48 Hours - Target Justice

Episode Date: February 14, 2016

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Coughlin County is a large county with a small town feel. We're over 100,000 in population, but you wouldn't immediately think that. And especially great here in Kauffman where you have the town square. Going to be another nice day, sunny, breezy, and warm with a high of 67 this afternoon. I was in the tax office. It was my first month. Someone in my office came to me and said, ma'am, I'm sure I heard shots fired back outside. And then we went into lockdown. Somebody's been shot. Who is it? One man went in that way, and this guy's been here and shot him about five times.

I come to the courthouse here almost every day. And as I was driving in, I saw a person clothed all in black. Are they sending an ambulance, ma'am? There was the shoving match, and then he took the gun and shot. His mom helped me! Oh, my God, it's Mark Haskins, his assistant district attorney.

You heard the gunshots? Yes. How many gunshots did you hear? I counted three. I knew there were at least two more. We had one of our assistant district attorneys assaulted and shot and he is deceased. His name was Mark Hasse. Kauffman County, the state of Texas, and especially my office, has suffered a devastating loss today. He was a good guy. It's a daring daylight attack very close to the courthouse square.

It froze everybody. It was a huge story. very close to the courthouse square. It froze everybody. It was a huge story. What was the first theory? Aryan Brotherhood. White supremacists. Prison gang known as the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, or ABT. The largest and most violent prison gang. 34 alleged members of the Aryan Brotherhood.

Mexican drug cartels. It was anybody's guess. Mark was a prosecutor. He was kind of the go-to guy in Kauffman. The first thing that we did was look at Mark Hasse's docket for that day, and then we looked at previous cases and so on. It was, you know, a whodunit at that point in time. Freeze, man! Look! cases and and so on it was you know a whodunit at that point time I hope that the people that did this are watching we're gonna pull you out of whatever

hole you're in we're gonna bring you back and let the people of Kauffman County prosecute you they found any leads or caught anybody yet? Everybody's on edge here. Keep my doors locked and my guns loaded. You can't believe that, you know, an assistant district attorney has been gunned down, you know, here in Coffman County. Nobody knew who was next. Resources were there and we weren't making progress. It was very frustrating. And then I guess around Easter, and we weren't making progress. It was very frustrating. And then I guess around Easter, everything changed. Authorities tell us they are operating

under the possibility that tonight's murders could be related to that of former Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse. If it could happen once, it could happen twice. But I think I didn't want to believe it was true. When you deal with bad people, you know that there's always the potential for these bad people to do something bad to you.

I'm Richard Schlesinger. Tonight on 48 Hours. Target justice. justice in the Pacific Ocean halfway between Peru and New Zealand lies a tiny volcanic island it's'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 have heard it. 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. 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 Informants Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. A veteran prosecutor shot in broad daylight. Kauffman County DA was shot to death.

Three, four. Thankfully, there aren't many small towns or big cities that have gone through what Kauffman, Texas has. Their first assistant DA, Mark Hasse, was shot at 8 o'clock in the morning on a busy street just a block from the courthouse. In this small town, there was a huge turnout at the service for Hasse, who was 57 and unmarried, but very well known. Kaufman is just 30 miles from Dallas, but it's a different world, rural, and until January 31, 2013, quiet. I was driving up this road. I saw the shooter cross that street,

and Mark was walking this way. When I first got out of my car, I heard a gunshot, so I turned and looked towards this direction. Linda Bush and Kelly Blaine were headed to the courthouse that morning. Linda is a lawyer, a former police officer. Kelly is a court coordinator. Neither is a stranger to crime or criminals, but they were not prepared for what they saw and heard that morning. He shoved Mark like this. Mark straightened up, shoved back, and then he took the gun and shot right into his neck. gun and shot right into his neck. What did he look like? He had on a black mask that covered his face.

