48 Hours - The Death of an Officer's Wife

Episode Date: November 5, 2023

Officer Seth Perrault said his 44-year-old wife, Amanda, shot herself right in front of him. The unusual position of her body, however, didn't add up with Seth's story of what happened. Suspicions arose further when Seth's abusive history was uncovered. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 1/29/2023.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audio book 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. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, The Trouble Case Against Crosley Green,

wherever you get your podcasts. Get 48 Hours Podcasts ad-free when you subscribe to 48 Hours Plus on Apple Podcasts. Start your uninterrupted listening today for just $2.99 a month. I wake up every single day and I cry and I miss her. It's so frustrating because you just, you look back and you wish you did more. Maybe my sister was scared to go to the law because her husband was a police officer. Jones County District Attorney's Office. I believe Seth Perot was an individual that had a lot of people fooled. I think he hid behind a badge and wore a mask every day.

Nice house, nice car, law enforcement. But behind that door to that house, he was pretty abusive. No, let's not. Let's tell the truth. Stop the car. No. Maybe she was scared to get out. It's February 3rd, 2020. Set the scene for me. What happened? I'm sitting at my desk in my office.

And the phone rings, and it's the police chief. He said, I got Seth Peralt on the phone. He's told me his wife had killed herself. And I knew that we needed to get there and get this matter investigated and do it right. Describe what you saw when you got to the scene. Seth Peralt's sitting on the front steps. He's sitting there, hands are holding over his face.

I asked him to go inside and search the house, and he gave consent for that. Had you ever seen a suicide that looked like that? I've never seen anything like that. Her body is flat on the back, her legs are almost together, and her arms are tucked against her side with her hands cut. This wasn't right. He's worked a lot of cases. He told me, he said, the scene is not right. There's something not adding up. And the more we investigated, the odder it got. Obviously, we have a death investigation here.

I asked him would he come downtown to talk to us further. I don't know how this happened. He said that they were in bed and they were arguing. All I know is my wife was upset. She looked at me and said, I can't do it no more. He loved her. She was his world. He'd never done anything to harm her ever.

My wife looked at me and executed herself. And if you look at the logistics of it, you're going to see that I had nothing to do with it. We all called Sheriff Sills that night and said, we know our sister didn't do this. We know she didn't take her own life, that he had something to do with this. While looking at your face as a law enforcement officer, I did not do anything. I had nothing to do with it. Seven months later, the medical examiner's report comes out. And what does it say?

Suicide. Well, I was astounded. Dr. Derisal is a renowned medical examiner. So her certification of suicide we thought was basically open shot. You have to remember, she works for the state. I'm Justin Kenney, an attorney for Seth Peralt. It all came down to the forensics. Could the state actually prove that Seth had pulled the trigger and shot his wife in the head? Thank you. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California.

Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free, starting October 29th on Amazon Music. 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, wherever you get your podcasts. Just an hour and a half after Seth Peralt said his 44-year-old wife, Amanda, shot herself right in front of him, he was struggling to tell his story. I'm in shock. My wife of eight years that I love more than anything in this world. I don't know where to start, sir. I've lost everything in my life. 44-year-old Perrault, then a police officer for the city of Eatonton, Georgia,

told the county sheriff, Howard Sills, that his wife, Amanda, had shot herself in the head. What did he say happened? He said that they were in bed and they were arguing. And then all of a sudden she just produced the gun out of thin air and executed herself. I just sat there watching my wife execute herself. In all my years of questioning anybody for suicide, I have never heard anybody use the term executed. I knew she hadn't. I knew that he was lying. From the very beginning, Angie and Alicia Johnson say they had questions about what happened to their sister Amanda. We knew better. We knew our sister.

Amanda loved life. She wouldn't put us through this. About eight years earlier, in the fall of 2011, a recently divorced Amanda met Seth Perrault online. I remember being kind of excited about it. He treated her differently from some of the past relationships she had been in where, you know, she wasn't respected. Seth, battling cancer and unemployed at the time, seemed to fall for Amanda fast and hard. And they moved in fairly quick. Like, he had her move in within six months of the meeting. Seth was living an hour away with his mother, who was caring for him. But Angie says Amanda would quickly take over the role of Seth's caretaker. When she moved out there, he didn't want her to work.

