Dateline NBC - Justice for Sparkle

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

A young woman leaves home, hoping for a bright future. She falls in love, has a baby, and begins life as a mother. But soon, her parents get a dreadful phone call: Sparkle Rai has been killed. Keith Morrison reports in a Dateline classic originally aired on NBC on February 6, 2009.

It could have been round any corner in her own big city. Could have been in the very next class at the college from which she was meant to get a degree. Not that she was looking for love, but it was looking for her. Capricious, inconvenient, forbidden. And it announced itself as love will 400 miles from home to everyone's surprise. And if she saw only the promise, the sparkle of it, well, she was young. What could she know of the powers arrayed against so fine a pairing as hers? I never would have thought in a million years this would have been the direction that this actually went.

Who could? Certainly not her father, and not Sparkle. That was her name, by the way, Sparkle. Her name and her attitude, effervescent is what she was, in high school a cheerleader, in college enthusiastic, for a while. And then it was the summer of 1998, and Sparkle was 20. And she was, she announced, ready for life, whatever that might be. It's that age, you know, where they think they're ready to grow up. And she had spent two years at college on her own and just wasn't ready to come back home and live, you know, under the rules in

the house necessarily. So Sparkle packed her bags, said goodbye to her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, and announced where she was going when she got there. We get a call, I'm in Louisville. Where are you staying? I'm staying with Grandma. I said, okay, that's fine. Bennett Reed is Sparkle's father. He's retired Army, was an infantry officer. Her stepmother, Donna Lowry, was a television reporter at WXIA in Atlanta.

They were at home in bed a few months after Sparkle left when she called with more news. I guess it was about 10.30, maybe 11 o'clock at night. We were all sleeping in the house, and she calls to tell me she's pregnant. And I'm thinking, gee, couldn't you call me at a better time? And of course, I'm not happy that she's pregnant to start with. How well did you know that young man by then? We didn't know him at all. But was she in love?

Oh, yes. The young man, she told them, was Ricky. Ricky Rye, a college dropout, just like Sparkle. She met him at his father's hotel in Louisville, where he was the manager, and she'd found a job working the front desk. Oh, and by the way, he was even younger than she was, just 18 and about to be a father to their baby, Sparkle's baby. Unwed and young and, you know, hadn't finished college. So we had some concerns. They felt a little better when Sparkle and Ricky moved to Atlanta. That way Bennett and

Donna could help when the baby came. They really did care for each other. Yeah, that was obvious. Yeah, they loved each other a lot. And as they got to know Ricky, he opened up a little, admitted he was a bit of a black sheep. The rest of the five children in his family of Indian immigrants were piling up advanced degrees in college. He, the dropout, obviously wasn't. But he certainly seemed proud of his family. After all, his father had been a math professor and later a successful businessman. He always talked about what his family had

and all the money that they had, the businesses they owned, where he went to school, the private schooling. But I always asked him, well, what do you do? I'm not interested in what they're going him, well, what do you do? I'm not interested in what they're gonna do, but what do you do? How are you gonna take care of the baby and her? I was always concerned that they were just barely getting by.

What's a parent to do? Ricky's parents worried too, apparently, but they seemed to blame Sparkle for running off with their son before he'd finished college. They did not like the fact that they were together. Right. They did not like that she was pregnant. In fact, when the baby was born, Ricky's family did not come to visit.

Was there any sign of his parents at all during this period of time? But Ricky and Sparkle were ecstatic. They named their little girl Inala, which in Sanskrit means fiery one. And all the while, that young love just seemed to grow. That's the thing that kept us going, was that he loved her. And then, just as the young couple was getting used to

parenthood, Ricky came to his in-laws with dreadful news. It was October of 1999 that he told us that his father died from diabetes-related complications. There was to be a traditional funeral. The burial would be in India. Ricky flew there to be part of it. He was gone for just a few days, and we remember thinking, well, that was a quick trip to India. But bad news can come in batches. Within just days of Ricky's return from the India burial...

