Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Wealthy lawyer shoots wife dead, sells her lux clothes at consignment: CASE REVERSED

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

Atlanta lawyer Claud “Tex” McIver's murder conviction has been overturned by the Georgia Supreme Court. McIver was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for the shooting death of his wife. The court ruled unanimously that the jury should have been allowed to consider a lesser charge — involuntary manslaughter.   Diane McIver died after being shot in the back. A family friend was driving Diane and Tex McIver back to Atlanta from the McIvers’ 84-acre ranch in Putnam County. Diane McIver was in the passenger seat. Tex McIver was in the backseat.  As they arrived in the city, McIver reportedly asked for his .38 caliber revolver from the center console — according to one statement because they had driven up on a Black Lives Matter protest, while in another statement he said it was for protection against homeless people.   McIver fell asleep in the back seat, with the gun in his lap in a plastic bag. According to testimony, as they pulled up to a traffic light on Piedmont Avenue, Diane McIver, 64, told her husband to wake up and not fall asleep. Tex McIver fired one shot, which went through the seat and struck his wife in the back. The Supreme Court ruling noted McIver’s contention that he was startled awake by his wife and inadvertently pulled the trigger because of it. The high court upheld a second conviction for influencing a witness, for which McIver, a well-connected Republican attorney known for union-busting, was sentenced to five years in prison. He has now served four years and 10 months.   Joining Nancy Grace Today: Darryl Cohen - Former Assistant District Attorney, Fulton County, Georgia, Defense Attorney, Cohen, Cooper, Estep, & Allen, LLC, CCEAlaw.com Dr. Shari Schwartz - Forensic Psychologist specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy (Miami Beach, FL), Panthermitigation.com, Twitter: @TrialDoc, Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology" Lisa M. Dadio - Former Police Lieutenant, New Haven Police Department, Senior Lecturer, Director of the "Center for Advanced Policing" at the University of New Haven's Forensic Science Department Dr. Kendall Crowns – Chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County (Ft Worth), Lecturer: University of Texas and Texas A&M, Affiliated Faculty: University of Texas Medical Branch  Mike Petchenik - Freelance Journalist (covered Trial for WSB TV Channel 2 Atlanta) Twitter: @mike_petchenik  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I remember it like it was yesterday. The moment the, as it was described in the courtroom, emotionless high-profile lawyer arrives at the hospital with his wife that he just shot from the backseat of their SUV. She dies. Emotionless. That is how Tex McIver was described immediately after shooting his wife dead. He was convicted and rightfully so, but in their wisdom in the last hours, the Georgia Supreme Court has reversed the conviction. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111, where we still care about missing people, especially children, unsolved homicides, and miscarriages of justice. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. But first of all, take a listen to our friends at 48 hours and 11 alive. This was an enormously high-profile case. They were a big-time power couple. Here you have the vice chair of the state elections board, who's a prominent Atlanta lawyer.

You have this strikingly beautiful, incredibly successful businesswoman. On the night of September 25, 2016, Tex McIver shot and killed his wife, Diane. They'd been married for 11 years. I loved you before this ceremony, and I love you more because of it. Is there any scenario where you can think that Tex would have shot Diane intentionally? Never. Never once. Tex absolutely adored Diane. The Fulton County Medical Examiner has ruled 63-year-old Diane MacGyver died of a gunshot wound to the back. And tonight, a close friend of the couple told 11 Alive exclusively that two communities are grieving.

The Corrie Services Tower in downtown Atlanta is lit up with this memorial to the company's president, Diane McGyver. She was shot inside a Ford Expedition she rode in late Sunday with her husband, Tex, and a close family friend as they returned from their Putnam County branch. They were very, very good citizens of Putnam County. Well, one of those so-called good citizens of Putnam County that's eaten in Georgia ended up behind bars for shooting his wife dead. One of the things I remember the most, Mike Pachinik, is that his story about how and why the gun misfired in the car. Let's see. First of all, he was asleep, and then he woke up because there was a bump in the road, I think, and he pulled the trigger, and whoops, it shot his wife dead. Then he claimed, oh, yes, then he claimed it was the black people's fault. Remember that? That they were protesting and

he pulled the trigger? That's right. Blame the black man again. Gosh. There was the sleeping. There was the so-called protest. Seems like there was another reason he shot his wife dead. Mike Pachinik is with me, formerly with WSB-TV Channel 2, high-profile reporter. Mike, I can't believe they have reversed this case. But let's talk about what happened at the beginning before we get to another bad decision by the Georgia Supreme Court. Tell me what happened the night that Diane

