48 Hours - The Case Against Sandra Garner

Episode Date: March 8, 2020

A rare look inside a murder case where virtually everything from the first moments of the investigation through the verdict are captured on camera. "48 Hours" correspondent Richard Schlesinger reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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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. 9-1-1, what is your emergency? I need a police officer. I want to talk to John.

No, Harry, please. I think he's still alive. He's making noises. Oh, John. I don't want that. I got a telephone call from the Ellis County Sheriff's Office saying, hey, we've had a shooting in your city. Her husband's been shot by an unknown male, I believe, that had broken into the house. All these.

When I got there, I met a deputy from Ellis County. Where do you at, the bedroom? Please help me. And we see the body on the floor. His name is John. John what? Warner. Excuse me, ma'am, back up for a minute.

He's still warm. Do you see him? No, ma'am. Come on, sweetie, come on. You're going to get him. You're going to get him. Please. Did you see who did this, ma'am. Come on, sweetie. Come on. You're gonna get him. You're gonna get him. Please. Did you see who did this, ma'am? Yes. Who? I don't know who. He came in here.

He came in the house? Yes. Are we sure he's not here anymore? Chief. Yeah? He may still be here. Huh? Don't know yet. Did you find it?

No, ma'am. Nobody's here. They had me sitting on the couch in the living room. Ma'am? How you doing? I'm Sergeant Carr. I'm with the Maine Pearl Police Department. I've never dealt with police at all, so I didn't know they even had video cameras on them. Let me get your name. Sandra.

Were you able to see them? I kept going over and over and over. Everything I saw about him, trying to remember everything. He was white. He was a white male. Everything he had on. He had blue jeans on, blue hoodie, and an ass. Just still trying to keep that memory going. And I looked at his face once, but I was afraid if I looked again, he was going to kill me.

Can I get you to stand right there? I have to pull my phone out. Get a real close-up here, if you don't mind. And I started snapping pictures. I'm going to get some pictures back here. We're on the crime scene starting around these trees. We started going ahead and securing the scene. Most small cities, like May Pearl, if they have a major crime...

I'm going to call Shane and let him know. They will call in... Sorry to wake you up. ...a resource like Ellis County Sheriff's Office. It was a little after 2 a.m. when I arrived. Hey, Richard. Morning. How you doing, sir?

After I was briefed, immediately I knew that Sandra needed to be talked to. She was the last one to see him alive. We decided to take Sandra to the sheriff's office. She was very key, our only witness. It made me think that I was going to help them find the person that did this. Thank you. You can bet this could be the last place Sandra Garner expected to find herself. Yet here she was, early in the morning of January 2nd, 2018, at the Ellis County Sheriff's Office in Waxahachie, Texas, not far from her home in May Pearl. Just hours earlier, she and her husband John had celebrated

their 18th wedding anniversary. And now, after a night of unimaginable violence, she was answering questions about his murder. I didn't mind doing it at all because I wanted to help him as much as I could. May Pearl's chief of police at the time, Boyd Norton, was in charge, assisted by Lieutenant Shane Thompson of the sheriff's office. It was all routine. Sandra's hands were swabbed for gunshot residue. Her clothes were collected. And then the questioning began. And I knew I had to stay kind of calm to be able to tell them everything that happened. Did you wake up any before the incident happened? Yeah.

Because I felt like if I just let my emotions go, that I would lose it all. And I couldn't lose it. I woke up, and I heard a gunshot. You heard a gunshot? I heard two gunshots. And then somehow I ended up in the floor of the other bed. She says she saw a man holding a flashlight and a gun.

I was starting screaming, you know, hoping somebody would hear me. He said, shut up. I said, please don't kill me. And he says, what I came here to do is done. I didn't come here to shoot you. You were having this conversation with the guy who just shot your husband? Well, I said that and he said it back to me, yes. She says he seemed to know both her and John, who he blamed for destroying his life years earlier.

He apparently didn't come just to kill John. He also wanted money. He said, your husband had always talked about how he keeps money in the house, and I need that money, I think I earned that money. She went into the closet, and she got the locked box. That closet has a light that comes on when the door opens. And Sandra says that's how she got a glimpse of the killer. He had a mask on. All I could see was eyes.

Was he tall? Was he short? He was taller than me. You recognize the voice? No. She handed him a pile of cash. Exactly how much remains a mystery. I think it was $18,000. That's how much was in there the last time I counted it.