There was a cyclone in India. Thousands of people killed. It was a big news story. And he said his mother, who was still in India, had been killed in that cyclone. And we were devastated for him. It was just horrible. What a tragedy. And this poor kid, he lost his dad and his mom in just a few weeks.

It was the following spring, the first spring of a new millennium, a new life. Ricky and Sparkle made their relationship official. They got married. Well, we thought it would work, as long as they were both putting forth their best effort. Yes, and as the weeks floated happily by... They were always together. I never, ever could think of a time when, if they were more than a couple hours apart, that was strange. So there was simply no warning, no way to prepare for what happened next.

April 26, 2000. Got a call from Rick who said Sparkle's been attacked. He'd just come home and found her, he said. She heard, but his words didn't quite make sense. She ran to her car. And I remember driving thinking,

attacked. I mean, I'm thinking, we're going to take her to the hospital and she's going to be okay. I remember thinking, I'll take the baby, you know, we'll make sure everything's okay. There are times when a parent cannot make anything right. By the time Donna arrived at Sparkle's apartment,

Sparkle's father was already there. And I kept asking, is she dead? Is she alive? What happened? Finally, someone would come down and tell me that she wasn't alive anymore. She was dead. Murdered.

She'd been strangled and stabbed to death. Her six-month-old baby was unharmed, just a few feet away from Sparkle's body. As a reporter, I've covered homicide scenes. I've watched families fall apart. And it was surreal to be on the other end of it and dealing with just everything going on with that. What had happened? Who had done this?

A detective named Lee Brown looked carefully at that horrific scene. He could not yet know who the murderer was or the incomprehensible design behind it. But he did know this. It appeared somebody was mad at this girl. This is rage. Right, this is rage. Having my colleagues pointing their cameras at me,

and they were very compassionate about what we were going through, but it was very invasive people wanting to know more about it and and how we felt how many times have I been on the other end of that kind of thing in Atlanta Georgia a television reporter came to understand the painful end of grief made public Donna Lowry's stepdaughter dead her murder a violent overkill that looked like hate. Sparkle's father, Bennett Reed, was inconsolable. All I could do was cry. I can't believe that I lost a child. What happened? Detective Lee Brown took the call.

There was a lot of blood. She had multiple stab wounds and her throat had been cut and she had been strangled. A rage killing must have been. Were there any signs that anybody forced their way into that apartment? No, none at all. So whoever went there had been allowed in? Right, that's correct. Did that mean Sparkle knew her killer? Was there anything taken from the apartment? Nothing. The apartment wasn't ransacked. Her purse, which was lying near her body, was upside down. But there was U.S. currency lying on the floor that obviously had come out of her purse. Actual money?

Actual money. Just lying there? Right, right. This was obviously not a robbery. Obviously it wasn't a robbery. It wasn't sexual assault either. That was obvious. But the killer had taken precautions. The telephone cord was cut.

No fibers found. No fingerprints. No DNA. We had some footwear impressions and blood. Other than that, we found very little physical evidence. As for the young husband, Ricky. Of course, we always look at the significant other or the spouse, the person closest to the victim.

Was it the marriage? They seemed so happy. In spite of whatever difficulties they may have encountered with their own immaturity and sudden parenthood, they had been inseparable. But now Detective Brown couldn't help but notice that his behavior seemed a little odd. When we arrived on the scene, he was relatively calm. Sparkle's father, Bennett Reed, watching this was puzzled too.

He was just walking around, holding the baby. I can't say he ever actually showed any emotion that night. The police took Ricky Rye to the station. They recorded the interview. She was lying down next to the station they recorded the interview the wall right there ok and she was covered in blood and I guess to call her name

did you touch or swallow her milk? I didn't touch her anything else but just when I tried to touch her food that's when I heard another crying. I jumped over real quick and ran and picked her up. And the entire time, he was still calm. He didn't exhibit the emotions that I thought would be normal. I got to ask you this, Ricky, because it strikes me as odd. It really does. You come home and you open the door and you see your wife lying on the floor. They kept him for eight hours, talking.