Couldn't tell what he looked like or his age at all. The gunman fired two final shots into the air and raced to his car. Just then, Linda Bush, the ex-cop, happened to be driving by on her way to work. She saw the shooting and the gunman, whose face and body were completely covered. So Linda pulled in to try to read the license plate number on the shooter's car, but there was no license plate. The shooter took off, and so did Linda. And so did Linda. She followed the car for about three blocks down this road. She tried to call 911, but she was nervous and she had a new phone,

so she fumbled and kept dialing 991. And the killer got away. Linda hurried back to the crime scene where she was captured on a police car's dashboard camera, giving Hassee CPR. I gave CPR until the police officer came and they took me aside and they said, we'll take it now. The identity of the masked murderer remained a mystery, but there was no disguising the impact of Hasse's killing. Sheriff David Burns and Hasse's boss, D.A. Mike McClellan, had a press conference within hours. We're in the process of running down many leads right now. It felt like a family member died.

My name is Mike McClellan. I'm the criminal district attorney for Kauffman County. We lost a really, really good man. He was an excellent friend and a spectacular prosecutor. And this was pretty unprecedented. I mean, it was an attack on the judicial system, the way we looked at it. Because Hasse was Mike McClellan's chief deputy, special prosecutors had to be brought in. Dallas attorneys Toby Shook and Bill Worski took over one of the most important cases they'd ever had. Killing a prosecutor is like killing a police officer. Another one's going to take his place. We thought we were the right ones to take Mark Hasse's place and to try to get justice to the person that murdered him.

Local police immediately began the hunt for the killer. Soon, state and federal officers swarmed Kaufman to offer help. It was up to Lieutenant Jolie Stewart of the Sheriff's Department to help run the investigation. First order of business? Find that getaway car. We knew we had a light-colored, maybe silver or tan sedan, four-door, maybe a Ford Taurus, and that was going to be our suspect vehicle. You just don't realize how many cars fit that description until you start stopping them. Linda Bush had told police everything she could remember, but it wasn't much.

So the Texas Rangers turned to a hypnotist to try to dredge up whatever was stored in her subconscious memory. Well, I'm always a little bit skeptical about things like that, but I was certainly willing to do it if it would help. Under hypnosis, Linda said there was an unusual pattern on the back of the car. That would help a lot before long, but it didn't mean much then. Investigators were relying on more traditional police work. The mindset when you have a major crime like this, it is to reach out and touch every suspect you can as fast as you can and try to account for them. And the accounts we were getting about how it happened with the murder, getting up close with Mark, it just told me it was probably a grudge or a grievance this person had that was extremely personal.

Mark Hasse was one tough Texas prosecutor. Over a long career, he'd sent a long line of murderers, armed robbers, and drug dealers to the penitentiary. Some of them were free now, bearing grudges and bearing arms. We were literally swamped with suspects. This investigation from day one was like drinking out of a fire hose. There was one man right in Kaufman who police went to see right away, Eric Williams. He was a lawyer and a justice of the peace, but he may well have had a motive to kill Hasse. Williams had been caught and convicted of stealing computer monitors from a county office. The case had been prosecuted by Mark Hasse. You know, it was quite common knowledge that he was

not happy with that. Sheriff Burns had detectives immediately go to his house. He comes to the door with his arm in a sling and claims that he has had shoulder surgery. The deputies tested Williams' hands for gunshot residue. They found none. You know, we had no reason to disbelieve him at that time. But we still, you know, he was still on our radar. But we still, you know, he was still on our radar. That's when public attention started focusing on a white supremacist prison gang, the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, or ABT.

The ABT had just been front page news after a federal indictment charged members of the gang with murder and drug trafficking. The indictment had been sought by a group of prosecutors, including Mark Hasse. And then there were other high-profile shootings of law enforcement officials by members of other white supremacist gangs. About two months after Hasse was killed, Evan Ebel, a member of the 211 prison gang, murdered the head of the Colorado prison system. Two days later, Ebel was pulled over on a lonely Texas highway by a sheriff's deputy who thought something was suspicious about his car. Ebel shot the deputy and sped away, leaving the wounded officer in the grass.