They say Seth's parents were paying all of the couple's bills and helping with expenses for Seth's daughter from a previous relationship. So Seth was basically dependent on his family. Very much. Very much. And Amanda was dependent on Seth. For the longest time, like, he wouldn't let her have any kind of phone, cell phone or anything like that.

It would be his phone or a landline. She didn't even have a car to drive. He monitored her constantly. As time went on, Alicia and Angie say they saw less and less of their sister. He kept us from being able to see her. She didn't come to like any of our Christmas events or like any of our events because she had to host for his family and cook for all of them. Amanda lived with Seth for five years. Then on on June 23, 2017, the couple surprised everyone when they quietly went to the local courthouse and got married. Angie and Alicia believe the only reason Seth married their sister was to help him get custody of his daughter.

That's why I feel like he asked her to marry him. Seth's custody battle had been going on for almost exactly a year at that point. Do you think Seth marrying Amanda helped him gain custody? Absolutely. Seth's attorney, Justin Kenney. If Amanda was going to be present in his daughter's life, they had to get married. I think that was one of the paramount issues for him to gain custody. Kenny says Seth did love Amanda and his daughter

and was just trying to do what he thought was best for everyone. This was a guy that doted on his daughter. He was a family man. He would dote on his wife. I just thought he was a stand-up individual. A few months after Amanda and Seth were married, he was granted custody of his wife. I just thought he was a stand-up individual. A few months after Amanda and Seth were married, he was granted custody of his daughter. A little over a year later, he was hired by the Eatonton Police Department, and his father bought him this house near Lake Oconee.

She loved their new home. This should have been everything she hoped for. Yeah, it was, you know, except for the relationship. Alicia and Angie say they didn't know just how bad things had gotten, but were hearing more and more stories of fighting fueled my alcohol. I've heard stories in interviews that, you know, when they were sober, they were loving toward one another. But it's when alcohol came into the mix, that's when it became toxic. A little over a year after joining the police force, Seth fell down some stairs at the couple's home and had to go on medical leave.

Now, along with the alcohol, there were pain pills, and the sisters say the fighting seemed to be escalating. You could hear it, like on phone calls, his tone and demeanor around her. I would ask, do you want me to call 9-1-1? Can I call 9-1-1? She would tell you, no, no, don't call. You know, we've just been drinking. We'll be, everything will be okay later on. Maybe she knew her situation would become even worse, you know. Then things did get worse. On January 28, 2020, just days before her death, Amanda called 911. She called me. She had barricaded herself in a back bedroom.

She ended up having to run next door. He locked me out of the house and I'm just trying to get my things out of the house, please. She's at the neighbor's house right now. Another sheriff's dispatcher was alerted. And she said her husband is an officer with the Eatonton Police Department. That second dispatcher said he knew Seth Peralt and said he had a reputation. I ain't supposed to know this, but he's been out of work with his back,

and apparently he's over there whipping up on her ass. Seth made local headlines when he was arrested on charges of simple battery and family violence. She told me, would I come get her the next morning? And I told her yes, to make sure to pack everything, have it ready. Instead, Amanda decided to attend Seth's bond hearing. When the judge agreed to release Seth on bail, he asked Amanda if she wanted a stay-away order added.

Amanda said no, and then let Seth come home. Because she was scared. She knew he was mad. She knew that it was public that he had been arrested. He's a police officer. You know, I have to bring him home and make this right. I talked to her the day he got out and I said, how are things? And she said, he's being unusually nice. Alicia says she doubted Seth's new attitude and felt that underneath he must be seething, knowing that if he was convicted on abuse charges, he was in danger of losing custody of his daughter and his job. He knew he was going to embarrass his family and he had already put himself up here on this pedestal like he was king. And then to be humiliated in front of people, I think it made him very angry.

Alicia says Amanda was terrified and looking for a way out. We were all on a chain message, and we were telling her, just get out, divorce him, tell his father that you don't want anything but a vehicle. And she said, I'm not trying to get killed. Just five days later, Amanda was dead. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn,

and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still a virgin. It just happens to all of 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. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets,

the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and 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 Informant's 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. Sheriff Howard Sills says that from the very start of his investigation into the death of Amanda Peralt, he wasn't buying her husband's story. I knew something was wrong the day I walked in the house. For starters, the position of Amanda's body, depicted in this 48-hours animation

based on the crime scene photos, left Sills certain that Amanda could not have shot herself. Okay, this was the actual gun. Also of concern to Sills was the way this Smith & Wesson.380, which belonged to Seth, was found lying next to Amanda's body, with its magazine ejected. The magazine, it was near her right side, and the pistol itself was way down here below her left foot.