$18,000? Yes. Sandra says when he left, the killer gave her instructions that were frightening and a little peculiar. He told her to sit down and count to 100. If he heard sirens, he was going to come back and kill her. That's how fast you counted to 100? Yes. Then she made that call to 911.

Investigators now had Sandra's story about John's death, but they needed to learn the story of the couple's life together. Sandra was a twice-divorced mother of two when she met John. They worked as managers at the same packaging company in Paris, Texas. She was 13 years older than he was. He was just a very sweet man. But he was known as a tough boss. He loved firing people because if they weren't doing their job right, they didn't need to be working for him. The fact that he had fired a lot of people, we knew that there were going to be

people out there who didn't care for John. John was kind of a wild, crazy guy. He was prescribed antidepressants. He took those frequently, drank heavily. Very outgoing. Very blunt. I mean, he's out there. None of that mattered to Sandra. Two years after they met, they got married on New Year's Eve in Las Vegas. We had an awesome relationship.

We loved each other so much. We were partners. We just did everything together. John became a second father to Sandra's son, Wes, but her daughter, Andrea, was not very fond of him until 2014, when Sandra was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I saw how much he loved her. That's all that mattered. He took care of her. He was her rock. The medicine made me sick a lot. It also made her depressed. She says she thought about suicide and Googled how to do it. How do I kill myself in my sleep?

How do I take pills to kill myself or something like that? Sandra says she didn't want to become a burden to John. Well, I told John one day, you know, I'm just, you don't deserve this. I'm just going to kill myself. And he said, well, if you do that, I'm going to kill myself too. That's when I knew I couldn't do it. As Sandra got sicker, John became the sole breadwinner and caretaker. How reliant on him were you?

I was very reliant on him. He was all I had. It was just me and him. In 2016, they moved to May Pearl. Population, just about 1,000, to be closer to their families. John's father and stepmother bought the house across the street. And John and Sandra's backyard became the gathering place. We were over there all the time.

I mean, our family is just, you don't knock on the door, you walk in. Jessica Garner married John's cousin, and she became close to Sandra. I loved her. She was family. That was John's wife. I mean, you love them. They were super happy. So the news that John had been killed came out of the blue.

Several hours after she arrived, Sandra left the sheriff's office to be with the extended Garner family, which had gathered to comfort her. Police body cams captured the scene. I'm like, what happened? What's going on? And she told us the story. Did you believe her? I did. Did everybody in the room believe her? No. Frantic call or cover story. Listen to Sandra's 911 call right after her husband was shot

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To put it mildly, Sandra Garner had had a bad night by the time she left the Ellis County Sheriff's Office. And things were about to get worse. Her son, Wes, showed up at the Sheriff's Office looking for her. Wes is somebody that we wanted to speak with because he was the last person John spoke to besides Sandra. He agreed to talk to Lieutenant Shane Thompson. That was just hours before the shooting. Wes says he went home and didn't know anything was wrong until John's family, including Jessica Garner, showed up at his apartment to give him the news. John's been killed.

And he was like, what happened? We're like, we don't know. And he was like, how's my mom? Where's my mom? Wes hadn't seen his mother, but what he had to say about her sure caught Lieutenant Thompson's attention. Wes, very early on, had suspicions about his mother being involved. He seemed to be wondering if his own mother could be a killer. If she did something like that, I don't understand why. What's your thoughts?

I don't want to say anything. I had something wrong, man. Meanwhile, at the crime scene, investigators were busy collecting evidence and taking photos. We searched the entire house. We searched all the cars and all of the outbuildings. Sandra's Mustang was parked inside of a detached garage. There was nothing there. It took hours, but the police finally left. And when they did, Sandra went home to live in the house where less than 24 hours earlier, her husband had been shot to death. It was a little weird, yes, but I knew I needed to be there.

Why? I just felt like that's where John would want me to be. And I was really hoping that the guy would come back. You were. So I could kill him. that the guy would come back. You were. So I could kill him.

Investigators already had one killing on their hands, and they were going through all the evidence they took out of the Garner's home. They were particularly interested in the Garner's electronics. You can learn a lot about a person from their electronics. And what they learned from Sandra's iPad and cell phone seemed especially interesting.

