48 Hours - The Mysterious Death of Tiffiney Crawford

Episode Date: March 26, 2023

A young mother is found dead in her car. Could she have shot herself twice? "48 Hours" contributor David Begnaud reports.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 audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. 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. 911, where's your emergency? I need someone to come out here to my house. Tell me exactly what's going on.

My wife has been shot. She's in her van. Where's the gun, sir? 36.25. It's right here in our hands. Is there a pulse or anything? I can't find a pulse. You can go ahead and check. JPR?

Yeah. What happened tonight? We were arguing, and the last thing I remember, I was going in the house, and I heard a shot, a shot scream and in another shot. Open a bag, give me some trauma shoes. Stay clear of patient. The realization started hitting me that she shot herself. Analyzing heart rhythm.

Stay back here. What they're gonna do is try to determine if they can get a pulse, okay? Check airway. Check breathing. Check circulation. Hi, Chief. It looks like suicide to me. Did anything about your relationship with Tiffany lead you to believe that she was suicidal?

Not at the time. Looking back, just seeing how depressed she actually was and reading some of her journal makes me think she was hiding a lot of stuff. Tiffany was one of my very best friends. She was a big spirit. She had big plans. She wanted to see the world.

This was a school photo. She was my firstborn, my only daughter. She was very involved with her children. She used to dance and sing with them all the time. Her goal was to bring people together. That was why she started Mothers Helping Mothers. MHM is a community for all moms of all walks of life. It doesn't matter your background, we want to be there to love and support you. Do you believe she would take her own life? No. I had just talked to her. I do not believe that. When we learned that she had shot herself twice with her non-dominant hand, we were fairly

certain that there's no way. Were you certain Jason did it? I couldn't see her who else did it. Just no way physically possible could it happen the way that he said it happened. To believe that she did it to herself, you have to believe she used her non-dominant hand. Very impulsive.

And then shot herself twice. Yes. Most suicides don't involve two shots. Yes. Most, not all. We don't believe Jason is guilty of this at all. They did not see blood or anything on him. They found nothing that would indicate he had fired a firearm recently. I think she gave up.

I think she just fell apart and decided to end it. Did you kill your wife? No. There wasn't anything that had ever happened through the years for me to say, oh, he might be guilty. I never, ever thought that he was guilty. I don't have a pulse.

She's right here. She's gone. I'm going to go. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing the best idea yet. A brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time,

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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 Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. 911, where's your emergency? Uh, I want a shot. I need someone out here, please. It was just after 11 p.m. on May 2, 2017, when then-37-year-old Jason Crawford called 9-1-1 from right outside his home in Coleman, Alabama. That is about 50 miles north of Birmingham.

Sir, is she breathing? I don't know. I'm trying to pick her up so I can see. Jason remembers that night vividly. It felt like it was taking longer and longer for anybody to get there. And eventually I saw some headlights. Body camera footage shows what Coleman County Sheriff's deputies found when they first got to the scene. TMS, it's on the way, okay? Jason's wife, 32-year-old Tiffany Crawford, was slumped over in the driver's seat of her own van.

There was a pink revolver in her left hand, which Jason says she kept in the driver's side door of her vehicle for protection. When one of the sheriff's deputies tried to check Tiffany for a pulse, the gun fell out of her hand. What happened tonight? We were arguing.

I gave her her stuff so she could go. I didn't let her in the house. And the last thing I remember, she said she loved me, and I was going in the house. And I heard a shot, a scream, and then another shot. Tiffany had been shot twice in the head. Paramedics tried to revive her. Analyzing heart rhythm. Check circulation.

I was thinking, well, maybe there's a chance she's still alive. But it was too late. And they come over and told me that she was dead. It just made me feel sick in my stomach. To at least one of the deputies on the scene that night, it appeared pretty clear that this was a suicide. There's nothing here so far that says anything to me other than suicide. And it wasn't long before deputies realized who Jason Crawford was,

the son of Rhonda Crawford, who works as an office manager at the sheriff's office. You know it's Rhonda's daughter-in-law. Coleman County Sheriff Matt Gentry soon got word. The chief deputy called me and said, Hey, it appears that Rhonda's daughter-in-law had shot herself. I said, I'll go out there and check on them. By the time the sheriff got there, Rhonda Crawford was already on scene. It was Rhonda, Jason's mother, who called Tiffany's mom, Cheryl McGuckin, to tell her what happened. I felt like I was kind of frozen in time in that moment.