What made the ejected magazine even more curious, says Sills, is the fact that there was a bullet found inside the gun's chamber. It's a semi-automatic gun, so when it fires, the slide comes back, the spent cartridge case is ejected, and it picks up the next round. Because of that bullet in the chamber, the magazine had to be ejected after the gun was fired, says Sills. And unless the gun is defective, the only way to eject the magazine is to push this button. Now, don't do this at home, but when you do this, how are you going to get your hand, your second hand around there to do it? There was also no blood on Amanda's hands or the long sleeves of her shirt, and something else caught the sheriff's eye. In the middle of the closet on the floor was a damp green towel. Somebody had dried off with it, no doubt about that.

One of the first deputies on the scene said Seth smelled like shampoo. Also alarming, the bedroom was littered with 20 miniature bottles of Fireball whiskey, all of them empty. Sills says he didn't have the manpower to process the scene, so he called in agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. While they collected physical evidence, an Amanda's body was transported to the state medical examiner. Sills focused on Seth. He came in and sat right in this blue leather chair.

Seth spoke to Sills in his office for over an hour without an attorney present. I'm not going to lie to you. I have no reason to lie to you. I wanted to know what had happened that day. How did the magazine get out of the gun? How did the gun get where it was? Did you touch that gun today? The.380? Yeah. I mean, it's been like, no, today. No, sir. How does her body get into that position? No answer. Because he never touched her? No, never touched her. But Sills says that didn't make any sense. So he kept pressing. And then Seth changed his story. How are you?

Maybe I don't know. I probably did touch her. I was probably hugging the s*** out of her. And I was probably like, I'm so, like, honey, what the hell's going on? Sheriff Sills says Seth tried several times to deflect questions with his badge. I take pride in being a good law enforcement agent. And I can't remember how many times he looked me in the eye and said, I'm a good police officer. I'm a good officer. I'm a good police officer. I'm a good police officer. I'm a good officer. I'm a good police officer.

I'm a good police officer. I'm a good officer. I'm a good police officer. Amanda, he said, also knew what a good cop he was and how assault charges would ruin both their lives. She hated to see my reputation destroyed on the news because she knows what a good police officer I am. And she was so worried I'd lose my daughter. She wanted to come down here and tell you that it was a lie. Seth insisted that Amanda had lied the day she called 911 and felt so bad about it that she wanted to confess to perjury. He said that she had written something that she intended to bring to me recanting what she had told the deputies,

and he told me where it was. This handwritten letter was found in Amanda's nightstand. It reads in part, I, Amanda Perrault, would like to retract my statement. My husband never put his hands on me ever. I feel horrible for the humiliation I put my husband and my family I don't deny she wrote it, but look at the penmanship. There's not the slightest error of any kind. What we've got here is an inexperienced police officer dictating what's to be written. Like Sills, Amanda's sisters are certain Seth was behind the letter. She wrote it, but she was coached. I think he was telling her, I need you to write this to get me out of trouble.

But Seth told Sills he was not about to let Amanda confess to lying to authorities. I knew if she came down here, it was a false to lying to authorities. I knew. If she came down here, it was a false statement and a felony. I knew it. But according to Seth, Amanda couldn't take the guilt anymore, so she put his gun to her head and pulled the trigger. She looked at me and said, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I put you through this. Boom. I couldn't even say a word, Sheriff. It was done. Seth tried to convince Sills that Amanda killed herself because her call to 911 had potentially ruined their lives. But the sheriff didn't see that as a reason for suicide. Instead, he saw a motive for murder. Believing that Amanda would never take her own life, this made sense to her sisters as well. He had to make it look like she took her life so that he could be cleared of all this wrongdoing. be cleared of all this wrongdoing. Sheriff Sills says he was convinced that Seth Barol was somehow involved in his wife's death. But that day, he felt he didn't have enough to arrest him.

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One of the clues that convinced Sheriff Sills that Seth Peralt wasn't telling the truth were his actions just 20 minutes before he reported his wife Amanda was dead. That's when Sill's deputy, Terrell Abernathy, arrived at his front door trying to deliver paperwork on an upcoming case. They had one of those video doorbell things and I rang that. The scene was captured in this video. I expected him to answer the door and I expected to hand him his copy of the subpoena. I mean, you're a policeman. You know how this works. Abernethy says he could tell someone was home. And what did you hear?

