48 Hours - Temptation

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

In June 2007, Dewayne Barrentine met Tausha Fields, a single mother, and shortly after, they started living together in Marianna, Florida. Tausha told Dewayne some unbelievable stories about herself, including that she had a criminal justice degree and a promised inheritance. Dewayne went online to verify her stories and discovered she had been married to Mitchell Wayne Kemp, who had been missing since August 2004. He brought this information to the police and they believed they were dealing with a homicide. “48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 7/9/2011. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.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 at it all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits, 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. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered,

this is the one that troubles me most. A bizarre and maddening tale involving an eyewitness account that doesn't quite make sense. A sister testifying against a brother. A lack of physical evidence. Crosley Green has lived more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove,

the troubled case against Crosley Green, ad free on Amazon Music. ["The Orange Grove Rift"] She's different, ain't no doubt about it. She was a pretty girl. She had a really outgoing personality. She was fun to be around. We got along great. I'm happy most of the time.

I go with the flow. She definitely makes you feel like you're the only person in the world for her. My name is Dwayne Barentine and I dated Tasha Fields. My name is Keith Jones and I also dated Tasha Fields. Almost every guy who was with her said, hey, at times it was really good because she just had this ability to make you feel special and needed, but then it could be really bad. Of all the guys that dated Tasha, nobody had it worse than Mitch Kemp.

Mitch was a wonderful person. He was my friend, my friend for real. I loved him. He had a laugh that I don't even know how to explain it. It would fill the room. When he met Tasha, he changed. He took on more of a serious term. It was just such a transformation.

Just seemed like everything he did was driven by her wants and her needs. Whatever she wants, she got. And I started to find information from her past. And some things just weren't adding up. I don't talk about my past. It's the past. It's gone.

I don't talk about it. I told Mitch the past. It's gone. I don't talk about it. I told Mitch, you need to get away from this girl. My birthday came around in February, and he didn't call. I said, something is wrong. I know it. I know it in my heart. It was like he vanished. I mean, just absolutely vanished.

We met with the detectives and they said we have nothing. Not a receipt, not a credit card, not a phone call, nothing. I think Tosha had something to do with it. The way she changed him and the way she manipulated people. I think something has happened to him. I think Mitch is dead. I had no reason to want Mitch gone. Why? She's a pretty dangerous person because she doesn't look it. She's a sociopath, psychopath, and a monster. I'm not all

those things. She's evil. It's almost like magical. I'm either magical or a witch. Temptation. I'm gonna kill you. Dwayne Barentine is a single dad, working full time while raising his 8-year-old son Bubba just outside the small town of Mariana, Florida. Back in June of 2007, Duane was picking up his son at his daycare center when a woman passed him a note. She said, it's a phone number. I said to who? She said, Miss Tasha. Miss Tasha was 31-year-old Tasha Fields, a single mother who had recently moved to town

with her 4-year-old daughter Lexi and was working at the daycare center. She could be very sexy. And if she wanted a man, she could really pour it on? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There was another big reason Dwayne fell for Tasha. She was really there for my son. I had full custody of him.

He would lay in the bed next to me and I would hear him say his prayers and he would pray for a mama. Dwayne soon felt the same way about Tasha's daughter Lexi. We weren't even dating a month and she said, will you be my daddy? And I said, baby, I said, I'll be whatever you need me to be. Lexi was from a previous marriage that Tasha wasn't keen on talking about. The little girl from that point on called me dad

and I loved her. It wasn't long before Dwayne and Tasha were living together. She makes you feel like she loves you, from love letters to little things that she did. Tasha seemed too good to be true. She even told me in the beginning that she had a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. But the more time they spent together, the more Duane began to question Tasha. Stories just didn't add up.

Starting with strange stories she told of her past. She was supposed to receive an inheritance from her granddad, who was a federal judge who was blinded by a battery blowing up in his face. If he was a federal judge, surely his name is on some documents under Google somewhere. But I never found anything. She's a storyteller.

Absolutely. She can come up with a story in the blink of an eye. So Dwayne kept on digging. You really wanted to know more about her. I did. I wanted to know who I had living in my house with me and my son. As Dwayne combed through computer records,

he came across a marriage license. Where she had married a man named Mitchell Wayne Kemp. I called her up and she told me that, yes, she had been married to Mitchell Wayne Kemp and in fact she had been married five times. She was 30 years of age and she'd been married five times? That's what she said. I couldn't believe it. I really couldn't. Was that a little off-putting? Yeah, just a little.