And I said, is Jason there? Can I talk to him? And he was already speaking with the police. Is that her gun that she kept with her? Yeah. And so I got off the phone and tried to figure out what my next step was. Cheryl's thoughts soon turned to Tiffany and Jason's children. They shared a five-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter. Tiffany was also stepmom to Jason's then 14-year-old son, Logan. All the kids were inside the house that night.

The two youngest were asleep. For Cheryl, life really hasn't been the same since then. What are the things that you miss about her? You know, the things I miss about her is her spontaneity. Tiffany was an individual that had a huge heart, and she just wanted to engulf everyone around her and help them find joy. That is why Cheryl says Tiffany devoted much of her spare time to a support group that she had started on Facebook

called Mothers Helping Mothers. We're there to laugh with each other, to love each other, and to just build you up in everyday motherhood. She saw a vision that there were other mothers that needed somebody to talk to. And that group took off like a wildfire and spread all over the country. Tiffany and Jason had been married a little more than six years when she died. What did you think of Tiffany when you first met her? I thought she was striking and beautiful. She was outgoing. A lot of things I wasn't, you know, so it was more of like, I guess, opposites attract kind of thing.

When they started dating, Jason had been divorced for several years. His first wife, he says, had cheated on him. Tiffany was in a relationship at the time, married in fact. It wasn't exactly a fairy tale beginning from the outside looking in, Married, in fact, it wasn't exactly a fairy tale beginning from the outside looking in. But Jason says for the two of them, it was. It was like fireworks from the beginning. Tiffany eventually got divorced. And that is when she and Jason married and started their family.

Just what led up to her death on that night in May 2017. She'd gone. Would be up to the investigators to find out. Sheriff Gentry remembers a conversation he had on the scene with the coroner. He says it appears to be a suicide. He said the only weird thing is there's two shots. What do you recall about what you thought in that moment? Well, that's weird. It's strange.

Now, has it happened before? Yes, but it's not normal. One of the shots was to her left jaw area. The other was to her left temple. I said, because of his mother's connection to our office, for transparency, there has to be an autopsy done. Sheriff Gentry says his investigators went on to process the scene that night. We investigate every suicide like a homicide. So the man was searched. Evidence that was needed to be was seized. But the next morning, Sheriff Gentry decided to turn the case over

to the Alabama State Bureau of Investigation. I could have told our guys to work it, but because of the potential for conflict, I want full transparency. Joe Parrish is the state agent who got the case. What's the first thing you do? I went to the district attorney's office and asked him about the van.

Parrish wanted to get his hands on that van in which Tiffany was shot, so he got a search warrant for it. But there was just one problem. You see, the van had been released to the Crawford family. And by the time Parrish got to it, less than 24 hours after Tiffany died, it had already been cleaned by Jason's family members. The sheriff's office had given them the go-ahead. I didn't want the kids to see anything. I was worried about them when they woke up in the morning.

What did you make of that, that the van had been cleaned? It was odd that they would clean it up that quick after something like that. But Sheriff Gentry defends his decision to release the van. There was nothing of evidentiary value to the van. They processed it, took pictures. They did everything they normally would do on a crime scene that night. Right, but if you're treating it like a homicide, I'm not turning the van over to the family.

Sure. So, and I completely understand. So it was treated, we worked it like a homicide, but it was treated like a suicide. Every bit of evidence that was needed was taken. But as it turns out, that van would be significant. And so would what Jason and Tiffany were arguing about right before she died. and Tiffany were arguing about right before she died. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch.

It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who'd attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman? Now, we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear, 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. We're going to talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created, literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America.

If you really believed in tough on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. 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

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And listen to more Exhibit C True Crime shows early and ad-free right now. Yeah, I could tell something was going on because she was getting more distant. Yeah, I could tell something was going on because she was getting more distant. Jason Crawford says that in the months leading up to his wife Tiffany's death, he noticed a change in her. She had been drinking a lot too. Two or three bottles a week sometimes. So you had a feeling something was up? Yes.

Andy says his suspicions were confirmed the night Tiffany died, when just hours before she got home, Jason found messages on their computer suggesting that she was having an affair. So I started calling her, you know, just trying to see if she would tell me anything. And she's like, I don't know what you're talking about, denying it. And I was like, okay, well, I think he knew he was home. Tiffany's mom, Cheryl, says she knew about the affair. She called to let me know she was on her way home and that Jason and her were going to have to have a discussion about their problems. Did she sound worried? She did not sound worried. She sounded kind of hyper and, you know, anxious. I just said, well, I love you. Be careful.