I heard footsteps or footfalls, heavy ones. I'm announcing myself, who I am, what it is. I even turned my back to the door. I don't care if you're in your underwear. Just answer the door and take the paper. He waited seven minutes and then left, subpoena still in hand. In my heart, I believe that Amanda Peralt had already been shot when Abernathy rang the doorbell. I think he was concerned that somebody heard the gunshot, and that's why he didn't go to the door.

District Attorney Wright Barksdale believes Seth was trying to figure out what to do next. Think about this. He's in the process of staging this scene, and he hears the doorbell ring. Can you imagine what was going through his mind? But attorney Justin Kenney says that is not what happened. Why didn't they come to the door when Deputy Abernathy rang that bell? Fear of what he's bringing. Seth is afraid that his ex is about to serve him with custody modification paperwork. What does Seth say happened after that? So I believe that there is a heated discussion that takes place.

He lays down, diffuses the situation, he lays down to take a nap. He awoke to Amanda mumbling something, whispering something, and her pulling the trigger and shooting herself. Kenny points out that Amanda was impaired by alcohol, three times the legal limit when tested by the medical examiner. That and the escalating tension in her marriage became a deadly combination. The nice house, the daughter, the financial security, all of this was crumbling around

Amanda. And then you tack on a.23 blood alcohol content, she thought that that was the only way to fix it, to end it. She was really drunk. Absolutely. Maybe she accidentally shot the gun. How'd she accidentally get the magazine out of it? How'd she accidentally get posed as she was?

Sills was also very troubled because Seth didn't call 911 when his wife allegedly shot herself. Instead, Perrold called his boss, the Edenton chief of police, on his cell phone. 48 Hours made several unsuccessful attempts to reach the former chief for comment. Obviously, we're not going to have a recording of that, and they have at least a 20-minute conversation before I'm called. Hoping the Peralta's neighbors had heard something the day Amanda died, Sills had Deputy Abernathy go back to the paroled house

to question them. What he learned made Sills even more suspicious about Seth's involvement in Amanda's death. We found out that there had been a true pattern of domestic violence for years and years. Neighbors said the couple could be heard fighting nearly every day and in their eyes Seth was almost always the aggressor. They told stories about a physical altercation between Seth and Amanda where he actually grabbed her by the back of the hair and pulled her down and pushed her into the driveway. One neighbor told Abernathy that he would often stand by in case things got really violent. He talked about how at times he would just stand in the yard and just wait to see if he needed to call 911

because it was so violent over there. Another neighbor said that Amanda had twice made this chilling comment. That if she were to wind up dead, that Peralta is the one that did it. And she made this neighbor promise that she would insist that her death be investigated as homicide. Did anyone call the police? No. Why not? Well, one of the answers was that we were scared to call because he was the police. It's hurtful. It's hurtful. And this is why I wanted to do this show, is to make sure that people know to speak up. The day Amanda died, the neighbors said they didn't hear a thing.

The only witness to what happened was Seth Peralt, and Sills was sure he couldn't trust him after the interview in his office. According to Seth, they take the child to school, they come back home, and they go nowhere at all other than down the street to the convenience store. Well, that didn't happen. He lied. Sills says the proof was on this surveillance camera footage of the couple found 12 miles away at this drive-thru liquor store where Amanda bought those 20 miniature bottles of Fireball whiskey.

She drives up this drive-in window. Right there is the camera that catches the truck. I see it. Simultaneously, Seth was captured on a camera next door at this convenience store. You see him walk, and he actually comes down, I believe it's this aisle. And he walks, and he gets something to drink.

This video, says Barksdale, would become a crucial piece of evidence, not because of what was purchased, but because of what Seth was wearing. This pink Floyd t-shirt and these black athletic pants. Nearly four hours later, when sheriff's deputies arrived at the parole home to investigate Amanda's death, Seth was wearing something else. When we get there, he is dressed in shorts and a dark t-shirt. And the clothing Seth was wearing in the video? We found those in the washing machine. The clothing was dry and had clearly not been laundered.