A few days before the murder, she's searching how to kill somebody in their sleep. She had clicked on a link, 16 ways to kill somebody and not get caught. What was your reaction? Our reaction that Sandra just became more and more of a suspect. You have a gift for understatement. But it would be hard to understate how well the Garner house was protected. John had guns,

lots of guns, even for Texas. 49 pistols. I'm sorry, how many? 49. And there was probably 12 rifles. He had them stashed everywhere. Because he wanted there to be a gun if he needed it. We were able to account for all the weapons except for one. What kind of gun was that? A.38. John was killed with a.38. And what's more, Norton says, the missing pistol belonged to Sandra.

John had given it to Sandra. But investigators couldn't find the gun. On January 5th, three days after John was murdered, investigators returned to the Garner house to search again. They wanted that gun, and they looked everywhere. We searched all the vehicles again. And they wanted to look inside Sandra's Mustang, but this time they couldn't. The Mustang was still inside of the detached garage, but it was locked. What did you make of that? Well, we wanted to know why it was locked.

Wes went across the street where the family was gathered to get Sandra's keys. Wes walked in and said, hey, mom, they want the keys to your Mustang. She threw down the fork that was in her hand and said, no, you can tell them to off. And I just remember looking at her like. I was pissed. Because? I knew they were looking at me for it. She says she learned police were looking at her as a suspect just that morning from Wes.

I told him no. He said, yes, they are. You scared? No, because I didn't do it. She was not going to let us in that Mustang. When she knew that we were getting in that vehicle one way or another. Can you step back out there for me, please? I gotta get some pictures. She ended up producing the key. When police opened the car, they found a plastic bag under the front

seat, and inside, wrapped in wet towels, was a rusty gun, a.38 caliber pistol with no fingerprints or DNA. It is awfully odd that it wasn't there one day and then three days later there it was. Very odd, yes. Got any ideas how that happened? Sandra put it there. Jessica remembers Wes coming back across the street. He said they found the gun in her car. I just looked at him, and I mean, like, I'm getting goosebumps now. You just, you're like, what? What did that mean to you at that point? Just everything changes at that point.

She killed John. How could she kill John? Why did she kill John? Sandra was brought back to the Ellis County Sheriff's Office, and this time, Thompson was assisted by Texas Ranger Adam Sweeney. Sandra, I need you to be honest. I'm trying, I swear I'm trying to be honest with you. I don't, you don't think I'm being honest? And this was not a friendly conversation.

It was more confrontational. Did something happen? What happened? I did not kill my husband. That's when they started saying, we know you did this. We know you did this. No, I didn't. Yeah, we know you did. We want you to tell us. That's what we're here for.

To tell you what? You want me to tell you that I did it? When I did it? We want you to tell us the truth. That's it. And they questioned her about her gun. She stuck to her story. She claimed she had no idea how the gun got there. I was upset because they didn't believe what I was telling them. You know, why would they not believe it? That might be because five days later, when the ballistics tests came back, they showed the gun in the Mustang was the one used to kill John.

And with that, just a few hours later, when Sandra pulled into her driveway, police were waiting. I just got out of the car and I said, we're arresting you. It was horrible. The Garner family was watching from across the street as the woman who had been so close to all of them. Okay, let's get her out of here. Was hauled off in handcuffs. I'll be completely honest.

We cheered. You cheered? We cheered. And I know that's horrible to say, but it was just a little piece of justice at that moment for John. after police arrested sandra garner her bond was set at two million dollars there was no way she could pay that they made her sit in jail for a year and a half and that should have never happened sandra's attorney tom pappas she's not the kind of person that would do that to John. In September of 2019, Sandra Garner, aged by prison, got to tell her story to a new audience in front of a jury when she went on trial in Waxahachie, Texas, for murdering her husband, John. Were you prepared for what that was going to be like? No, I didn't know what all was going to be said. I was hopeful. They didn't have anything to prove absolutely that I did it. So I was confident. But prosecutors Lindy Beatty and Ricky Sipes

believed they had a strong case against her. The murder weapon was Sandra Garner's gun. Anybody you tell this story to says who comes to commit a murder and doesn't bring their own weapon. Beatty ridiculed Sandra's story about a killer coming in but using Sandra's gun. Damn it. I forgot the gun. At times, she acted out the role of the killer. I wore my trusty mask so no one would know who I was, but I'm going to have a 10-minute conversation with Sandra about who I am and why I'm doing this. And there were those ghoulish

searches on Sandra's iPad about killing someone and not getting caught. Big deal, and we did make a big deal about these. Prosecutors could well have considered this case a slam dunk. Sounds good for us, right? Sometimes we don't get that much. But this was a hard case. We knew we had a mountain of hurdles to overcome in this trial. Make no mistake, she didn't shoot John. The prosecution's biggest hurdles may have been the result of poor police work. Sheriff's office. Especially May Pearl Police Chief Boyd Norton's lack of experience leading an investigation. Obviously, I had been to many murder scenes, but as far as being the investigator on the scene, this was my first.