Tiffany's friend, Lindsay Luke, says she also knew about the affair. Lindsay says Tiffany told her she was making plans to leave Jason and that she got a job at a local grocery store to save up money for a new life on her own. She knew what she needed to leave him and how she was so close. Was Tiffany afraid that Jason was going to find out about the affair? Yes. And she didn't want him to because she didn't want to hurt him. But that night when he did find out, Jason says he was hurt and angry. This was the second time a wife had cheated on him.

When Tiffany got home, he says that's when he confronted her and refused to let her go inside. I kept telling her she's not staying the night. She asked me, why can't I stay? I was like, you've destroyed the sanctity of our marriage. You were really angry. Yeah, I was angry, but I was controlled anger. Jason claims they argued for more than an hour. And when he remained insistent that Tiffany was not going inside, he says she asked him to go and get her work clothes.

I went in and grabbed some clothes and threw them to her. And then I told her I'm done talking. So I went in the house, and as soon as I went in the house, I heard a shot, her scream, and then another shot. And then you did what? Went right back outside. And what position was the door in, the car door? The car door, it was pulled to or closed.

Jason says that's when he called 911. I need someone to come out here to my house. Police or medical? But in that call and the police body camera footage from that night, Jason never mentioned an affair. Last thing I remember, she said she loved me. Lead investigator Joe Parrish says authorities didn't learn about the affair until the next day. Also, when Parrish listened back to that 911 call, there was more that caught his ear. It was very cold.

It didn't sound like somebody that was worried about his wife. I'm going to need some more information. And there was one question that the 911 dispatcher kept asking Jason that he wouldn't answer. Who shot your wife? He was avoiding the question. I would like to play the 911 call for you. Okay. 911, this is the fireworks emergency.

I want to show it. You seem cool as a cucumber. Oh. Maybe that's just the way my tone of voice is. She's been shot. Who has she been shot by? Please have an end of the command, please. She asked you who she'd been shot by. Mm-hmm. And you didn't respond. Yeah. Why not? She asked you who she'd been shot by.

And you didn't respond. Yeah. Why not? Yeah, I just felt like if I said it into existence, it would be true. She's been shot in the head. Did she shoot herself in the head? This lady gave you an opportunity to say yes. Yeah.

And you didn't respond. Oh, how many more times I can tell you? I just froze in thought. Do you understand how somebody listens to that and says, yeah, because he did it? Yeah, I can understand that. And that's exactly what Joe Parrish thought. A week after Tiffany died, and with her autopsy results still pending, Parrish decided to bring Jason in for questioning. During that interview, Jason spoke in detail about discovering the affair and the argument that he had with Tiffany. And he also answered a question that Parrish believed was key.

Tiffany was right-handed, but the gun had been found in her left hand. How often in your experience do suicides happen where the individual uses their non-dominant hand? I've never seen it personally. And it's not like I know she's like so predominantly right-handed that she couldn't use her left hand. But why would Tiffany, a woman who devoted so much time to helping others, suddenly kill herself? There was nothing suicidal about her. Even Jason finds it hard to explain. Had she ever spoke about wanting to kill herself?

Not that I know, not to me. After Parrish interviewed Jason, he was free to go. But about a week later, he was brought back in for questioning, this time by Parrish's colleague. And I'm going to advise you of your constitutional rights. Jason agreed to take a polygraph, and investigators told him he failed. Your reactions were off the chain. You're saying that there's no way that you shot your wife, correct?

It wasn't long before things turned contentious. I don't want to hear that I didn't shoot my wife. Because I know that's a f***ing lie. I can't even get up and leave because I'm under arrest, right? You listening to me, huh? Walk out that f***ing door. You know what? That interview also ended with no arrest.