But there was that deputy who had reported that Seth smelled freshly washed. And there was that damp towel that was found on the closet floor. Seth says he took a bath. Seth's attorney, Justin Kenney, says Seth did wash up at some point. After you take a bath, you're going to change clothes. There was no evidence that the washing machine had actually been turned on. It looked like the washing machine was being used as a laundry basket. Only a tiny speck of blood was found on the backside of Perrault's pants,

and a trace amount of gunpowder residue was found on his left hand when tested. They did it three hours later after potential contamination from being at the police station. Amanda's hands were never tested, and the gun was never dusted for fingerprints. But Sills felt he now had enough evidence to make an arrest. Just two days after Amanda's shooting, now former Edenton police officer Seth Perrault was taken into custody. Sheriff Sills called me and let me know that they were going to arrest him for her murder. And my whole family just was so relieved and happy that... She was getting justice.

Yes. But before a grand jury could hear the evidence and decide if there was enough to go to trial, COVID shut down the courts. Seth would sit in this jail for nearly nine months until that autopsy report was released by the medical examiner, declaring Amanda's death a suicide. Her decision was based primarily on the lack of gunpowder around the wound, which meant the gun would have to have been right up against Amanda's head when it went off,

and there were no signs of a struggle. Nobody is just going to allow somebody to put a gun to their head and pull the trigger without putting up some sort of fight. The first thing I just called the DA. I said, you're not going to believe this. Did you think maybe you made a mistake? Absolutely not. We're going to take every bit of the evidence and try to piece this thing together. But Justin Kenny did think the prosecution was making a mistake and that the autopsy report was all the evidence needed to defend Seth Peralt. I mean, it was, it seemed pretty open shot to me. It was November 3rd, 2020, and Seth Perrault, still unindicted, had been in jail for nearly nine months. When COVID restrictions finally eased, a grand jury was set to decide if there was enough

evidence against him to go to trial. And you know the first thing I put up for that grand jury to see? The crime scene pictures. No, ma'am. The autopsy report that said suicide. Ladies and gentlemen, the state crime lab medical examiner says this was a suicide. Now, I'm going to show you the evidence I found. Members of the grand jury did see the crime scene photos and heard evidence of domestic abuse and quickly decided that despite the medical examiner's report, Seth Perrault should face a jury of his peers. What were the charges? Malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault.

Perrault pled not guilty to all charges. At his trial in February of 2022, he decided not to testify, leaving defense attorney Justin Kenny to tell his story. I think there was a complete absence of sufficient evidence that Seth killed his wife. The prosecution showed a jury of eight women and four men the crime scene photos, including the way Amanda's body and the gun were found. They also heard testimony from that sheriff's deputy who thought Seth smelled freshly showered. They watched the footage of Deputy Abernathy at the Peralta's front door and listened to all 60 minutes of Peralta's interview with Sheriff Sills. I don't know how this happened. District Attorney Barksdale says

that some of the most compelling evidence was found on Amanda's cell phone. Like this video she recorded seven months prior to her death. It's sad. It's sad because you know what? I married you and I'm not going to... I'm done. You're done. I'm done. Amanda's sisters were seeing the video for the first time.

It made me angry. I wanna have a good weekend. You burn that up when you try to put that phone in my face. What phone in your face? Oh, right there. Oh, your videotape. Yeah, because you're being an a**hole and I'm gonna show you tomorrow.

You didn't videotape all the a** when you hit me and smashed me. Hit you? You a**hole choked me eight f***ing times. The video was problematic, but it doesn't show everything that took place. Seth also states that she had acted violently toward him as well. There was no evidence of Seth having been abused introduced at trial. But Amanda's phone also contained photos of her with bruises, a black eye, and a split lip, along with texts like this one to her sisters.

Seth just choked me till I nearly passed out, busted my lip wide open. I was scared that one of them might get hurt. This is Seth's then eight-year-old daughter being interviewed by a forensic child psychologist. Remember, she was a witness to what happened the day Amanda called 911. They were cussing at each other. Ms. Amanda was cussing too, but she didn't touch Daddy at all. Daddy was touching her nose like this, like like get out of my house right now. The jury was shown most of the interview.

She was on the floor like this, like we had time to get her stuff. Then all of a sudden, daddy just started grabbing her arms and daddy just pushed her over the laundry table and then opened the door and pushed her out the door. While her father spent the night in jail, she said Amanda begged her not to tell anyone what happened or there could be deadly consequences. Amanda tells her that night, if your daddy loses custody of you, he's going to shoot me dead.