McIver, gorgeous, brilliant, beautiful, worked her fingers to the bone to build up Carrie Limo and was bailing this husband, Tex McIver, the high-profile lawyer, bailing him out. I mean, he was hemorrhaging money. All those designer clothes, a full-on farm in Eatonton, Georgia, when they lived and worked in Atlanta. He had been put on, was he put on off-counsel, which means you're not bringing in enough money in his fancy law firm. I mean, she was bailing him out with buckets. And then when she died, he gets it all. Isn't that the way it went down, Mike? Well, that's certainly the way prosecutors portrayed their life. But Nancy, this all started earlier in that day.

They were at that ranch out there in Putnam County, making their way back to Atlanta. Their friend Danny Joe Carter was at the wheel. Diane's in the front seat. Tex is in the back. And as they made their way into downtown Atlanta, there was some traffic, so they got diverted, got off the highway. And that is when Tex claims that he woke up, looked out the window, and saw a group of homeless people and some Black Lives Matter protesters gathering

in this area off what's called the downtown connector right in the heart of downtown Atlanta. I'm glad you corrected me, Mike. I forgot it was also the homeless people's fault. Go ahead. So they get off the highway and he looks around. He says, girls, I don't think we should have gone this direction. Please hand me my gun. His gun is in the console. It's in a plastic public shopping bag. He puts it in his lap and then claims to have fallen back asleep. They're driving through downtown into an area of Atlanta known as Midtown, just north of there, right on Piedmont Avenue, right next to Piedmont Park, a sprawling green space right in the heart of Midtown Atlanta, where folks come to congregate for festivals. Very popular with restaurants, highly populated, a lot of folks out milling about.

And that's when he claims the guns in his lap. He gets jerked away by this bump in the road and the gun goes off. OK, wait, wait, wait, wait. You know, Mike Pashinik, I've been a big fan of yours for a long time. Not the creepy kind that stalks you and tries to look in your window, but following your work is a better way to put it. But I love the way you just put that. The gun just went off.

It's like a snake coiled up in the corner and just strikes all on its own. B.S., Pachinik. He pulled the trigger. The gun didn't just go off it didn't malfunction the trigger was pulled and he shot his wife dead isn't that true?

well that was the question was whether he had cocked the gun prior to that because as you know if the gun isn't cocked it takes a lot of pressure for someone to pull a trigger and so if the gun were cocked a hairpin would set it off, right? So that was sort of the story. A hairpin? Yeah, a hairpin. A hairpin? Yep. What hairpin? Now I'm serious,

a hairpin would have set it off. It was his finger. Is that the hairpin to which you are referring? Perhaps, perhaps. But that was never established, whether you are referring? Perhaps. Perhaps. But that was never established, whether the trigger was actually pulled. I mean, whether the gun was cocked. Okay, it was never established whether the gun was cocked or not. Agree. But was it established it was his finger on the trigger? Right. For the gun to have gone off the way he's asserting, it would have had to have been pulled back if it were that simple. Otherwise, he would have had to apply good five pounds of pressure to pull the trigger,

which would mean that he was intentionally pulling the trigger, right? Caught or not caught? Do you disagree that he pulled the trigger? He had to have pulled the trigger if the gun went off. So the gun didn't just go off. He pulled the trigger. The question is whether he applied the pressure to pull the trigger if the gun went off. So the gun didn't just go off. He pulled the trigger. The question is whether he applied the pressure to pull the trigger if the gun were not cocked.

You know what? That's the first time I've laughed today. Isn't that the first time I've laughed today? Okay, so Daryl Cohen, I think Mike Pachinik, as famous as he has become throughout the South at WSB TV Channel 2, he may have lost his calling because he would make one H-E-double-L of a defense attorney.

Because I've never heard anybody, really other than you, be able to suggest that even though he pulled the trigger, it was an accident. Well, Nancy, you're going to hear it from me. Oh, dear Lord. How many times do we know that he practiced firing a weapon from the backseat through a front seat into a person before this? We don't. How many times was the trigger pulled once? How much do we know? Was he drunk? Was he sleeping?