You gave me a chance. Because of a backlog, it would take nearly a year to get the missing piece of the puzzle, those autopsy results. You see, the manner of death was ruled a homicide, and that is when the decision was made to present the case to a grand jury. I have no doubt in my mind he's guilty at all. Jeff Roberts was the Coleman County Assistant District Attorney at the time. I think the forensics tipped the case. But would a grand jury indict Jason? Even Tiffany's mother had her doubts. Even though I didn't want to believe it was a suicide, naturally, I wouldn't want to believe my son-in-law killed her either.

killed her either. What do you make of Jason's 911 call? Chat now with the 48 Hours team on Facebook and Twitter. It's a sad situation whether on one side you believe somebody committed suicide or somebody committed murder. Neither one of those scenarios work in my mind. In the year following her daughter Tiffany's death, Cheryl McGuckins says she had a hard time believing that her daughter could have killed herself. But she also couldn't imagine that her son-in-law, Jason, would have pulled the trigger. Did you ever call the investigators and say,

I want to know every bit of details you have? I want to know all the details. No. Why not? I suppose I didn't want to let that cloud my time with my grandkids and my relationship with Jason and his family. My family and friends would never question that I wouldn't kill my wife. Jason did have a lot of support, but not from the investigators or then-Coleman County

Assistant District Attorney Jeff Roberts and his legal assistant, Deborah Ball. She was too out there to help other people. She's not going to kill herself. There's no way that that's what happened. Once Roberts had received word that the medical examiner had ruled Tiffany's death a homicide, he decided, along with lead investigator Joe Parrish, to seek an indictment against Jason. I couldn't see who else did it. He's the only one who had a motive to do it, for one thing. A grand jury came back with an indictment for murder for Jason Crawford.

Jason called me and told me. It was very shocking and very confusing. On May 21, 2018, just over a year after Tiffany died, Jason surrendered. Walked in, I told him he was under arrest. He didn't seem to be worried. He didn't seem to be worried.

No. Jason wasn't in custody for very long. In fact, he was released on bond. And Robert Tootin and Nicholas Heatherly became his defense attorneys. We don't believe Jason is guilty of this at all. There's no evidence. They did not see blood or anything on him. They found nothing that would indicate he had fired a firearm recently.

But the night of the shooting, Jason was never tested for gunshot residue. And his house was never searched for bloody clothing. Still, Tootin and Heatherly say they believe Jason, who says he was inside the house when the gunshots rang out. His oldest son heard his father come back in the house right before the first gunshot. And about that polygraph test that Jason was said to have failed? Police investigators use those as an investigative tool. If they think somebody is guilty, they tell them that they have failed the polygraph and insist they tell what really happened.

They gave you a lie detector test and you failed it. Yeah. They can make those read how they want to. Jason's defense team also downplayed that 911 call. The one in which investigator Parrish noticed Jason sounded calm, even evasive. If someone's never been in a high-pressure situation like that, where they've just been shocked by what they're seeing, they probably would not understand how that affects somebody. It just felt like I was outside my body, not knowing what was going on.

But the prosecution was confident that Jason was guilty. Dr. Valerie Green was confident too. She is the medical examiner who conducted Tiffany's autopsy. You remember saying to yourself, I got a feeling there's more to this story. Oh yes, definitely. I think the thing that made me think that there could be something else going on with this case is that gunshot wound on the left side of Ms. Crawford's

head. Dr. Green says that based on the absence of gunpowder particles and abrasion around the wound to Tiffany's left temple, she concluded that the shot had to have been fired from at least 10 inches away. That's indicating that, you know, she's holding her arm outward beyond 10 inches and trying to shoot herself. Not saying that it's impossible, but it's not likely. It is especially unlikely, says Dr. Green, because Jason reported that he found Tiffany in the driver's seat of her own van. Where's the gun, sir? With the gun in her left hand. It's right here in her hand. And the car door closed. That was concerning to me because, I mean, for you to be able to hold up a gun and shoot yourself in the head, it would be difficult to do in such a small space.

That's not all, says Dr. Green. Neither of Tiffany's injuries were contact wounds. She didn't have a contact wound here, and she didn't have a contact wound here. Correct. Most suicides involve the barrel or the tip of the gun being placed on the skin. Yeah, you said most, not all. But there was something else Dr. Green noticed, specifically about that van. I remember looking at pictures of the driver's side door and I didn't see any blood on that door.

I didn't see any blood on the glass or the window. I didn't see anything even low on the door. That makes me think that the door was not closed. And I think that that door is open because he was standing there. Despite the autopsy report and the fact that a grand jury had indicted Jason, Tiffany's mom continued to support him. I never changed how I felt towards Jason. I mean, what purpose would that serve? You know, he's also somebody's child. And he's the remaining parent to my grandchildren.

More than four years would pass before the case ever went to trial. And during that time, the defense would retain their own medical examiner, the former chief medical examiner for the state of Alabama. And he had a drastically different opinion than Dr. Green. I believe it's a suicide.