Your daddy would come shoot me dead. to shoot me dead. Your daddy would come shoot me dead. But when Barksdale called the now 10-year-old to the witness stand, she said she couldn't recall what happened that day or what she said in the interview. She, I think, felt really torn. I seen her look at her dad a couple times. I felt like she was more careful about what she was saying, like somebody had been coaching her. In cross-examination, the defense asked if anyone had coached her on what to say. She said no. But Justin Kenney says he believes another prosecution witness may have been coached, a jailhouse informant named Jack Falk, who had shared a dorm block with Seth Perrault. Jack Falk has a

criminal history, I believe, 28 pages long, numerous contacts with the police, and he had every incentive to lie and make up a story. Falk had come forward three weeks before the medical examiner's report was released, claiming he had valuable information about Amanda's death. He knew things that only Seth Perrault could have told him. In these two handwritten letters, Falk claimed that Seth told him the camera catching him with the clothes on was his biggest concern. He also claimed that Seth said he had been giving Amanda painkillers all day and that she was passed out at the time of her death. I think he was in the bed with her after she was passed out and held the gun against her head.

He was behind her? Behind her or slightly to the side. The defense argued that Amanda shot herself because her lies about Seth assaulting her had potentially ruined their lives. assaulting her had potentially ruined their lives. Furthermore, only that tiny trace of gunshot residue was found on Perrault's left hand, and there was just that one speck of blood found on his clothing. Justin Kenney says the hardest thing for the defense to explain was the way Amanda's body was found. We knew that it was going to be a problem. The body had to be moved in some way, had to be touched in some way. Kenny says there is one explanation that makes sense to him. Something Perrault said in his interview with Sheriff Sills.

I probably did touch her. I was probably hugging the out of her. And that would potentially account for her arms being by her sides. As for the way Seth's gun was found beside Amanda's body with the ejected magazine by her side, the defense hired an expert who testified he fired the gun six times. And after one of those firings, the magazine spontaneously ejected. It shows that that firearm can drop the magazine when it's fired. Howard Seals took that very gun out and shot it several times. The GBI examined that gun, didn't notate in their report any malfunctions whatsoever. Dr. Laura, L-O-R-A, Derisaw.

Then there was the medical examiner, Laura Derisaw. Barksdale called her to the stand and asked her to explain how she came to her conclusion of suicide as the manner of death. What I wanted the jury and for her to see, she did not consider all the evidence. She had not considered Seth's daughter's interview. She had not considered the cell phone data, the prior domestic abuse. But Dr. Derisaw defended her conclusion. And in this statement to 48 Hours, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation backed her up. Our agency stands behind the original expert opinion of Perrault's death. Were you worried at all about the verdict?

What I try to remind myself, it is my job to pursue justice and to present a case for the jury to consider. jury to consider. And if they were to walk him out the door, I would be able to look to Amanda Peralt's family and say, we did everything we could. Go inside the case and see more of the evidence at 48hours.com. When they called us all back in, we all just held hands and dropped our head. It had been just under two and a half hours when the jury in the murder trial of Seth Rolts announced that they had reached a verdict. I just remember praying, saying, God, you know, just please, you know, please do this for our family. Let us have justice for our sister. And justice is what they feel they got,

the verdict, guilty of murder. It was bittersweet because we got justice, but it didn't bring her back and didn't bring our best friend back. That same day, Paroles was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. I want many years of him praying to God and being on his knees that he would have took his own life instead of my sister's. Justin Kenny says he believes an innocent man is now behind bars for life. My heart sank. I've known Seth for almost a decade now

and I don't think he did it. Every August on her birthday, Amanda's sisters honor her memory by releasing love letters tied to purple balloons. I love you, Amanda. I hope you're having a beautiful birthday in heaven. Happy birthday, dear Amanda. Happy birthday to you. In 2022, the notes also included the National Domestic Abuse Hotline number. And hopefully this will find somebody that really needs it. We just want to create awareness around domestic abuse and for people to don't sit back and just let it happen, no matter what the victim is telling you.

Fight for them, you know, help them, help them any way you can. There's so many things I wish I could go back now and do different. I wish I could go back and save her. You're going to save somebody with this. I hope so. Join me Tuesday for Postmortem from 48 Hours, where we'll dive even deeper into today's episode and answer your questions about the case. And answer your questions about the case.