to do. And of Carlos, her husband of 28 years, catching up on what she missed. Where's the place? Y'all buy the big economy size? She ain't through it, speaking. I just know I missed a lot in their lives. She missed my first homecoming. Carla's 16th birthday and Carrie's 10th birthday.

Those are big birthdays. Oh yeah. I'm sorry I missed it. It's okay. You're right now. What do you now understand they were going through? They went through a lot of heartache and adjusting to not having a mother who had always been there. 7.15.

Where's Carrie? All right here. Come on. She always did everything with the girls and farther girls. Help me up. Help me up. I'm falling. And a lot of things.

change when you go. Was your sister trying to be your mother and your sister? I was the closest thing she had. It's just a lot of adjustment. You know, to try to. Shake, shake, come on. Get your family back in like it was. Mama, Carla!

Whoa, hold up right there. And now we're fixing to go through it all over again. Now that we have it, we try to use up all the time that we have together. Just in case. Well, you know, one day you'll just be. so thankful that your hair has so much body. You've been telling me that. If Sheila loses in court again, she will be taken away from her family forever.

It just overwhelms every now and then. So her friends have stepped up their efforts to defend her. We've got to prepare her for the next round. Raising money. We'll start out. Give you a treasurer's report of $5,6.76.71. Offering prayers. praying Father, the divine will of God will be accomplished here.

Doing research, looking for any way to refute the incriminating expert testimony the new jury is bound to hear. We never doubted Sheila, and we felt like we needed somebody who could show how the fire started. And remarkably, they did find someone. Out of nowhere, Austin, Texas. Someone who might be the answer to their prayers. I really believe that a woman had been convicted without any real evidence. That's next. How's Miss Files today?

Sheila Bryan savors her newfound freedom. How are you today? Even at her part-time job, delivering meals to the elderly. You're out of tea. An unlikely job, perhaps, for someone once convicted of setting a car on fire with her 82-year-old mother trapped inside. To me, that's the most horrendous thing that you could think of. I can't even comprehend it.

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for this meal. Her family is grateful for the six months she's, been home from prison. It's not easy being 15 and turning 16 and doing everything mom did. But the new trial is only days away. I'm a little nervous, but that's just to be expected. I just hate to see my kids go back through this again. This is not something a 10-year-old means. Sheila soon will face the same two witnesses who already have convinced one jury that she deliberately set the fire. I think both of the fire inspectors were very convincing to me. But this time those experts will be challenged by Gerald Hurst, a scientist with a Ph.D.

in chemistry tracked down by Sheila's friend. The jurors were very impressed with the state's experts. The state's experts were good, good at presenting their case, but technically I thought they were full of prunes. Hearst says there is no reason to label this fire arson. I really believed that a woman had been convicted without any real evidence. And that makes you mad? Yeah, sure it does. Between him and God, we'll prove it. Now, two days before Sheila's new trial begins, he's going to be all in black, okay?

He's flying in from Austin, Texas, at his own expense to testify. Hi, I'm fine, how are you? To he hopes, shoot down the state's theory. interested in cases that use junk science to persecute people. Because I'm a scientist and it really offends me. The state's experts said that only a fire started with a flammable liquid, an accelerant, could have blazed through Sheila's car as this one did. The jurors bought it.

The hottest portion of fire was across the floorboard. And that meant what to you? That there was an accelerant of some sort. Period. Yes. No doubt in my mind. So Sheila must. have started it, the jury reasoned, since cars certainly don't set themselves on fire.

But Gerald Hurst thinks that may be exactly what this one did. In my mind, it was probably caused by the ignition switch. The U.S. government looks into a potential fire hazard. For years, Ford was in the news because ignition switches in some Ford and Mercury vehicles were causing them to burst into flames. The suspect switches were installed in more than 23 million fords from 1980. 84 to 1993. Just months before Frida Weeks died, Ford recalled about a third of those vehicles.

Sheila's model was not included because Ford says its switch design is different. But critics say it poses the same potential fire hazard. This particular ignition switch has a history of starting fires like that. And the fires that have been started by ignition switches look a lot like this fire looked. At Sheila's trial, state investigators said they eliminated all accidental causes. Which of the experts at this trial did you find to be the most persuasive? Ralph Newell. The whole truth, nothing but truth to get.

Ralph Newell was a prosecution expert who was originally brought in by the insurance company. They couldn't sway him. He had an answer. Every question they presented him, he had a reasonable and believable answer. Newell was never asked about the ignition switch. something he knew a lot about. Just a year before the fire, he was a consultant to Ford,

heading its Ignition Switch Task Force. Were you surprised that the whole ignition switch thing never came up in the first trial? I was flabbergasted, particularly when she said she had trouble turning the key mechanism off. That's a red flag. Gerald Hurst argues that the state's theory is simply wrong.