He led police on a high-speed chase through the Texas countryside, about 125 miles from Kauffman. He was finally stopped after hitting a truck and then killed in a shootout. Turns out that Evan Ebel wasn't even in Texas on the day Hasse was killed. And while the white supremacists were getting all the headlines, investigators could not shake the feeling that they were spinning their wheels. The bottom line for those gangs is money. And killing a prosecutor, killing a police officer is just bad for their business. money. And killing a prosecutor, killing a police officer is just bad for their business.

But as the weeks went by without an arrest or a major break in the case, the question became, could whoever have killed Mark Hasse get away with it, even kill again? To be continued... about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bold 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. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman.

It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman,

the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free, with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. For weeks after the murder of Mark Hasse, investigators were drowning in information. Tips and leads that Sheriff David Burns says all went nowhere. 99.9% of what we gathered was not helpful. Nobody had any answers here, right? No.

was not helpful. Nobody had any answers here, right? No. The sheriff and his team began eliminating some suspects with no possible links to the crime. They were convinced that neither the Aryan Brotherhood nor a drug cartel was involved. In Kauffman County, we're not prosecuting any cartel cases. Yet Mark Hasse's murderer was still on the loose.

And everyone around the courthouse was looking over their shoulders, wondering if they were safe or if they were next. Kelly Blaine works in one of the courts. One of the hardest things of all of that to me was helping my 70-something-year-old judge put on a bulletproof vest just so he could leave work and go home. They're turning over every stone. Hasse's boss, District Attorney Mike McClelland, always carried a gun, but his son, J.R., says he worried about people he worked with.

That was the thing about Dad. Being the dad being the DA he felt responsible for everyone in that office. Was he armed? All the time. In fact he was seen on video at a local gun store looking for weapons for his staff. I tried to tell him keep a gun on you at all times. And then just hours after he went to the gun store, two months after Mark Hasse was shot down in broad daylight, there was another, if possible, even more shocking killing. Breaking news right off the top tonight. Hoffman County District Attorney Mike McClellan and his wife have been found shot and killed in their 40 home. It was a grisly killing. The district attorney himself and his wife

were murdered at dawn in a hail of bullets. It was a bad, bad scene. Probably one of the worst two crime scenes I've ever been on because of the blood and the corn. Cynthia McClellan was shot repeatedly with one final shot to her head. J.R. McClellan was driving when he got the news. I got out of the truck and stood there.

I had my kids in there with me. Didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to do. He had to tell his sister, Krista. I was shocked for two or three seconds, and I just broke down. The first thing you think of when you hear something like that is, you know, how long did they suffer? The murder of the McClellans meant the law enforcement community was now dealing with a serial killer who so far had set his sights on them.

Sheriff's Lieutenant Jolie Stewart. Was there any doubt in your mind that these two murders were connected with Mark Hasse's murder? It was one of the first things that entered my mind when I got the call. We knew that it was, they were connected. County officials immediately got round-the-clock armed police protection, and Special Prosecutor Toby Shook took precautions, even though he lived 30 miles away in Dallas. I had my wife take out two guns, told her what the situation was,

and not to open the door. Not even for a police officer? No. And I told her I would be texting her or calling her before I came back to let her know it would be me coming through the door. I wanted to think I knew that nobody was coming after any of us, but the paranoia was crazy. After all the false leads since the Hasse murder,

police got a significant and unexpected break just one day after the McClellans were gunned down. An anonymous tip came into a Crimestoppers website, and the tipster's opening line of his email, do we have your full attention now? He or they certainly did. It was very specific as to the type of ammunition that was used on Mark Cassie's death. So somebody who had that much knowledge probably knew a lot more. So he was definitely somebody that we wanted to start a dialogue with. Whoever it was seemed to be taunting the police, and in the email exchange on the Crimestoppers website,