It turns out Mitch Kemp was an ex-husband and the father of Tasha's daughter Lexi. What happened between you and Mitch? It was a marriage that probably should have never happened. We were more friends and I mean I loved Mitch. I loved him, but I wasn't in love with him. For Dwayne, it was one surprise after another. I never lost my drive to continue to keep figuring out stories that she would tell me.

His digging eventually led him to a face-to-face meeting with this man, Keith Jones, an old boyfriend of Tasha's. I was in love with her and anything else didn't matter. Keith also heard Tasha tell many of the same stories. You couldn't verify anything that she said. I mean, there was a lot of stories. But there was one outrageous story that Dwayne heard for the first time from Keith.

He told me that she was involved in the murder of one of her exes. Murder? Yes. She had a few drinks in her, and she said this guy had raped her and her daughter. And she apparently went to where he was and lured him back to her house.

And he walked in the front door, and that's when Greg shot him in the chest. Greg, as in Greg Morton, another one of Tasha's ex-husbands, whom she married after Mitch Kemp. It just seemed so far-fetched. Did you think about going to the police or the authorities after she told you that story?

No, because I didn't believe it. There was no sense in going to the police when I didn't believe it myself. With the kinds of stories that Tasha tells, isn't it really hard to know what is the truth? It really is, absolutely. So Dwayne left it at that, until a few months later, when he discovered she was cheating on him

and threw Tasha out of the house. How did you react to finding out that Tasha was seeing another guy? Of course it hurt. She broke your heart? Mm-hmm. Humiliated, Dwayne started digging into Tasha's past again, even going on her personal MySpace webpage. When I logged on, there were like three or four messages there.

Are you Tasha Lee Fields? It was there he discovered someone was looking for Tasha's ex-husband Mitch Kemp, who had been missing for four years. I read one of the messages that said we are very concerned. How is Mitch? We haven't heard from him in over four years. The messages were posted by Mitch's relatives,

who were desperate to find him. I just thought every day he's gonna walk through that door, I'm gonna see him, but he never did. That got Dwayne thinking. We've got the child, Lexi Kemp. We've got a marriage license, Mitchell Wayne Kemp. And now the death of one of her exes. There's Kemp, Kemp, Kemp, Kemp, Kemp.

Could the missing Mitch Kemp be the ex-husband in Tasha's far-fetched story of murder? Here's everything. It just fell in on top of me. So Duane reported his bizarre story to the Mariana, Florida police chief. And sure enough, I got a phone call from him that night saying, let's keep this quiet.

I do believe we have a homicide on our hands. What were you thinking at that point? Holy shit. Here we go. Never did I ever think I'd be involved in something like this. In 2014, Laura Hevlin 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. From the award-winning masters of audio horror. I see a face right up against the window.

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Welcome to the Dark Sanctum. Listen to Dark Sanctum Season 2 exclusively on Wondry+. Join Wondry+, and the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. In the six years he had been police chief in Marianna, Florida, Lou Roberts had never heard a story quite like Duane Barentine's. Duane believed that his former girlfriend, Tasha Fields, might be somehow involved in the disappearance of her ex-husband, Mitch Kemp. Duane was very good on dates and times.

I mean, I told Duaneayne he probably should be an investigator. Still, Chief Roberts needed to do some investigating of his own, and that meant going to the story's source, Keith Jones. We interviewed Keith Jones, and it was the same story that I had been hearing from DeWayne. I just had a gut feeling that something had happened to this individual, because, I mean, there had been no activity about his path.

Mitch's brother Tracy had the same feeling, 900 miles away in Boone County, Missouri, where Mitch and Tasha had lived. Just had a gut feeling that something bad had happened and she had something to do with it. Mitch's mother Carol had always believed that Tasha was somehow behind Mitch's disappearance. We all believed it.

Why? Just the type of person she had turned out to be after we got to know her. The family felt very differently about Tasha when Mitch first brought her home in 2001. She was really a sweet girl. What was their relationship like at first? It was good. We had a great time together. Did you love Mitch?