He had enough experience to know he had to look into all those people John had fired over the years. We interviewed probably a couple of dozen people who had been terminated, and we were not coming up with any suspects. But Norton is more open and more honest than most people would be about the mistakes he made at various stages of the investigation. Was the crime scene secured, in your view, quickly enough to preserve all the evidence? No. I probably should have taken her out of the house and put her in a car. I probably should have bagged her hands, and I should have done some other things. Police might have made a huge mistake by not bagging Sandra's hands, a car. I probably should have bagged her hands and I should have done some other things. Police might have made a huge mistake by not bagging Sandra's hands. Gunshot residue was discovered

on her, but it was only a tiny amount that could have an innocent explanation, says the defense. Sandra was lying right next to John when he was shot. She pulled the body off the bed and she did chest compression. The fact that there are only three specks on her left arm wasn't consistent with her firing the weapon. Investigators believe if Sandra's hands had been bagged, they might have found a lot more gunshot residue. Enough to prove she did fire that gun. He's in the bedroom, right there. Police might also have failed to preserve the crime fire that gun. He's in the bedroom right there. Police might also have failed to preserve the crime scene well enough. First responders came in and out. A lot ran in

the bedroom when I was still there, which I thought was strange because that's where it happened. So why run and mess up everything that could be evidence? And important evidence was lost by the police themselves. Body cam footage shows Chief Norton taking photos of the scene right when he arrived, a lot of them, and they all inexplicably disappeared from his cell phone. How did you feel when you realized that these photos were missing? Well, I felt bad. I had evidence that should have been with the case, and it wasn't there. So, yeah, I was embarrassed. Problem for the case. Yes, sir.

Instead, the prosecution had to use photos taken by the Ellis County Sheriff's crime scene investigator eight hours after the murder. The investigation was messed up. Mishap with the photos seemed like a gift to defense attorney Tom Pappas. What did you think when you heard that these photos had been lost? I think we're going to win. Do you regret not handing this whole thing over to Ellis County right away? I do. I do. When did you realize that that was a mistake? Probably about a week into it. Law enforcement poured their heart and their soul into this

investigation. It may not have been perfect. And prosecutors knew the chief's inexperience would not play well in front of the jury. Did Chief Boyd Norton fill you with confidence? in front of the jury. Did Chief Boyd Norton fill you with confidence? No. No. Prosecutors found themselves having to explain, among other things, why the police didn't fingerprint the door handle of the Mustang where the gun was found. Pappas says police might well have found a fingerprint that belonged to another suspect. As prosecutors, we want them to do everything possible that they could do. I believe that it should have been done. You know, I told you up front that we'd made some mistakes in this case. Should we have taken the car and

impounded and prostituted? Maybe. But we didn't. Pappas attacked every phase of the investigation. Police searched that house and they screwed a lot of stuff up. He wanted to know why it took police so long to get to the crime scene in the first place. You get a 911 call from a lady who's hysterical that says there was an intruder and my husband's been shot and it takes him 30, 40 minutes to get to the scene. Well, Chief Norton says that he was there in 15 minutes. Even 15 minutes is crazy. Prosecutors had one other huge problem, proving a motive. Why would Sandra want to kill her husband who was her caretaker? We did not have one

set motive. Here is the motive. This is the reason why she killed him. In Texas, prosecutors don't have to prove motive. But as a human being, everybody wants to know why. But Pappas says there was one person who was close to John and may well have had a motive to kill him. And what's more, at every turn in the case, he was there. Sandra's son, Wes. We knew Wes was going to be a problem from the get-go.

What did I say to you? Are you going to play it back to my mom? Wes does look bad. Do you think police made mistakes? Watch more of the dramatic video from their body cams at 48hours.com. 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 murder, wherever you get your podcasts. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island.

It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still 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+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Wes should have been a suspect. Defense attorney Tom Pappas says the police made one of their biggest mistakes when they ruled out one suspect. So let's talk about Wes. Sandra's own son, Wes.