threatened to commit more murders. By now, with every other suspect eliminated, police turned their full attention to Eric Williams, who lived here. He was the one-time Justice of the Peace who stole those computer monitors. He wasn't hiding. He was riding around town on a Segway and he was talking to investigative producer Jack Douglas of CBS station KTVT. My heart goes out to all the families that have been affected by this tragedy and especially to the the people that work at the Gord House. I worked there for several years while I was going to law school and so I know that it's a tight-knit family

that this is devastating to them. There was a coldness about him. It didn't look genuine to me. Special Prosecutor Bill Worski. He looked smug. He looked like he was smirking and he just looked like a psychopath. What's it make you feel like knowing that you've been somehow wrapped up in this? It actually makes me feel that the police are doing the thorough job they need to. Williams was right. The police were hard at work, learning everything they could about him. Jenny Parks thought she knew Eric Williams pretty well, and she liked him. Professionally, very friendly. She's a local attorney in Coffman County and has known Williams since he was a young court coordinator in town.

Anything you needed done on that docket, he would make sure it got done or set. I didn't know of anyone that didn't like him, you know, back when he first started practicing law. I didn't know of anyone that didn't like him, you know, back when he first started practicing law. But everything changed in May 2011, just six months after Williams had been elected justice of the peace. That's when he was caught repeatedly on surveillance video, taking those monitors and other equipment from a county building. He said he needed them for his office, but within two weeks, he was arrested. I don't think that you actually believe, I mean, you're an educated person, I see your class ring on your finger, that you can just walk into an ID department

and say, I need a monitor, I'm taking that one. I mean, there's places that do that. I mean, there's places that do that. Places being here in Colman County or? Well, I mean, there's businesses that do that. It was Mark Hasse and Mike McClelland who decided to prosecute Williams for the computer theft, a felony. And some people thought they had gone too far. I thought it was crazy.

I just know he wasn't stealing them from the county, misappropriating them. He was going to use them for a legitimate purpose. I feel sure about that. He maybe didn't go through the right channels to obtain them because he didn't get along with the person that allotted them. There was even speculation that this was a political prosecution. Williams had supported McClellan's opponent in the election. I don't think my dad and Mark Hasse tried Eric Williams any different than they would have tried anybody else if they'd have done something that broke the law and had charges filed against them. And in fact, prosecutors offered Williams a deal, plead guilty to a misdemeanor and avoid jail. He refused.

He told me because it was all fabricated and he would win and there was nothing to worry about and there was no problem. And he didn't want to have a misdemeanor on his record. Eric Williams was a member of the International High IQ Society, M Mensa, but his decision was not a very smart one. Williams went on trial and was convicted of a felony, and it cost him almost everything he had worked for. Shortly thereafter, of course, he lost his right to be an elected public official. He lost his health insurance. He lost his law license eventually, which meant his livelihood, his ability to provide for his family.

So he lost a lot. Yes, sir. Didn't go to jail. No, sir. But he lost a lot. Yes, sir. And Prosecutor Toby Shook says Williams was out for revenge.

And the judge sentenced him to probation and the computer record showed the next day on LexisNexis, he started searching Mark Cassidy, where he lived, and that sort of thing. Tanya Ratcliffe started hearing about Eric Williams from her close friend, Cynthia McClellan, the DA's wife. They were both members of a quilting club, and she knows the McClellans were concerned about Williams ever since that trial. They told me about some of his history with having been prosecuted before, and that they thought he had just the personality type that couldn't stand being humiliated. Did they think that he was humiliated?

Yes. And after Hasse's murder, the McClellans were even more concerned. Did they feel like targets? Possibly, yes. Did she ever say anything? Yes, she did tell me that she felt that Eric Williams was behind it and that they were going to take precautions at home to take care of themselves.

Mike McClellan from day one, minute one, knew that it was Eric Williams that had gunned down Mark Cassie. That's why Sheriff's deputies went to Williams' house that day. They checked out his story that he had had shoulder surgery and within days they determined he was lying. So we asked Sheriff David Burns why wasn't Williams arrested then? For what?