Yes. I could just be me with Mitch. Tasha was 26, Mitch almost 11 years older. It didn't take long, say the Kemp's, for Tasha to change Mitch. He wasn't as playful as he used to be. There are just things that Mitch and I would do together that would start to take a backseat to things that she wanted to do.

She was very manipulative in that whatever she wants, she got. In 2002, their daughter Lexi was born, and the couple soon married. But the good times didn't last long. It was utter chaos. No bills could get paid. But the good times didn't last long. It was utter chaos. No bills could get paid. It was like a rollercoaster ride. You know, they were good and then they were bad. Then they were good, then they were bad. We lived in the same house, but there was nothing there.

After just eight months of marriage, it was over. Tasha moved out, taking Lexi with her. But Tasha wasn't single for long. She was dating Greg Morton, and after just six months, they were married in Missouri. Tasha, Lexi, and Greg became a family. That didn't sit well with Mitch. I remember him telling us that I want to get Lexi back.

That was in August of 2004. Tracy says that was the last time he spoke to his brother. Less than two weeks later, Mitch disappeared. Did you try to get a hold of Tasha to see where Mitch was? She never had anything in her name. Ever. Ever. Never.

No utilities, no bills, nothing. So the Cumps turned to the Boone County Sheriff's Department. But the search for Mitch went nowhere. He had seemingly vanished without a trace. Sheriff's Detective Dave Wilson. There has to be some kind of reason, information that the person could be the victim of foul play. We didn't have any of that information at that time.

Three and a half years later in 2008, Detective Wilson from Missouri got a hot lead. That's when Florida police told him the story in 2008, Detective Wilson from Missouri got a hot lead. That's when Florida police told him the story coming from Keith Jones and Dwayne Barentine that Tasha had talked about how she had lured Mitch to the farm so Greg Morton could shoot him. How credible did you find Dwayne Barentine?

I always thought that there was some truth to what he was saying. And Keith Jones, same thing. At that point, we believe that we may possibly have a homicide. But there was no proof, no body, no witnesses. So in May of that year, Detective Wilson and his partner traveled south to interview Tasha herself.

South to interview Tasha herself. At first, detectives didn't let on they had talked to Keith Jones or Dwayne Barentine, and Tasha insisted she knew nothing of Mitch's whereabouts. And when asked about her husband, Greg Morton, Tasha had little to say except the two had long since divorced and seldom talked. When did you leave him, Greg? That's been a couple years ago. What type of person is Greg?

He's not, he's, um, he's not, I don't have nothing bad to say about him. But the more detectives questioned Tasha about her ex-husband, the more her description of him changed, suddenly, Greg Morton was a man to be feared. His mind is not right. He lives in... He's a very angry, angry person, you know what I'm saying? So if I thought he had done something to Mitch,

it wouldn't surprise you? Do you think he's capable of hurting someone like that? I mean, he hurt me. Then, finally... Just let it out. Tasha could hold her secret no longer. Greg killed Mitch. He told me. There had been a fight, she said. Greg Morton had pulled out a gun and shot Mitch. But is this the truth, or just another of Tasha's tall tales?

Just felt like she had more involvement in what she was saying. Over the course of 48 hours, bit by bit, Tasha Fields revealed to detectives how her ex-husband Greg Morton told her that in August of 2004, he shot dead another ex-husband, Mitch Kemp. He told me, just point blank told me, I shot Mitch. There had been bad blood between the two men, Tasha says, ever since Greg suspected she was cheating on him with her ex-husband Mitch. I was married to Greg.

with her ex-husband Mitch. I was married to Greg. And I was still seeing Mitch. Tasha says Greg was a ticking time bomb. I lived with Greg. I knew what Greg was capable of. Greg has no problem with hurting anybody. Tasha said Greg told her where he shot Mitch and where he shot Mitch

and where he then disposed of his body. Where's Mitch? On Greg's farm. Greg's 40 acre farm that he sold six months after Tasha says he killed Mitch. He definitely told you that he buried that body. Yeah. In that corner. He told me that.

But Tasha insisted she wasn't at the farm. She was picking up her daughter Lexi at daycare. All I'm asking you, look at me in the eyes and tell me, look, I was not there when you were here. I wasn't there. I didn't have anything to do with it. I didn't. Okay, that's all we need to know.