His conduct, when you really look at it objectively and look at Sandra objectively, is more suspicious than hers. Everything Wes did was kind of suspicious. Prosecutor Lindy Beatty. I did have a lot of heartburn over it when we were going through case preparation. And we knew Wes was going to be an absolute train wreck, and he was. Wes was involved in this case early on. Just hours after John was killed, Wes was the one who pointed the finger at his mother.

What's your thoughts? I don't know. I guess I'm wrong, man. And he kept at it, questioning details of her story. One of the hardest things about the case was the magnitude of Wes's disloyalty to her and the things he was doing to try to get her blamed for this. She has never acted like this before. Just jumped out at you. Sandra now says she has come to believe the worst thing a mother could believe about her child. Who do you think killed John?

believe about her child. Who do you think killed John? I think it was Wesley. Pappas says those chilling Google searches on Sandra's iPad and iPhone could have been done by Wes. He says Wes had access to the devices that did not require a password. There's one thing everybody said about Santa and John. It's they went to bed at 930. Those web searches were done between 11 and midnight, just four days before the murder. And Pappas says on that same night, Wes was at their house. He's the one that did the website, not her. Went searching for 16 ways, 16 ways to kill. You don't know that for sure, but he's, he's, well, we, I don't know who else it could

have been. I don't think it was John. Wes wouldn't answer our questions, but he always seemed willing to answer investigators' questions, especially about his mother and her gun. He's being a little bit too helpful with the police, saying, hey, you know, look here. After the police searched and failed to find the gun, Lieutenant Shane Thompson talked to Wes again. Somebody said that your mom had only a.38 revolver. She does have a revolver. But I thought it was in her Mustang, and she said she never put it in her Mustang.

And if she did, it would be underneath the seat. Underneath the seat. The next day, police searched for the gun one more time. Where do they find it? They find it under the seat. Those things really did cause some concern. Wes does look bad. It began to look like someone was setting her up. And I don't know that Wes did that, but it sure looks suspicious. And his conduct was just unexplainable.

Pappas believes West might have more of a motive to kill John than Sandra did. He says West needed money and mistakenly believed he was in John's will. Was he ever a suspect in this? No, he wasn't my suspect. After all, West told Chief Boyd Norton he had an alibi for the time John was murdered. I went back home, got my six-pack, got a beer, and watched Netflix. And Netflix and phone records seemed to help corroborate his story, at least for a while. There was a record that he'd been on Netflix until about 12, 12.30.

There was some phone calls that were made. Oh my God, it's perfect. Like he's got an alibi. This is fantastic. Until we look at the records and we're like, no, no, that that's not the right time. Prosecutors discovered investigators had made a mistake. The times on those records weren't recorded in central standard time, the local time, which means there was actually no evidence that Wes was watching Netflix or on the phone at the time John was killed. It didn't look good that the cops didn't know which time zone they were dealing with. No, it did not. I would imagine it did not help your case. No. They didn't look at Wes, didn't understand that he didn't have an

alibi. And that's an example of where they just gloss over stuff. They thought they had a rock solid alibi for Wes. But in fact, that was not the case. I was floored at that. The prosecutors insist even though they say Wes looks suspicious at times and he has no alibi, they are confident he is not the killer. Once you meet Wes, it's over. If you just talk to him for any length of time, you know he is just not capable of committing this type of crime.

He's just not smart enough, honestly. And she says his stomach isn't strong enough. There's no way that guy can go put a bullet in some guy's head that he loves, see some blood, and there not be a vomit trail, you know, all the way back home. And if Wes did break into the house that night and have a conversation with Sandra, Beatty wonders, how could Sandra not recognize him? My God, people, if it was Wes Miller, she would know her own son. There's no way

she doesn't know if it's him. There's no way. You wouldn't recognize his voice? I would think I would recognize his voice, but after hearing shot, Please help me! just all the drama, I can see why

I didn't recognize it. Your own son? Yes. Pardon me for saying this, but it's hard to believe. I don't know. I just, I didn't recognize it. There are a lot of questions for Sandra, and unlike most defendants in murder cases, she decided to take the stand. Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom for her testimony. I felt like if it went wrong for me, if I didn't testify, what if I could have saved it?

Are you comfortable putting her up? No, of course not. You're never comfortable when your client takes a witness stand. Sandra had trouble on the stand. She struggled to answer some of the questions during a lengthy cross-examination. I think there were some questions about the website searches and the searches surrounding that that were difficult, and she simply didn't remember stuff. And they were able to make some points. I thought that we were able to show that she was a liar. As the case goes to the jury, Sandra should know soon if taking the stand was the smart move.