Murder. Well, where's our evidence that he did it? We had no evidence. He lied to the police about? That's not an offense. It is federally. You can't lie to a federal officer. You can lie to us all day. And quite frankly, we can't expect most people we talk to to lie to us.

They needed more. They needed Eric Williams, the man from Mensa, to do something dumb. And they were about to get lucky. For being a self-proclaimed genius thinking he was smarter than everyone he made some some pretty stupid mistakes after da Mike McClelland and his wife Cynthia were killed... Kaufman County courthouse employees looked visibly shaken. Texas lawmen knew any one of them could be next. But even though they felt certain Eric Williams was their man,

they didn't have enough on him, so everyone was on edge, especially at the courthouse. Some employees felt safer going into the building escorted by law enforcement officers. Others vowing to protect themselves packed a lunch and a gun. And they were running out of time. Remember that anonymous crime stoppers tip? The tipster had threatened that the killings would resume soon. Then he made a threat that these assaults would continue unless a Kauffman County judge resigned by the next Friday. The police had to find the source of the tip before the fatal deadline. With the clock ticking, they found this surveillance footage from businesses near the McClellans' house taken around the time of the murders.

We saw white Ford Crown Victoria on different pieces of video footage entering the neighborhood at about the right time and exiting at about the right time. So at that point, in addition to trying to interview Eric Williams, our focus was trying to find that white Ford Crown Victoria. to interview Eric Williams, our focus was trying to find that white Ford Crown Victoria. Eric Williams had hired lawyers who prevented police from talking to him, but luckily for the police, that changed suddenly. We get an email on our phone from Eric Williams' lawyers saying we no longer represent Eric Williams, and that was a big moment in the investigation because we immediately realized he's not represented by lawyers so we can send officers over to attempt to interview him. But police still didn't have enough evidence to get what they really wanted, a warrant to search here inside the

house where Eric Williams lived. They have to get his permission and that didn't seem very likely except Williams was full of surprises. And when the police asked, he said yes and invited them in. And that fits in with his psychopathic, egotistical mindset. He thought he could fool law enforcement in this case. Armed with Eric Williams' permission and several pistols, Armed with Eric Williams' permission and several pistols, Major Dwayne Dockery of the Texas Rangers and another officer entered the house well aware that they were now alone with the man they believed had committed three murders. One of us had to be watching him all the time because if he did have weapons in there,

he would have known where they were. We wouldn't have known where they were. The officers made an audio recording of the entire search. because if he did have weapons in there, he would have known where they were. We wouldn't have known where they were. The officers made an audio recording of the entire search. Because they had no warrant, they could only look for things where Williams allowed. Is this your watch, Steph? Yeah, look in there. I don't want to see it. But they saw enough. They found parts of weapons that could have been used in the murders. First, they found a gun sight.

He had told me that sight hadn't been on a gun, and I asked him about that. This has been on a gun at one time. I mean, it's even got oil on it, which has been cleaned and everything. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. His only response then was, well, that wouldn't surprise me. And they found more. What is that? A secret 3500B? was, well, that wouldn't surprise me. And they found more. I asked him about it. He said he didn't know what it was. And it's a device that uses infrared technology to find heat signatures

up to 900 feet away. Heat signatures can help find people. It was enough to get that warrant they wanted for a detailed search of the house and they came back the next day with more manpower including the FBI. They went through every inch of the house and they got very lucky. Biggest thing they found during the search is we found a title to a white Ford Crown Victoria. Just validated what we thought, that we were on the right track, that Eric Williams was our killer, and we were getting close to getting him. It was a huge break, but not the only one. Here in the entryway to the Williams house, police found a scrap of paper tucked inside a computer bag. There were some numbers scribbled on it, and it didn't take long to figure out what they meant. When you call in

a Crimestoppers tip, you get a personal ID number, because all that's anonymous. We contacted the administrator on Crimestoppers, and we were able to find out that number was linked to that certain tip that we got. That tip was the one that correctly identified the ammunition used to kill Mark Hasse and threaten to kill again. It was enough to arrest Williams for something, and that very night he was arrested without incident at his home for making deadly threats.