If pouring of the liquid didn't cause this long, irregular burn pattern, what did? Fall down. Fall down? Yeah, dripping, flaming plastic. There's more of that flammable plastic right there. Hurst says the plastic and foam in today's cars are chemical cousins of gasoline. Once ignited, nothing extras needed for a car to burn intensely.

Well, here's your pore. Your liquid pour. It's coming. I had to heat the plastic up. Andy says he can prove it, using materials from some 87 cougars, the same model Sheila drove, that fateful day. We've got a piece of carpet and I've got a piece of the steering column shroud here. Sheila and her supporters watch as Hearst experiments. I just want to see if I can set that carpet on fire by letting plastic drip on it.

There we go. She's starting. The plastic catches on fire and begins to burn. As it burns it melts and as the melting drops, they're like little flaming meteors. You're watching the plastic not self-extinguish when it hits the carpet. If you can get a fire started, you can burn a whole car out without an accelerator. A heart's fluttering. You just wanted answers, concrete stuff, to be able to put your finger on, to say, you know, this is what happened. At last, Sheila says she understands how this tragic fire may have started.

But with the trial about to begin, everyone is nervous. It's scary. It's really scary. Because we were so positive at the last trial. Even the expert, they're counting on. I hope it'll help. Truth and justice don't always prevail at trial. When we come back,

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She actually doesn't remember the trial before. So to help ease her mind, she wanted to come. Sheila Bryan is letting her 10-year-old daughter Carrie skip school today. This is the first day of the trial, and I'm jittery. I'm a little scared. So she can be in court when Sheila stands trial. If you leave things to a child's imagination, it can, when you can go. it can really go wild.

She needed to be able to visualize what was going on. It's been three and a half years since her mother died in Sheila's car, and prosecutor Brad Shealy insists it was murder. Basically, Ms. Brian took her mother in a car, drove the car off the side of the road, put an audible fluid in there and lit it. If convicted again,

Sheila will go to prison for life. You swear it's a testimony about the giving the following criminal matter to be the truth, the whole tooth, and never but the truth help you guide? Yes, sure. All right. Did you notice anything about the gas cap with gas flap on the car? The gas cap was missing, the fillet was open. Sheila's new lawyer, Converse Bright, argues there is nothing very suspicious about that.

If something occurs, you can either look at it as a sinister thing or an innocent thing. Many people think when you wreck a car and you have a gas, tank open. It's going to explode. Leaving the gas cap off is something that I do, and I think a lot of people do all the time. Once you got on the scene, what did you do? By the day's end, she lay down, went to sleep. And she did good. All the Bryans are a little relieved. I think it worked real well. Good, pug. But the next day, you have a seat right here, please, sir. The experts who were key to Sheila's first conviction again testify. Ronnie Dobbins from the fire marshal's office and fire expert Ralph Newell. It's my opinion. This fire was incendiary in its origin. Sheila is hoping her expert. Gerald Hurst

can convince the jury that a faulty ignition switch probably started this fire. It's in exactly the right location for what they described as the point of origin of this fire. But Ralph Newell flatly dismisses that theory. No, I considered it very seriously and I found no problems with it other than it being exposed to a fire. And although it never came up at the first trial, Ronnie Dobbin says the switch was long ago ruled out. I didn't see any cause to call an engineer or anything in to review it. Still, he seems a bit daunted by the details. What does an ignition switch look like? Tell the jury what an ignition switch looks like. It's just wires and some metal components on the steering column. How big is it?

Three inches long? Is it six inches long? Is it a foot long? I have no idea. I mean, I've never took one apart. Did you look at the ignition switch on this mercury coul? Did I? He couldn't tell you how long it was, how big it was, how it was shaped, what color it was.

Can you or can you not describe it? No, sir. Ralph Newell, however, is not so easily rattled. The lack of destruction above the switch, the burn patterns around the switch area, the of damage to the wiring harness around the switch, none of that indicated there was a switch problem. He knows what he's talking about. He knows what the ignition switch looks like. He says it wasn't the initial switch. I mean, that's pretty definitive evidence on that. Shealy contends that all evidence shows that Sheila Bryan set the fire to murder her mother. There was a burn pattern extended.