I don't even think that matters. He said he was sleeping and woke up and that it was the black people and the homeless people that scared him. So he shot his wife. I don't even understand this. Everyone keeps talking about Midtown like it's some nefarious. I lived there. It's not. I lived right there, about three blocks from where this went down, for years and years and years and never had a problem. But somehow, it's the neighborhood. It's the homeless people. It's the black man. It's all their fault because he pulled the trigger.

And you and Pachinik can talk about how it wasn't an accident because he pulled the trigger. And you and Pachinik can talk about how was it an accident that he pulled the trigger. He, I could hold a gun up right now and point it at Jackie sitting here in the studio and pull it and go, oh, that was an accident. Isn't it true, Daryl Cohen, that the law, the black and white letter of the law, presumes you intend the natural consequence of your act. I can't hold a gun up to her and pull the trigger and go, oh, I just meant to scare her. I didn't mean to blow her face off. The law presumes you mean the natural consequence of your act. And if he's holding a gun with his finger on the trigger in the back seat and the barrel is pointed at her seat, what does the law presume, Daryl? If there was no back seat, if he was pointing it directly at her and everything else,

and by the way, Nancy, let's use a KISS method. Keep it short, stupid. Keep it simple, stupid. This is simple in my view. We don't know what type of material was in the seat between okay you know what sometimes i forget this is your job uh to make what is very clear very muddy you know what um mike pachinik i'm gonna go out on a limb i'm gonna go back to you and i want you to tell me about the jury's verdict and the nurses who testified on one Friday morning in court how McIver was completely emotionless at the hospital. holding a gun behind her back and that she chose not to see her husband before she died. She was asked, do you want him to come in?

She did not want him in the room with her, Mike. That's right. And everybody said that he was not acting like you would expect a grieving husband to act, you know, emotionless, perhaps in shock, but not certainly acting like somebody who had just shot their wife, whether it was accidental or not. And, you know, yes, she did not want to see him there in the ER. Now, you could perhaps argue she didn't want him to see her in that condition.

But you could also argue that she was mad at him for what had happened and didn't want to have him around for that situation. Mike, are you married? Yes, I am. Okay. Is there? Me too. And he better say the same thing. Mike, has your wife ever been in the hospital or been really, really sick? Unfortunately, she has. Okay. Did she want you to stay out of the room because she thought she didn't look good? No. Because my husband, when Lucy and I almost died,

childbirth, my husband never left my side. Not once. And I didn't care how I looked. I wanted him to be there even if it was the bitter end. So I am not buying into she didn't want him to see her like that. That's total BS, technical legal term.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Earlier, you heard Daryl Cohen, and I'm about to introduce our whole panel. You heard Daryl Cohen saying, well, had this guy ever had target practice? I'm glad you brought that up as a defense, Daryl Cohen, which is one of the reasons I like to follow the cardinal rule in court, don't ask the question that you don't already know the answer to. Take a listen to

our cut five. This is our friend at 48 Hours. But Tex was no stranger to guns, with a collection of nearly 40, including rifles and AR-15s. Have you ever taken any safety glasses or anything like that? 40 including rifles and ar-15s the idea that Tex McIver should have known better was about to become a central theme in this case but it's what Tex did after the shooting that to some

made him seem more and more like a killer. It gets really crazy. I think we've called it a textbook example of what not to do after you kill your wife. And one of those things was to immediately sell his highly successful wife's beautiful clothes, her purses, her belongings, her jewelry. He basically had a fire cell almost immediately after his wife is shot dead by him. That's one of the things. Take a listen to our cut six, our friends at Fox 5. Listened as prosecutors asked a judge

to delay any additional sales of Mrs. Beguiver's valuables. If a defendant is allowed access to the proceeds of either the benefits of the will and or the benefits of the insurance policy, they can conceivably deplete all of those assets. And if a disposition is then entered where Mr. MacGyver, for instance, was found guilty of murder or felony murder or voluntary manslaughter under the Slayer statute, all of those proceeds would have to be returned to Mrs. MacGyver's estate. And if he's not, all of those proceeds would then be his. Attorney William Hill challenged whether it was even necessary to hold this hearing. Tex MacGyver, who says the sale is