But was Tasha telling detectives everything? They had their doubts. And so did prosecutors Richard Hicks and Andrea Hayes. She gives them enough information, OK, yes, Greg did kill Mitch. But I only know this because Greg told me. But prosecutor Hicks says there was a glaring omission in Tasha's story.

Remember what ex-boyfriend Keith Jones told police? She went to where he was and lured him back to her house. And that's when Greg shot him in the chest. But before prosecutors could prove Tasha lured Mitch to his death, they first needed to prove that Mitch was really dead and that there was a murder. We had to find the body.

Tasha, I'm going to go ahead and videotape this. Tasha cooperated with police and agreed to travel to Missouri to help them search the farm for Mitch's body. But once there, Tasha seemed lost. This way. She seems really confused. See, this was flat. And of course, the house had changed.

There were some structures that were torn down and a new home was built, a new family was living there. At one point on the police video, Tasha zeroed in on an area where the old farmhouse used to be. And was he doing dirt work this way? But when detectives returned with equipment, they found nothing. That's when we're like, OK, she's probably lying to us

because I think we believe she knew exactly where the body was buried. And so five weeks later, they questioned Tasha again. We dug up an area probably 100 yards long. And this time, they turned up the heat. I'm one of those that don't believe. You're telling us everything you know. It was then that Tasha remembered an old hit

that Greg had dug on the farm that she says had been freshly covered soon after Greg told her about the murder. It's right, it's right here, David. I'm telling you, it's right, it's right here. After just a half hour of digging, detectives found what they were looking for. How did you find out that they did find Mitch's body?

I was right there. You were there? Mm-hmm. How did you find out that they did find Mitch's body? I was right there. You were there? Mm-hmm. How did you react? I was sick. You were sick? Mm-hmm. An autopsy revealed Mitch had been shot six times in the chest.

It was hard. It's hard. You know, and I truly believe that, you know, he had no idea that anything like that was gonna happen. I think he was absolutely blindsided and ambushed. Three weeks after finding Mitch's body on Greg Morton's old property, authorities arrested Morton and charged him

with first degree murder. Prosecutor Hicks hoped Morton would turn on Tasha, the person they were now convinced was behind it all. Let him sit in jail for a few months and then see if he's ready to talk. But Greg Morton didn't talk. So three and a half months later, fearing she might run, authorities arrested Tasha without a shred of hard evidence. She was charged with first degree murder. He just jerked me off a motorcycle,

told me I was under arrest. Yeah. I didn't hurt nobody. Okay. I think I'm gonna throw up. It was then that Tasha laid out yet another version of what happened the day Mitch died. Let me tell you exactly what happened, okay? Okay.

Let me tell you exactly what happened. In this one, she admitted she did bring Mitch to the farm, but she didn't lure him there to have him killed. Okay, Lexi had got school pictures from the daycare, and Mitch and I went out there to have him killed. Lexi had got school pictures from the daycare and Mitch and I went out there to get that and probably to spend some time together. Mitch and I pulled up in the yard. I walked up on the porch and I turned around. Greg had come around the corner of the house, had his gun drawn.

Mitch had his... Mitch had his hands up, and he started walking backwards. All Mitch said was, it's not what you think. What happened? He shot him. I saw him take his last breath. I couldn't do anything for him. And I kept saying, you just killed him. You just killed him.

Tasha told detectives Greg Morton acted out of jealous rage. Greg slammed me into the wall. Told me he knew I'd dragged him around on me. Why not try calling 911? Maybe saving his life. Probably would have been the thing to do, but when you watch somebody be gunned down, maybe your thoughts are irrational.

Maybe you don't, I don't know. Yet after the shooting, Tasha stayed with Greg Morton for a year and a half before divorcing him. So this is a man, Greg, who just killed the father of your child. Why would you stay with Greg? I don't know.

Fear. And Tasha says it was that fear that caused her to lie repeatedly to detectives throughout her interrogations. He committed murder. He took another person's life. Why would I be any different? Three weeks after Tasha's arrest, Greg Morton broke his silence to tell his version of what happened that day. He said, Mr. Hicks, I shot that man. But he claims it was all Tasha's idea and that she manipulated him into murdering Mitch Kemp. Greg Morton would have never shot Mitch Kemp

if it weren't for Tasha. You really believe that? Absolutely Tasha insists she is innocent. If I was so concerned that I was in trouble Why would I have solved it? They couldn't find Mitch's body. I took him to it. I think she is a master manipulator, and I think she knew exactly what buttons to push to get Greg to do this. She's got that kind of power, that ability to manipulate someone, to shoot a man five times? That's what I believe.