Both Newell and Dobbins testify that only a flammable liquid could cause the intense irregular burn pattern they saw. There's nothing other that can produce that type of pattern. That burn pattern is hard to see in the charred remains, but one small part of it clearly does stand out. There was some burning along the threshold of the door. Now what does that indicate to you? That the door was open at the time of the fire. Hard evidence, he says, that someone shut that door after the fire began. That's a protected area. When this door is closed, there should be no fire damage whatsoever to this threshold. The first jury found that very telling. She maintains that she shut the door to go get for help. And if that was the case, then how did the burn patterns get on the running board?

And Newell insists the patterns he saw were not caused by dripping flaming plastic. When I cleaned the carpet, I looked for the residue of burning plastic or any pattern created by burning plastic that might give me a false lead. I did not find that. I thought Mr. Newell did very well understand. I think he's a very personal fellow and I think his credibility was very good with the jury. He sure worked that jury. As well as protruding out the door. Just hang in there. You've been doing good. Sheila is worried, worried that this jury will be swayed as the first one was.

It's just going to be whoever the jury believes. And that's sad. It's just going to boil down to somebody's opinion. I'm still trusting in the Lord. And she's also counting the jury. She's also counting more than ever on Gerald Hearst, who says he can explain the state's most incriminating evidence. And they said that could only have been caused by an accelerant being poured there.

I found the real cause. When 48 hours continues. It was a very loving, very normal mother-daughter relationship. Did you ever see Sheila treat her mother violently? No, sir. At trial, the state of Georgia insists that Sheila brought Ryan, in fact, did have reason to murder her mother. Her mother was not the same person that she had loved and cared for it all these years

and that the stress of dealing with her got too much. That motive makes no sense at all to Sheila's friends and family. Mama Weeks and Sheila had an enviable relationship. They were not only mother and daughter, they were friends. Sheila had no skeletons in her closet. They had the very best relationship. All the people who should have known something sinister came forward and testified for him. But Carla actually testified.

Yeah. They had a very good relationship. They were very close. It's painful to see your child up there. Mama did everything she could for grandma. Though character witnesses may help her some. Anybody who knows my mother knows she's not capable of anything like that. It's the experts who probably will decide Sheila's fate.

and the state's experts once again convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that she set fire to her car. Had the fire originated at the ignition switch. Testifying for the prosecution, fire investigator Ralph Newell, who says he ruled out all accidental causes, including the defense's favorite, the ignition switch. I examine the components. There's no arcing, no problems with those, and no evidence of failure of that ignition switch. But then he is grilled about his ties to fire. And they paid you $150,000 a so last year. And his role in heading a task force the company set up to investigate its ignition switches.

I was asked in 1995 to go out in the field to determine if this was really a problem. Of 95? Of 95 and said, yep, you got a problem. You didn't make any reports about ignition switches then, did you? No written reports, no, sir, at their request. Because that was at their instructions. I'd do whatever counsel asked me to do. His recall in 1996 only went back to 1988 and didn't include 87 cougars like Sheila's

because Ford says those older ignition switches have a different design. But critics contend switches in those models have the same potential fire problem. They can catch fire. It's a random event, but the possibility does exist that it will catch fire. The defense's first fire expert, Chris Bloom, says in this case, the switch which could have sparked the blaze. All I can say is that fire damage is consistent with what I've seen. What I was concerned with was making sure the jury had all the facts.

The first trial did not mention the Ford Ignition Switch at all. You saw him to swear that... Finally, Sheila's star witness takes the stand. There we go. She's starting. Gerald Hearst describes his experiments with the plastic stripped from 1987 Cougars like Sheila's. It burns furiously. It's extremely impressive.

Very hot, very big flames, billowing smoke. It's a sight to behold. Not only is that enough to fuel an intense fire, he says, it produces, that's right, irregular burn patterns. No accelerant required. And Hurst challenges the state's most convincing evidence. Remember the burn that supposedly proved Sheila's door was open when the fire began? Hurst found how there might be damage even with that door closed.

There is a break, a factory break, in the door seal there, and there is also some ancient damage to the metal bar that holds that seal. It has been bent out. Because that seal was not airtight, he says, melted plastic flowed through it. You had a very hot car, and you had flaming melted plastic, and it behaved just like any other liquid, it simply flowed. It simply flowed under the door through the brake, and this mass of plastic flowed into here, down through this breach here, and subsequently spread a little to the right and a lot to the left. The state's experts would have seen that, he says, had they not ignored a vital clues.

The obvious thing when I looked at it was there are two marks that look the same. A second mark, further back on the threshold. The similarity is remarkable. You look at the colors and the shapes of these things. you can say, well, they were obviously caused by the same phenomenon. That second mark is nowhere near that burned trail in the front of the car. Those two patterns there were not caused by an accelerant. Those were caused by flowing plastic, and there is no doubt in my mind about that. Which brings him back to the ignition switch as the most likely culprit.