But there was still not enough to charge him with murder. We still hadn't located the murder weapon. We hadn't located the getaway car. And we were a little bit dejected after the search that we didn't locate the white Crown Victoria. One thing that happened during the execution of the search warrant is the media showed up. We have breaking news now in Kauffman County. Investigators are searching the home of former Justice of the Peace Eric Williams. And the search was carried on live TV.

Chopper 11 is live right now. And that led to the biggest break yet. The morning after the search was televised, one viewer called Bill Worski. It was a friend of Eric Williams who told me, hey, I've got some information I think you need to know. I know about a secret storage place that Eric Williams has. A secret storage place? Yes. He told us that he had rented a storage unit on behalf of Eric Williams because Eric Williams didn't want his name associated with this storage unit,

and he was able to lead us to that storage unit. Police quickly got a warrant for the unit that Williams secretly rented a few towns away. We had law enforcement just surrounding the storage unit and we finally cut into the lock. Once we raised the door, there's the white Crown Victoria. The Crown Victoria, one of the crown jewels in the case against Eric Williams. And it was like Christmas morning, and the Dallas Cowboys went in the Super Bowl, all rolled into one, and there were a lot of hugs and high fives. And I told my wife this, that I said, other than the birth of my children, that was probably the best feeling I ever had. Besides the car was a boatload of weaponry. Dozens of guns.

Thousands of rounds of ammunition. Police badges. thousands of rounds of ammunition, police badges, bulletproof vests, and a crossbow. That locker was a tactical officer's dream. And it was more than enough for the detectives. So on April 18, 2013, almost three weeks after the McClellans were killed, Eric Williams was charged with capital murder for shooting them and prosecutor Mark Hasse.

But it turned out Williams did not act alone. In December 2014, 20 months after being charged with murdering D.A. Mike McClelland, his wife Cynthia, and prosecutor Mark Hasse. And be seated, please. Eric Williams went on trial in front of people who used to be his courthouse colleagues. And to the indictment, how do you plead, sir? Guilty or not guilty? Not guilty. Plea is not guilty, and we are for trial. It had been a long and difficult investigation. You'll hear circumstantial evidence, forensic evidence, fingerprint evidence.

And now, Prosecutor Bill Wierske could finally tell everyone in the courtroom it was Eric Williams who shot down their friends for revenge after being prosecuted for stealing those computer monitors. He began to plot. He began to plan to seek vengeance, fatal and vital retribution. This case was undeniably personal to Wierski, and he got up close and personal to Williams when he said Williams killed Cynthia McClellan because she was in the way. She died because she was married to Mike McClellan and she died because this fan didn't want to leave a witness to a murder. Prosecutors had a ton of evidence. The weapons stockpile, the Crown Victoria,

police uniforms and badges, and compelling witnesses. She was just laying on the ground in the dried blood, coagulated blood. Dallas police officer Charles Tomlinson was the first at the McClellans' house that night. He'd been down the street visiting his parents, who were good friends of the McClellans, and they followed him to the crime scene. My parents were behind me, and my mom immediately hit the ground. When you say hit the ground, describe what you thought. She just fell to her knees and started crying.

The defense made no opening statement and called no witnesses. Mike McClellan's son, J.R., and daughter, Krista, looked on as Williams' lawyer made the case, but the prosecution had not made its case. Eric Williams did not commit these murders. There's not one single piece of biometric evidence that ties Eric to the McClellan home. Not one fingerprint, not one piece of DNA, not one hair, nothing. All rise for my jury. The jurors seem to decide not only was there no reasonable doubt, there was no doubt at all.

It took just an hour and 40 minutes to reach a verdict. We, the jury, unanimously find the defendant, Eric Lyle Williams, guilty of capital murder as charged in the indictment. You may be seated. But some of the most shocking testimony would come next, in the sentencing phase of the trial, where the jury would decide if Williams would get the death penalty. It was the debut of a star witness.