But the question is, will a jury. Dracula the ancient vampire who terrorizes Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes even if you haven't read the book you think you know the story. One of the incredible things about Dracula is that not only is it this wonderful snapshot of the 19th century, but it also has so much resonance today. The vampire doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror. So when we look in the mirror, the only thing we see is our own monstrous abilities. From the host and producer of American History Tellers and History Daily comes the new podcast

The Real History of Dracula. We'll reveal how author Bram Stoker rated ancient folklore, exploited Victorian fears around sex, science and religion, and how even today we remain enthralled to his strange creatures of the night. You can binge all episodes of The Real History of Dracula exclusively with Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus and the Wondria, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. In November 1991, media tycoon Robert Maxwell mysteriously vanished from his luxury yacht in the Canary Islands. But it wasn't just his body that would come to the surface in the days that followed. It soon emerged that Robert's business was on the brink of collapse, and behind his facade

of wealth and success was a litany of bad investments, mounting debt, and multi-million dollar fraud. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show Business Movers. We tell the true stories of business leaders who risked it all, the critical moments that defined their journey, and the ideas that transformed the way we live our lives. In our latest series, a young refugee fleeing the Nazis arrives in Britain, determined to make something of his life. Taking the name Robert Maxwell, he builds a publishing and newspaper empire that spans the globe. But ambition eventually curdles into desperation,

and Robert's determination to succeed turns into a willingness to do anything to get ahead. Follow Business Movers wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondry app. What do you want people to know? That I'm not the mastermind of the crowd. I didn't want Mitch dead. I have no reason to want him dead. I didn't want Mitch dead. I have no reason to want him dead. July 2010, almost six years after Mitch Kemp was murdered,

the trial of his ex-wife Tasha Fields is about to begin in Boone County, Missouri. This is back at their farm. I like that. Yep. Prosecutors Richard Hicks and Andrea Hayes believe that Tasha Fields, as young and sweet as she may appear, methodically, diabolically, manipulated Greg Morton into killing Mitch Kemp. She could seem to get anyone to do

whatever she wanted them to do. The main evidence? The confession of the murderer himself. In return for a reduced sentence to second-degree murder, Morton has agreed to testify against his former wife. Why is Greg blaming you? He faced life in prison without parole. He knew he was in a very bad spot. He was going to be convicted.

Public defender Paul Hood is representing Tasha Fields. Greg uses his own gun. Greg buries Mitchell Kemp in a hole that Greg dug. Everything points at Greg Morton. Hood will argue Greg Morton's plea deal has motivated him to concoct his own fanciful story that Tasha made him do it. He really has to transform Tasha Fields

into this woman that somehow has magical powers, somehow some sort of mystical spell over him that controls him to the point that he'll commit a murder for her. Is there any physical evidence that points to Tasha Fields as having any involvement in this murder? Not at all. Hood has a simple explanation for why Greg shot Mitch.

I believe Greg suspected that Tasha was cheating on him and to control her and in a fit of rage, he murdered Mitchell Camp. But prosecutors say that Tasha was the mastermind and persuaded Greg to kill Mitch by fabricating a story that Mitch had just raped her. Tasha comes home, she's upset, and she gets him worked up and says, he's raped me, you know, we've got to take care of it now, we've got to do something. It was at that point that he said, fine, if that man ever comes out to the property, I'll kill him. I think Tasha knew these are the correct buttons to push.

That's why she's such a good manipulator. Did you tell Greg that Mitch had raped you? No. According to Paul Hood, it's all part of Greg Morton's concocted story. How does this woman convince you to shoot someone? And so he's got to come up with something awful. Well, it must be that the guy is a rapist.

As Greg Morton prepares to testify, the Kemp family sees, for the first time, Mitch's killer. The first time I saw Greg Morton in court, I just had this huge sense of anger and hate. I'd been out in the shop. And then they had to listen. As Morton tells the jury, just how Tasha convinced him to kill Mitch. She's crying.