I believe that is by far the most probable cause. But Hearst does admit he cannot prove his theory. You cannot definitely say that the fire was caused. by the electrical short in the initial quits if it occurred can you. I cannot definitely say that it was not caused by a meteorite, but if you look at it from a reasonable standpoint, this is probably an electrical fire. Could it have been an accident? Or was the fire deliberately set?

Which experts, all of them highly experienced, will the jury believe? The closer it gets, the more anxious you get. When we come back... The Lord, we just ask you return the verdict. I'm not guilty. Sheila's fate, the verdict. I have the father, these have been trying days for Sheila. And we come with humble hearts.

And we know that a lot of circumstances have been presented as charges against her. We pray that these might melt away in the minds of the jurors. Sheila Bryan is stealing herself for the jury's decision. Amen. Will she go home with her family? family or go back to prison for life. Carrie's the one I'm really worried about. Last night she was real upset.

I guess they just hit her, you know. She's crying and crying and crying. The jurors take three hours to decide. We, the jury, find the defendant, Sheila Bryan, as to count one, not guilty. When he said the first came to, not guilty it was just like the people in the courtroom sucked out the air because everyone gaffed count two not guilty count three not guilty it was just

like and then and so three and a half long years after her ordeal began Sheila Bryan is acquitted on all charges we said it was gonna be all right for Sheila and the Lord raised It's a triumph of faith. God be the glory, honey. For these jurors, it's simply a question of sound judgment. They did not give us any evidence that she did do it. And we're supposed to convict her on their say-so.

They're skeptical of the state's scenario. She would have to have a can or whatever. Go down that ditch bank. That was a steep embankment. She would have to pour it to floorboard and take a chance on, you know, it catching her, and hope that nobody came down that road. They are unimpressed by the state's evidence. They didn't prove to us that there was an accelerant in that car.

That's right. And there was no motive. And leery of state expert Ralph Newell. Ford pays him $150,000. Do you honestly think he's going to come in here and say that it was an ignition fire or it could have been ignition fire? To them, defense star witness Gerald Hurst made more sense. He had more credibility with the jury than anybody.

Thank you, Don Hurst. I wouldn't have been able to do this. if I hadn't gotten all that help down here. She's got best friends in the world. That's turnip greens. How much did you make off of this? I didn't make much in the way of money. Thank you.

Sheila did make me a chicken casserole. That was it? And I got very well fed for an entire week. You did this pro bono? Oh, yes. What do you make of the fact that another jury not only convicted this woman, but sent her to prison for long?

for life. With evidence that we had, I see no reason they could have done it. Still, some jurors from the first trial... There's no doubt in my mind. Stand firm in their conviction. In my heart, I still think she's guilty. Whether she's a free woman today or not, I still feel like she's guilty. You have a woman sent to prison for life, next trial, she's acquitted, she's free.

I mean, what does this tell you? It tells me that there's an awful lot of randomness in our... court system. It's remarkable. It's frightening, actually. But it was only a fluke that Sheila Brian ever found these experts. District Attorney David Miller admits, had he known at the onset what he knows now, it's possible Sheila Bryan might never even have faced charges. So you now know all about the ignition switch theory. Do you honestly believe that Sheila Bryant killed her mother? What's important is what 12 jurors decided unanimously. You're not going to say, are you? No, ma'am.

It's bad enough that it was done to me, but it's worse that it was done to my children. Somebody in school said something bad about your mom today? What'd they say? That she was a murder. People need to realize, you know, just how easily this could have happened, even to them. Track two, that's right two. No! She slowly sinks in.

Maybe it's all over, you know. The girls know for certain now their mother will not be taken away again. But none of us will never be quite exact the same. Sheila says she is finally beginning to come to grips with losing her mother. Now she can rest. Do you believe that she died before that fire started? Yeah, I do. And that helps me.

What helps even more, she says, is remembering how Frida We weeks lived. Always tried to be a strong person. My mother was a strong person. Would she have had confidence that you would make it through this okay? Yeah. Yeah, she would have. When beloved family patriarch, Gary Ferris, went missing.

His family looked everywhere on their property until they came across something horrifying. It's a homicide. Absolutely. The blame game in this family went round and round. This is blood is thicker. The Ferris Wheel. I don't see how anyone can look at this story and think they were happy. Binge the full series, Blood is Thicker, The Ferris Wheel, on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.