Whatever happened, I had to deal with it. It took one month, 27 witnesses, and more than 400 pieces of evidence for the case against Sandra Garner to finally go to the jury. And when it did, neither side was very confident. I think I was probably 50-50 at the end of it. I felt like we ended well, so I was hopeful. I was extremely confident one minute and just distraught the next. The jurors, however, seemed very clear about their views. They came back with a verdict in just three hours.

God, I was nervous because it all comes down to this. You're thinking, God, please have done the right thing. Please found justice for this family. Sandra's daughter, Andrea, was holding her breath. The longest three hours of my life. What did the quick verdict mean? It was anyone's guess. I did not think it was good for us. Yes.

I didn't feel that they had gone through all of the evidence again. Oh, my heart must have stopped. This is bad. It's not good at all. I'm trying to say that so Sandra wouldn't hear. Please be seated. In front of a packed courtroom, Let's get on the record.

the judge read the decision. At the defendant read the decision. The last thing I remember is the juror handing the paper to the bailiff. And I looked down. I could not look. I wasn't ready for a guilty verdict. We, the jury, find the defendant, Sandra Louise Garner, not guilty. We, the jury, find the defendant, Sandra Louise Garner, not guilty. Not guilty. And just like that, Sandra Garner was a free woman. After 21 months in jail.

I felt wonderful. I turned to Tom and was saying, yay, yay. And we hugged each other. I get to go home. I think those are the sweetest words I've ever heard in my life. It was like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. They had been carrying for nearly two years. I gave her the biggest hug I could.

I was so happy for her. I tear up just thinking about it. I mean, she's got a chance to try to get some of her life back. Of course, like every verdict, this one was not universally popular. I just remember thinking, they got that wrong. What? There's no way. There's no way.

I don't want to watch this. There's no happy ending to this. This isn't happy at all. Unless, of course, you are Sandra Garner. We caught up with her the moment she was released from jail. It feels wonderful. It feels wonderful. I was just praying to God and my husband and my daddy just to help them say, not guilty, please. Sandra was eager to get back home to the same house where her husband was murdered. I love my house. And I know it's hard, and I know people think I'm crazy for wanting to be here. But I just want to be as close to him as I can. Living here will mean living across the street from John's parents,

who still are convinced Sandra is a murderess who killed their son and whose family is still grieving. John should still be alive. We should still be a family. That was taken from us. There should be justice for his killer. There's not. There never will be. None of us have talked to her. None of us want to talk to her. Andrea Miller is worried about her mother.

One of the most important pieces of her life is in here. And she has to live with that on a daily basis. Sissy, come here. I'm scared that something's going to happen to her. I'll give you a copy. Sandra's attorney, Tom Pappas, is also worried about her safety. There's a murderer that hasn't been arrested that's still out there. Part of Sandra's... I'm tearing up now.

Part of Sandra's... Let me ask you, why are you tearing up? Tell me about it. Because I care about her. I care what happens to her. I care what happens to the people around her. Whatever happens to Sandra, it likely will happen without her son, Wes. Prosecutors and police believe they tried the right person and don't consider Wes a suspect. But Sandra and Andrea are no longer speaking to him. He does not deserve to be part of my mother's life anymore. As far as I'm concerned, I don't have a brother anymore.

This is a tough question. Do you still love your son? Not like I used to, no. I have not spoke to him at all. He did me really wrong. And what toll has that taken on you? It's very hurtful. But he chose that.

I didn't. Sandra Garner is now free to spend time with what remains of her family. She knows others still see her as a killer who got away with it. In the eyes of the law, she is not guilty, and the case against her is forever closed. Under the law, you cannot be charged with this crime again, even if you say you did it. So let me ask you, did you kill your husband? No.

The man was the love of my life. I told you he was all I had. He was going to take care of me for the love of my life. I could tell you he was all I had. He was going to take care of me for the rest of my life. Without him, I have nobody. No, I didn't kill my husband. John Garner's family believes Wes was not involved in John's murder. They remain close to him. Shots were fired at an apartment complex.

A murder and a suicide. But that's not where this story ended. A young mother fighting for her life. Something amazing came out of something horrifying. The story of a killer's heart. A young mother fighting for her life. Something amazing came out of something horrifying. The Story of a Killer's Heart. 48 hours, Saturday at 10, 9 central on CBS. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app.

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