She's hysterical. She said Mitch raped her. What are you feeling, Greg, at this point? I wanted some retribution. The next morning, Morton says, Tasha took charge and handed him a gun. She goes, I'm going to go get Mitch. And when I get back, you shoot him.

What were you going to do, Greg? I was going to do what she asked me to do. When Tasha brought Mitch back to the farm, Greg says he approached Mitch with a gun in his hand. I raised it and pointed it at him. And then she started yelling for me to shoot him. So did you? I did. Then she said, you gotta get something to move him.

Get something to move him with. She said, come on. You should have had this ready. And you saw that he was still struggling. He was. So what'd you do? I shot him again. Did he struggle anymore? It's over. Morton says he used farm equipment to pick up Mitch's body, and then the two buried him in a pit.

I'm gonna roll that him in a pit. When we were rolling that dirt in on Mitch, she said Mitch killed him to a piece of s***. Nobody's gonna look for him for a long time. Tasha says she sat listening to her accuser in disbelief. Everything was my fault. I was so powerful that I got inside his mind and convinced him that this is what you will do.

Paul Hood hopes to challenge Greg Morton's credibility by revealing a darker side of his personality. He calls Jamie Bowden to the stand. I met her down at the pool. Jamie Bowden was a neighbor of Tasha and Greg Morton in the summer of 2005, one year after the murder. How would you describe Greg Morton? Big, bad, very short-tempered. If he tells you to do something, you better do it quick.

That, says Jamie Bowden, was a rule Tasha lived by. Would she go along with everything Greg said? Right, everything. If he said it, you know, that's what it was. She didn't even question it. Do you think Tasha was afraid of Greg? Oh, most definitely. I mean, honestly, to me, she was terrified of Greg.

According to Jamie, there's no way Tasha could have manipulated Greg Morton. Tasha's supposed manipulated Greg Morton. Tasha is supposed to be the mastermind of this whole ordeal and Greg's just gonna go along with it? No, it's the other way around. Please raise your right hand if you're sworn. But prosecutors call Tasha's ex-boyfriend Keith Jones, who tells jurors how Tasha herself admitted to planning Mitch's murder.

What it sounded to me was she coerced him, lured him back to the house. Lured him back to the house? Right. Is that what she told you? Yeah. How important is that one word, the word lure? It is the word.

It is the most important word. Because if she just drives Mitch out to the farm, not knowing that Greg is going to murder Mitchell Kemp, she's not guilty. But if she lured him out there, then it's a conspiracy. She's in on it. You're sure you heard the word lure?

I'm positive. I mean, I'll remember that till I die. Tasha says Keith Jones may have heard the word lure, but not from her. So where did Keith get that? From Greg. That's Greg's story. Tasha says Greg and Keith got to know each other after she introduced them two years after the murder.

Greg and Keith were friends. Greg loaned me money. Are you saying that Keith deliberately lied at trial or made up this story? I think he has a creative memory. I don't think it's deliberate. I think he remembers things incorrectly. Over the course of seven days of trial, the jury would also hear from Mitch Kemp's family. I didn't

realize how much he was there until he was gone. And Tasha's ex-boyfriend, Dwayne Barentine. You believe she was cheating on you with another man. It's fair to say you don't like her very much. Past is the past. I have any, don't have any ill will towards her. They would also watch more than eight hours of Tasha's police interviews. I haven't done nothing. Tell us where that body's at. If I knew I would tell you. What's the best you can get for Tasha at the end of this trial? What's the best you can hope for? I hope they'd acquit her entirely. Is it realistic to think the jury's gonna, she had nothing to do with this?

Yes, because of her willingness to help the detectives. Mitch is gone, and he's not coming back. But it's not my fault that he's dead. I'm not the mastermind of a crime. 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 reached the age of 10 that was still a virgin. It just happens to all of them.

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+.

Join Wondery+, in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify. Hot Shot Australian attorney Nicola Gabba 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 Marcia 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 Wondry+. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C True Crime Shows early and ad free right now.

After five days of testimony, defense attorney Paul Hood has one last chance to save Tasha Fields. This is a very stark case. It is a case of extreme contrasts. Tasha Fields is either a monster, a conniving, manipulative monster, or she is the victim of Greg Morton. It's Greg's word, really, against Tasha's. That's right. And Tasha hopes the jury will conclude that Greg Morton is lying.