You are Kim Williams? Yes, I am. The wife of Eric Williams? Yes. Eric Williams' wife of 16 years, Kim, had also been charged with all three murders. She admitted she drove the getaway cars after all the killings. Were you a willing participant in these murders? Yes, I was. Kim had since filed for divorce and said she took part in the murders because she was addicted to painkillers. Tell the members

of the jury what you were addicted to. Oxycontin, morphine, Valium, Provigil, a lot of stuff. The soon-to-be ex-Mrs. Williams confirmed her husband's motive for murder was anger, fury really, that he was convicted for stealing those computer monitors. Why did you agree to drive for the murder of Mark Hasse? I was so drugged up and I so believed in Eric and everything that he told me. His anger was my anger. This is the getaway car Eric Williams used after the Hasse murder. Remember Linda Bush, the ex-cop who witnessed the shooting? She recalled under hypnosis the shooter's car had a strange pattern on the back. Turns out

this car had a strange pattern right where Linda Bush remembered. It was paw prints. The former owner had been a cat lover. After the Hassee murder, this car broke down and didn't last long enough to use in the McClellan murders. He wanted to use the original car that we used for Mark Hasse, but the transmission blew. Couldn't use it. Kim said that's why Williams bought that white Crown Victoria. And she said he dressed up like a police officer to dupe the McClellans into letting him into the house. She also said after killing the McClellans, she and Eric celebrated.

We had barbecue steaks. Well, we had steaks on the grill, and Eric cooked those. What was the mood like at the cookout? Happy. Joyous. And Williams was also apparently not finished. After the McClellans were killed, were there more on the hit list? Yes. Kim said judges would have come next, specifically the one who'd mentored Williams

and urged him to take that plea deal in the theft case. He bought a crossbow with razor tips. Votable state'sit Number 407. Among all the items found in the storage unit, one of the most puzzling and chilling had been homemade napalm stored in, of all things, pickle jars. Kim Williams says it was meant for the judge. He was going to wait for him and shoot him with the crossbow and then bore his stomach out and put the napalm in it. Kim Williams's testimony might well have sealed her husband's

fate, but Mike McClellan's family wanted a chance to talk to him. McClellan's son and daughter, Krista and J.R., did not hold much back. You're a sorry S.O.B., and we hope you rot. I wish you could look me in the eye right now, but you can't. J.R. heard how Williams had celebrated after killing Mike and Cynthia and taunted him. Tonight, while you're eating bologna sandwich, I'm going to have steak, ribeye, baked potatoes, a fat glass of sweet tea, and I'll be there to watch you die along with the rest of my family. And Cynthia's daughter, Christina Foreman, might have given the kind of send-off most people in Kauffman would have wanted for Eric Williams. Pretty much the only

thing I have to say is f*** you, Eric Williams. I apologize to the court, and I hope that you get exactly what you deserve. Eric Williams was sentenced to death. The people of Kauffman County, I know you've been scared for the last couple of years. No reason to be scared anymore. We're in recess. He always thought, and probably still today thinks, that he's the smartest person on the face of the earth. Well, look where he is now. Exactly. He may be the smartest man on Texas death row. Kim Williams pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

What did you expect justice to feel like? I guess you expect it to feel like this big ball of relief just rolls over you and everything is good now and everything was terrible and now everything's great. And what did it feel like? It felt no different. It was the outcome the McClellans wanted and needed. But justice can only take a person so far. It is still up to the McClellans, like all survivors, to find a way to move on and move past the trial and the tragedy. You know, Dad wouldn't want us to sit and grieve him forever, so you pick up, you go home, and start living life again.

But I don't think it'll ever be easy. Eric Williams' request for a new trial was denied. Williams has filed for a stay of execution. It can take more than 20 years of appeals before an execution. Was 40 years a just sentence for Eric Williams' wife, Kim? Chat now with correspondent Richard Schlesinger on Twitter. 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.