intended to award four of Diane's friends with settlements called for in the will, he says he would have been willing to first place all the proceeds in probate court now it is the probate court that judge constance russell says should have handled the matter all together and she says to the prosecution that's where it should go she denied the motion okay let me understand this daryl Cohen. So after he shoots his wife in the back, after she says, don't let him in my hospital room just before she dies, he has a fire cell of all of her minks and her jewels and her designer shoes and handbags and clothes. Did I hear that correctly, Daryl Cohen? I think you did, Nancy. Yeah, I think I did too. What his actions were,

were incomprehensible. But here's a man who was absolutely incomprehensible. His actions, his demeanor, all of that doesn't make sense. It goes under. It does make sense. He can't make this stuff up. It does make sense. It makes perfect sense. You know what I've got right here in the studio with me?

My dad's shirt. He wore all the time his favorite shirt. In my closet, which I see every morning, Keith, my fiance that was murdered, baseball. He was on baseball scholarship. And sometimes they make me sad and sometimes they give me strength. But somebody would have to go through hell and high water to get either one of those things away from me. And here he's having a yard sale. Dr. Sherry Schwartz joining me, forensic psychologist specializing in crime and law, where law and psychology intersect. Dr. Sherry, I don't find it difficult or incomprehensible. As Daryl Cohen makes out.

I find it very simple and easy to understand. He killed his wife and he wants her money and none of her possessions, nothing that was dear to her means anything to him. He's selling it all. He might as well just throw it out on the sidewalk. Absolutely. Here's what we know. Here's what grief research tells us one of the biggest challenges for widows in particular is to clean out the closets of their loved one they want

to hold on to the belongings because it makes them feel close to the person they have guilt they don't want to get rid of the belongings because then it's almost like you're saying out with the old in with the news new but tex mciver didn't seem to struggle with that what exactly happened in that car the evening that diane was murdered was i'll just say shot since we're still arguing about the fact of the murder take a listen to our cut three this is valerie hoff at 11 alive as police investigate how a gun went off inside the vehicle putnam county County Sheriff Howard Sills is remembering a close friend of many years. He says the MacGyvers, who divided their time between Buckhead and Eatonton, were philanthropists who were very involved in the community, often entertaining at MacGyver Ranch. ranch. Diane was a vivacious, beautiful, entertaining woman who was a lot of fun to be around. Atlanta police have not yet completed their investigation, though they say they are fairly close. Sheriff Sills says Tex MacGyver, a prominent Atlanta attorney, is distraught and grief-stricken.

So distraught and grief-stricken, he has a yard sale. Now take a listen to our cut for our friends from 48 Hours. Diane is seated in the passenger seat. Tex is seated right behind his wife. Not far from home, they hit traffic and exited the highway. Tex says he woke up, saw homeless people, and became worried. I said, please hand me my gun. He was in the center console. A spokesman would later say that Tex asked for his gun because he was afraid of carjackers and Black Lives Matter protesters. With that loaded gun now in his lap, Tex says he fell back asleep. I was handling the gun.

I realized it was in my lap, right? And it went off. Gun expert, Burt Davis. Can a.38 Special just accidentally go off? Never known it to happen. You have to pull the trigger. Jiminy. Ooh.

What is your challenge with this gun? Well, I think you just put your finger on it. Clearly, a trigger was pulled. The question is, was that a voluntary knowing an intentional action or an involuntary action based upon an accident? I mean, Lisa Daddio joining me, former police lieutenant with New Haven PD and now director of the Center for Advanced Policing. Lisa, thank you for being with us. You hear this guy has a collection of 40 guns, including an AR. You also hear the ballistics experts say a.38 is not going to go off, quote, on its own.