I don't understand how somebody that shoots somebody six times is credible. I don't. Mitch was having an affair with Tasha. And that really hurt Greg's ego. Paul Hood reminds the jury that without Tasha Fields, the disappearance of Mitchell Kemp would still be a mystery. She helped them solve this case.

She led them to the body. She wanted to help, and she did. And the justice system chewed her up. And you're the only ones who can change that. and she did, and the justice system chewed her up, and you're the only ones who can change that. Please don't take away her freedom. But prosecutor Hicks has a different take. Tasha Fields, the manipulator, was simply out-manipulated.

I really think she believed that she was convincing law enforcement that she was not involved. Poor, poor Tasha. She's a victim of the system. This is the same system that gave her multiple opportunities to simply tell the truth. As for the fear of Greg Morton being the reason Tasha lied… I don't believe for a second that Tasha was afraid of Greg Morton being the reason Tasha lied... I don't believe for a second that Tasha was afraid of Greg Morton. This was self-preservation. It wasn't fear. She, of her own free will, spun this web of deception.

Then, for the first time since the trial began, Richard Hicks gives the jury his explanation for why Tasha wanted Mitch dead. Her motive, he says, was to keep her daughter, Lexi, for herself. She loved his daughter. This is what the murder was about. The only way Tasha could assure, ensure, make sure that Mitch never had any kind of custody,

joint, soul, whatever, was that he ended up four or five feet underground. If it was a custody battle, then Mitch has an attorney, and he's filed paperwork, and we're in a custody battle. But there wasn't. I had Lexi. I had Lexi all the time.

We saw her sometimes, but we didn't argue. I had the perfect situation. The defense wants to scare you here, that you're sending away an innocent woman you know in your heart she's involved. Find her guilty. Jurors face an agonizing decision. Was Tasha innocent?

Or if guilty, was she guilty of first or second degree murder? The reality was, if a guilty verdict came back, I could never be with Lexi again. If jurors found Tasha guilty of first degree murder, she would receive a harsher sentence than the shooter, Greg Morton. That troubled the panel. We're like, well, Greg did this, so, you know, Tasha shouldn't get a higher sentence. That was a real big contention, I think, for all of us.

But was Tasha even guilty? Who do we believe more? You know, it's Tasha's story versus Greg's story. I was one that had a little more trouble with Greg Morton's testimony. And then she started yelling for me to shoot him. He wasn't that convincing. He appeared to me as though he was well-coached.

Finally, after eight hours, the jury returned to court with its verdict. I sat on my hands, and I stared at the elbow of the wall. And I was just, I wasn't there. As to count one, we the jury find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree. Guilty, a first degree murder. I heard the beginning of guilty and then I was done.

I didn't say anything. Let him finish talking and I stood up and walked out. In the end, Tasha's lies were her downfall. I found it hard to believe anything that she said. Tasha's story changed every time we heard it. Greg's story never changed. I more believed him. I thought he was more credible than she was.

Do you believe Greg when he says that this woman manipulated him into doing something he never would have done on his own? I do. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but it's not just Greg, you know? She has some power over men. You know, we had some men on the jury

and the men were like, what has she got going on? You know, that's still a mystery. For Tasha's two ex-boyfriends, Keith Jones, who first heard the story of murder, and Duane Barentine, the sleuth who started the investigation against Tasha, the verdict was just. She's made a lot of people's lives miserable.

I mean, miserable. Oh, I was ecstatic. I was happy. Ecstatic? Yes, absolutely. That family in Missouri, they at least can now say they have closure. No matter what the verdict was, it's not going to bring my best friend back. It's not going to fill that void in my life. We absolutely think it was the right verdict. She got what she deserved. It's finally justice for Mitch Kemp. But for the child at the center of it all,

maybe even the motive for murder, Lexi Kemp is now without her father and her mother. Tasha Fields will spend the rest of her life in prison. She has every right to be mad at me or blame me for what she's going through. But in the event that I don't talk to Lexi and I don't see her, she'll see this. She'll see the truth. In 2010, Greg Morton was sentenced to 19 years in prison for shooting Mitch Kemp.

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