See more photos from the case at 48hours.com. hours.com. In November 2022, more than five years after Tiffany Crawford died, her husband, Jason Crawford, went on trial for her murder. Prosecutor Jeff Roberts was confident in his case, but he knew there would be challenges. The fact that it was considered by the officers on the scene, apparently consistent with suicide, I thought this was going to be really tough to overcome. Jason's defense attorneys, Robert Tootin and Nicholas Heatherly, also felt that they had their work cut out for them. Simply because there's no way to really find a definitive answer for exactly what happened. We were only allowed to film the trial from outside the courtroom through a windowed door.

Tiffany's mother, Cheryl, who said she didn't want to hear the details surrounding her daughter's death, chose not to attend the trial. I knew that there would be things said on both sides that I didn't want to have in my head. But she did go on day one solely to testify. She was the prosecutor's first witness. He assumed that I was on their side. Instead, Cheryl says she told the jury how she really felt about Jason. I've never had any issues with Jason. Megan Brock was a juror on the case.

She was telling everybody, me and Jason have a great relationship. I was like, really? She thought it was weird that his mother-in-law might still be supporting him as he's on trial for murder. Yep. Undeterred, the prosecution moved on with what they felt was evidence of Jason's

alleged motive, anger over his wife's affair. A friend of Tiffany's testified that Jason called her after learning that Tiffany had been cheating on him and that he said he couldn't go through this again, referencing the fact that his first wife had also had an affair. Jason claims he couldn't go through this again, referencing the fact that his first wife had also had an affair. Jason claims he didn't say that. His first wife cheated on him. Tiffany cheated on him. Isn't it plausible for somebody on the jury to think,

hey, look, the guy snapped, so he killed her? I don't think that happened at all. He didn't snap over his first wife. They remain friends even to this day. Jason's 911 call was also played for the jury. I liked the shot. And they saw some of that police body camera footage too. The prosecution also called DNA analyst Angela Fletcher, who examined swabs taken from Tiffany's

gun. She testified she couldn't say for sure whether there was any female DNA on the gun because there was only a trace amount of DNA detected. But she was certain that both the grip and the trigger contained male DNA. Is it Jason Crawford? No, the profile was so limited that I was unable to do any type of comparison. There's other people that have touched that gun that were males. My dad gave her the gun, so his DNA may be on it. Her brother also shot it.

With so little DNA detected, the prosecution argued that Jason must have wiped the gun and then planted it in Tiffany's hand. There's no proof. There's no evidence of it at all, no. Her DNA would have had to be on that gun if she did it herself. But perhaps the most damaging testimony against Jason came from medical examiner Dr. Valerie Green. She told the jury how she believes the gunshot wound to Tiffany's temple was fired from more than 10 inches away. Which is way more consistent with him standing outside the car shooting her than her trying to hold a gun over 10 inches away. But the defense showed the jury a prerecorded deposition

with their own medical examiner, Dr. James Lauridsen. I believe that Mrs. Crawford shot herself first in the left side of the face and then shot herself in the left side of the head. Dr. Lauridsen also testified there is no way to tell how far away the gun was when that shot to Tiffany's temple was fired, because her hair was in the way. I do realize that scalp hair can filter out gunpowder particles, but that was taken into consideration. I would expect more abrasions to have been able to filter through her hair. The defense also argued that Tiffany had been struggling emotionally. She had started seeing a counselor just one day before she died. And friends of Tiffany testified that she had been drinking excessively and that she was upset

because the man with whom she was having an affair had recently broken up with her. He told her he didn't want to have anything else to do with her. Basically, her whole life's falling apart, and I think she just gave up. Tiffany's journal was also entered into evidence, and in an entry dated the day she died, she wrote that she was struggling with figuring out what to do with herself and that she was trying to avoid breaking down. Isn't it possible that she was having thoughts of suicide?

I would say no. She had started seeing a counselor. That's somebody who was looking forward in life. Jason's son, Logan, also took the stand for the defense. He testified that he heard his father inside the house when the gunshots went off that night. But the prosecution questions his memory. When he keeps hearing the same story, his story's going to start matching up somewhat like all 14-year-olds would. His story never changed. He was interviewed by law enforcement and it stayed consistent. As the trial was drawing to a close, the defense made a bold decision.