What do you make of it? It's an excuse he's using, and that's just my personal feeling. You don't have that volume of firearms firearms and one would assume he has adequate training and he knows what he's doing with the firearm for something to go off, quote, accidentally. Um, having your finger on the trigger, being able to pull that trigger with however many pounds is required for the weapon that was used in this murder. Um, it just doesn't make any sense. And hearing it and seeing it, it's just, it's honestly mind-boggling,

the claims in this case, that it was anything but murder. And let's talk about the trajectory path in the case. Dr. Kendall Crowns is joining me, Chief Medical Examiner of Tarrant County, that's Fort Worth, lecturer, University of Texas and Texas A&M, and on faculty, University of Texas Medical Branch. Dr. Crowns, thank you for being with us. What can you tell us about the trajectory path? So the trajectory path of the bullet was listed by the medical examiner going from back to front, right to left and downwards. There was some question of whether it was upwards, but based on what the medical examiner said, it did have a downward trajectory

path. Okay, Dr. Kendall-Crowns, could you translate that? What does that mean? If he's sitting in the back seat and you've got obviously back to front, which means he's shot from the back seat. She's sitting in the front seat from right to left. Must mean he scooted over or in the very middle. If the trajectory goes from her right to her left and you're saying up to down, up to down, like right under the breast, downward toward the hip in that what does that mean where would he have been sitting how would that have happened so he if the gun itself would have to be slightly to have a downward wound course kind of slightly elevated uh based on

the entrance wound so it's you know if it's sitting in his lap like he is saying, it's a possibility that the guns firing from, you know, waist height of him, hitting her in the back and then going in a slightly downward course. But he's right-handed. If it were to go off in that direction and he's holding it in his right hand, he'd have to turn. I don't see how that would be achieved by just sitting in the back seat with your hand holding the gun and your finger on the trigger. If that were true and you're right-handed, it would have gone off toward the driver's side, not the passenger side. That's correct. If he's sitting, yeah, I mean,

you make a good point. It would be difficult if he's firing it from his right hand for it to have a right-to-left trajectory based on her position in the car. Okay, so Dr. Kendall-Crowns, I was thinking left-to-right. You said this was right-to-left, correct? Correct. Okay, so Dr. Kendall Crowns, I was thinking left to right. You said this was right to left, correct? Correct. Okay, that makes more sense. If he's right-handed, he's on the right, he's turned that way, yeah, still. But still, you've got up to down. That doesn't make sense.

If he's sitting behind her, holding the gun in his lap, as he says, how would the trajectory path be up to down? Again, I mean, it's difficult to say based on the level of the chairs in the car. I would assume they're all level. You would expect it to be more of a just no upward-downward deviation, just to be a straight shot through. So it does show that the gun is slightly above her position when it's fired to give it a downward course.

Again, I don't have a good explanation for that. To Mike Pachinik, joining me, former reporter, WSB TV, Channel 2, Atlanta. How did the defense, if you can recall, explain away that trajectory path? Well, I mean, they claim that, you know, the way he was sitting, you know, the gun would have been on his lap. And, you know, they had a defense expert who testified that the gun would not have been against the seat, that it would have been back a few inches when fired. Tests for gunshot residue were not conducted by APD, according to this expert. And that he said the gun really wouldn't have been pressed up against the seat had it been at least six inches away. And and and potentially in that plastic bag, as they had said. And that, you know, with the gun resting on his thigh in that way, due to what they called spatial constraints inside the SUV, holding the gun vertically would not have been possible. Okay.

I hear you talking about what the defense said was spatial constraints in the car. I know this. They can spatial constraint all they want to, but he pulled the trigger and she's dead and she did not want him in the room with her as she was dying. That's got to count for something. And you heard people describe his behavior afterwards as what not to do after your spouse dies. Take a listen now to our cut seven. So in the car, you have the man who pulls the trigger, the woman who dies, and the driver. All three of these people initially say it was an accident.

What happens after they get out of the car is text changes the story a couple of times, and the driver of the car who originally said it was a terrible tragedy, a terrible accident, she changes her story and she says that Tex asked her to change her story as well. He also then goes on to auction off all of her belongings. She had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry and furs and couture clothing. And he says it was at the behest of a lawyer who was running her estate. But each thing he does, individually it looks a little odd, but collectively it just doesn't look good at all. What does she mean by that? Mike Pachinik joining me, formerly with WSB-TV. What does she mean that the driver, Danny Joe Carter, also changed her story?

Well, you know, in the days after the shooting, we know that Tex MacGyver called her, left a voicemail on her husband's phone, essentially saying, she's going to send me to prison. You got to help me here, buddy. And that's, of course, why he was convicted of witness tampering. But she was fearful. She was worried that he was going to come after her. When he wanted her, the driver, Daniela Carter, to change her story, what did he want her to say, Mike? I mean, he wanted her to say that this was an accident. He wanted her to corroborate his story.

So in the end, everything changed. I want you to hear what we know about Diane before her death, refusing to have her husband with her as she was rolled into the ER. Take a listen to Hour Cut 12, our friends at 11 Alive. Before Diane went into the operating room, Dr. Hardy asked Diane if she wanted to see her husband. Here is Dr. Hardy recalling that question, followed by Diane's response to questions about the shooting itself. And she appeared to be coherent when she said no, correct?

Yes. Right. She said it was an accident. She wasn't going to arrest what she said. No. You didn't try to steer her in one direction or another to get her to say something no and her coherent state she said it was that yes and witnesses earlier in the day testified that diane and tex were not arguing leading up to the shooting we also heard from other doctors and nurses. They said while at the hospital, Tex MacGyver did not show any signs of anxiety the night of the incident, and he remained calm

and rather polite when talking with medical staff throughout the evening as he was updated on his wife's status at the hospital. Mike Buccini, what exactly was the verdict? On which level of offense was he convicted? So he was convicted of felony murder, which, as you know, Nancy, in the state of Georgia, means that the jury believed that he was committing the felony of aggravated assault to wound his wife. And she died during the commission of that felony. But what was curious was after the verdict, a juror went on TV and was asked point blank, do you feel like this was, you know, malicious in any way? Of course, he wasn't convicted of malice murder, but he was convicted of felony murder. And the juror seemed kind of confused and was like,

you know, I think he did what he had to do. He shot her to incapacitate her so he could somehow control her. So there was a lot of confusion after that verdict, Nancy. Take a listen to our cut 13, the jury foreperson. Read the verdict into the record. On count one, murder. We find the defendant not guilty. On count two, felony murder. We find the defendant guilty of felony murder. On count three, aggravated assault. We find the defendant guilty.

On count four, possession of a firearm or in commission of a felony. We find the defendant guilty. On count five, influencing a witness. We find the defendant guilty. On count five, influencing a witness, we find the defendant guilty. But in the last hours, the Georgia Supreme Court has chosen to completely override the jury decision and reverse the conviction. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Daryl Cohen joined me, former prosecutor, now defense attorney and civil attorney. Daryl, you know, we've all heard of ear witnesses. I was just listening, and I heard a voice that I could identify anywhere. It was a longtime friend, a protege, a person I trained myself, Quint Rucker, one of the prosecutors in this case. Daryl, could you explain how it feels when you put your heart, your soul into a case and you know the person is guilty and has done a horrible thing and an appellate court in their ivory tower reverses the case. Nancy, it's almost impossible to explain.

Clint Rucker won this case, in my view, because of his pervasive. He was so perfect. Oh, my gosh. He was so good at what he did. He made the jury realize he brought the jury into the car. He brought the jury into the life of Texan Diane McIver. He was able to convince them that what happened was not an accident. And when you put your heart and soul into a case and you believe everything that you've done,

and then you have someone or someones in this case who are not in the courtroom who are only looking at the transcripts it destroys your whole fiber of your being for this particular case because you know what you did was right you know what you did was the correct thing to do and you argued and you persuaded this jury to do what they should have done and to see people who were not there, who don't really know what the feelings are, the emotion. It just destroys you from within. And especially a good prosecutor, a decent, good person like Clint who gave it his all. And now this.

You know what I want to talk about? I want to talk about money. Mike Pachinik. You just heard Daryl Cohen, who was a prosecutor, the same office with me under Mr. Slayton, as you will recall, describing the feeling you get when an appellate court who really has no idea what went on in the courtroom reverses your case. He mentioned the life they led.

They lived pretty high on the hog, Mike. It was all her money. He was floundering. She was bailing him out, wasn't she? Yeah, I mean, he worked at a big law firm, but you mentioned at the beginning that he was sort of set out to pasture, right, because he wasn't pulling his weight. And she was definitely the breadwinner in that house. She owned the ranch out in Edenton. There was testimony that she was lending him hundreds of thousands of dollars to bankroll his lavish lifestyle. In fact, during the trial, it came out that he sort of joked with her

that he had to win the lottery because he was spending more than they were bringing in. And, you know, the prosecution put out a case that here's a guy who stood to gain millions of dollars with Diane dead, and she was worth more to him dead than alive. You know, I think that's an illness, Dr. Sherry Schwartz. I really do. Not rising to the level of insanity, but, I mean, you know, Dr. Sherry, we grew up with nothing on a red dirt road in middle Georgia. And when you grow up that way, you know how blessed you are when you finally get a job,