They called Jason to the stand. He testified that he loved Tiffany and denied killing her. But both the prosecution and the defense acknowledge there was a point where he lost his cool. He argued a little bit with the prosecutor. The person on the stand was the person that you could easily see doing this. Jason also testified that he called Tiffany a degrading name that night she died. You said to the jury, I was trying as best I could to make her hurt inside as much as I was hurting. Yeah. I was just basically talking down to her like she was not human. I feel sorry because I feel like maybe that contributed to what pushed her over the edge to do that. Even though Jason's testimony likely did him no favors, there was still no direct physical evidence pointing towards his guilt.

There's no evidence that Jason fired the gun. And after four days of testimony, the case went to the jury. I said, oh God, here we go. I don't know if this man did it or not. It was November 18th, 2022, and Jason Crawford's fate was now in the hands of a jury. Behind closed doors, Megan Brock says she and several fellow jurors were on the fence about his guilt. And I was like, so we're going to sit here for the next however long it takes? My stomach was in knots.

Cheryl McGuckin admits she was nervous for Jason and his family. You know, this is my son-in-law. After several hours deliberating, the jury requested access to that body camera footage. Then they asked for the 911 recording. My wife was shot. I need someone out here, please. About 30 minutes later, they announced they had reached a decision. Cheryl was in the courtroom, only for the second time. And who were you with for the verdict?

I was sitting with my husband right behind Jason's parents and the rest of his family. As for the verdict, this is how Megan says the jury came to their decision. When we listened to that 911 call again, that was it. So the 911 call sealed the deal? That was it. Really? The operator, she keeps asking him, you know, who shot her. Who has she been shot by?

Finally, she was like, okay, well, where's the gun at? And he said, laying beside her. And we were like, wait, what? Where's the gun at? It's laying beside her. He clearly said the gun is laying beside her, when in fact the body cam footage just showed her holding the gun, barely, but holding the gun.

The gun wasn't laying beside her. It was beside her because it's on her side, in her hand. They found the gun in her hand? Yes. You understand the difference between in her hand and laying beside her? To some people, yes. Like, beside her, it's beside. Like, laying on her, it's beside her.

I just chose the wrong words to say. But the jury did not see it that way. I said, oh, f***. He's guilty. Everybody said the same thing. They were like, he's guilty. The verdict was guilty. Yes. Just felt like it shouldn't be happening. It was unbelievable. So I was just stunned.

You know, I had a friend that said, Hallelujah. And that really bothered me because that wasn't anything to cheer about. There's no justice here. Everybody loses. You are a grandmother. And there are two kids left behind who had nothing to do with this.

Right. Exactly. But at the end of the day, this man was put on trial. The evidence was heard. He was convicted. So he is a killer in the eyes of the law. You know, they're going to do an appeal. I don't want to misspeak on this at all. When you say they're doing an appeal, what do you mean? Are you protecting him?

I don't have any reason to protect him, but I'm going to let things play out as they will. Following this interview, I asked Cheryl if she had any interest in seeing the evidence. You said you did. You asked if we could show it to you. We provided you with what was in the public record. Yeah.

What do you now believe? Well, I now believe that he did kill her. I'm reading the evidence, going through what was said during the trial. It made it painfully obvious. On March 10, 2023, Cheryl McGuckin took the stand again at Jason's sentencing hearing. But this time, she spoke for her daughter. at Jason's sentencing hearing. But this time, she spoke for her daughter.

I couldn't understand how my son-in-law, Jason, could look me in the eye for five and a half years if he had murdered my daughter. Our cameras were again outside the courtroom looking in, so Cheryl shared with us what she said directly to Jason. Jason, if not you, who? You were there. You know the truth. I pray you will someday find wisdom and strength to speak the truth.

She said that in front of her grandchildren, too. They were sitting in the very front row. Cheryl didn't know that Jason's parents were going to bring them. As the judge prepared to sentence Jason Crawford, his lawyers were still pleading his innocence, just as Jason did when I first spoke with him. If I could interview Tiffany today, what do you think she'd tell me? Probably that she's sorry and she didn't realize that it would affect so many people like it did. She wouldn't tell me that you're a liar and a killer. No. I don't think so.

Jason was sentenced to 99 years in prison. But under Alabama law, he'll be eligible for parole in 15 years. What do you think Tiffany would say now, having seen you on the stand? I can hear her saying, I'm proud of you, Mama. Now, Cheryl just wants to make sure that her grandchildren are proud of their mother and never forget who Tiffany was and what she stood for. She was just an angel that came down from heaven for a short time to teach all of us how to love and be kind and be giving. I'm Erin Moriarty, and this is my life of crime.

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