you know, when you finally get your first car. I mean, it sounds like spending money and being used to a lavish lifestyle was something he could not forego. It does seem like that, and you're right. It may not in and of itself be a diagnosable mental illness, but there is usually some sort of psychopathology underlying that. Whether it's, you know, we see it a lot in narcissism, you know, we see it in histrionic personalities, various things where people are spending and spending

and spending to try to fill some void. And they think that the stuff is going to help them fill that void. I think you just get used to being rich. I mean, Daryl Cohen, you and I prosecuted people that were broke. We prosecuted really, really rich people up from North Atlanta. Have you ever noticed how rich people, they are so cheap. They will spend all kind of money on themselves and a lavish lifestyle. They wouldn't give a man on the corner a dollar if their life depended on it. Well, Nancy, I think that's narcissism. Oh, I'm sorry.

I didn't realize you had your psychiatric degree as well, but go ahead. It's my personal psychiatric degree. I just think that's narcissism and it's all about me and this is what much of this country has turned to be. I made that farm in Eatonton. That was his idea, the ranch, the farm. They had a full-on staff. There was a home. There were hundreds of acres that had to be kept up. For what? So they could drive an hour out of Atlanta and go sit on the front porch on the weekend? I mean, that's a huge ticket item.

Makes no sense to me. Never did. But you can't make this stuff up. You know, you just can't figure out rich people. I'm just telling you that. I mean, Mike Pachinik, what was their lifestyle? I mean, they, to give you an example, they had a private masseuse that would come to their fancy condo in Buckhead and, you know, rub them down a couple times a week. That had to have been expensive. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, please. Mike, talking to you,

I feel like I'm drinking out of the fire hydrant. Too much, too fast. Wait, could you slow down and say that again? I need to hear that one more time. They had a private masseuse who came to their fancy buckhead condo several times a week to give them a massage, which had to have been very expensive. In fact, she was called as a witness in the trial, the masseuse. You know, I completely forgot that part. Tell me about that part. were kind of waiting for the prosecution to drop some other shoe and claim that there was something untoward happening between Tex and this masseuse. That did not happen and that there was no evidence of that, that they were certainly kind of leading jurors down that path. But that's just an example

of the kind of spending that they did. They were, you know, they were high society folks. You know, Dr. Kendall Crowns, Chief Medical Examiner, Tarrant County as Fort Worth. Dr. Crowns, I'm sure you've heard the phrase dying declaration many, many times. That's an exception to hearsay. Hearsay. When you ask a witness

to state under oath to a jury or in court what somebody else said that's not there to be cross-examined. That's the problem with hearsay. You can't cross-examine the speaker. Dying declaration completely different. And in this case, Diane said, no, I don't want to see him. That was her dying declaration. She did not want him around her. Have you had other cases of your, let me just say patients, that gave dying declarations? And do you believe that based on what you know, Diane understood what she was saying at the end? You know, I have had other cases in which there was, you know, they asked for family

to be by their side or asked to go home, things of that nature. Based on her injuries, I don't feel like she had anything that would have caused her cognition or her ability to think clearly to be disrupted. So I feel like she knew what she was saying at the time she passed away and had whatever purpose in her mind for it. I don't think it was a confused statement. I think it was something that she just didn't want him around at the end. Mike Pachinik with me, high-profile reporter formerly of WSB-TV Channel 2. Why did the Supremes claim they had to reverse this decision. They claimed that there was thin evidence at best that there was an intentional murder committed here.

But it wasn't an intentional murder conviction. It was a felony murder conviction. Right, right. And they are claiming that the jury should have been given the option to convict Tex MacGyver of the much lesser misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter charge, which would say that this was a reckless act, an accident, and they were not given that instruction. So because of that, they overturned the conviction. What does it mean for him now? Is he already out out of the jail is there going to be a new trial what he's still serving out a five-year sentence for the witness tampering charge he only has a couple of months left on that his attorneys have filed an emergency motion to get him out the new district attorney fannie willis in fulton county her office so that they will take this

under advisement they haven't decided whether to retry the case. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.