His behavior somehow peculiar. But then they sent him home. They did not charge him. And here's why. He actually had a better alibi than I did, if that was possible. He was at work all day that day. That being the case, we knew there was no way that he could have committed this murder. So what did that tell you? Our case became cold very quickly. It all went cold. Before long, Ricky turned over Baby Anala to Sparkle's parents, and then he left

town. That was the last time we actually saw him. And then all of a sudden he just stopped calling. Just disappeared out of his own life. Right, right. Now that is strange. Strange, right. You know, I would periodically look to see where Ricky was, you know, or see where he'd moved to, you know, to see if there was anything that I may have missed. On the one-year anniversary of the murder, Sparkle's father went on television offering money for information leading to the killer. Today, I'm announcing a reward of $5,000 for the arrest and the conviction of that person who might have had a play in my daughter's tragic ending. No one came forward.

Well, I told Mr. Reed, her father, to not give up hope. I said, you know, at some point, somebody's going to get arrested and they're going to have information about a murder. One year followed another. Little Anala grew a carbon copy of her mother. The Reeds were parents to a youngster again. It was spring 2004, four years since Sparkle's murder. It was as unpredictable, as unexpected as that awful call in the night had been. There was a high-speed chase. The young woman arrested said she had some information about a murder. And I got a telephone call from the Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit. And he said, let me run some things by you. He said, spring of 2000, Union Station Apartments, Sparkle Michelle Rye.

I said, yes, sir. He said, she was stabbed, she was strangled, and her throat was cut. I said, yes, sir. He said, I have a young lady who was present in the apartment when it happened. So I was sitting in his office 15 minutes later. An eyewitness account? The solution was apparently at hand. Or was it? She told us that her friend was with her. We subsequently went and found the friend. The two women were teenagers when it happened. They met a man, a cousin, who invited them along on what they believed was a drug deal.

He seemed to know where he was going. At the apartment, he stood back, told the girls, knock at the door. And when Sparkle opened the door, he forced his way in. He wrapped an extension cord from a vacuum cleaner around Sparkle's neck after he had ordered her down on the floor and strangled her until she quit moving. He got a knife, told the two girls they needed to go wait in the truck. He come out a few minutes later with a knife and a towel, wiping the knife off with a towel, and they left the complex.

The women said they also stopped at a supermarket Western Union counter. The man picked up a money order. Later he went to a phone, made a call. They heard some of it. All they heard was him telling an individual that, I'm done, it's done, and I'm on my way home. And the voice on the other end says, come home. The women looked at a photo lineup. They identified Cleveland Clark, 47 years old, of Jackson, Mississippi, already in prison for armed robbery. But what possible motive could he have to kill Sparkle Rye? The truth, as Detective Brown would discover, can be so unbelievable. I was kind of floored, to be quite honest with you. I was way out there,

way out there. I got the call one day from the cold case unit. It had been four years, and at that point, he was saying that they had had some new information. Was this out of the blue? Out of the blue. There is, of necessity, a protocol to the way old cases are given new life. Four years after the ghastly murder of the young, newly married mother, Sparkle Rye, Detective Brown hit pay dirt. Two young women said they'd

witnessed the murder. They'd identified a convicted felon named Cleveland Clark, who was serving time in a Mississippi prison. I had a suspicion somebody had paid him, but I didn't know who it was or why. The story implied he was a contract killer. But that was it. He wasn't talking. Dead end. This was kind of a case where we didn't have DNA. Time to call in the Atlanta police cold case team. Vince Velasquez, Alton Calhoun.

It was just kind of like the old-fashioned, you know, feet on the pavement beating the street trying to drum up some evidence. Who would have arranged to have Sparkle killed? Remember, detectives did think it was a murder for hire. The two girls who witnessed the murder said they recalled that Cleveland Clark stopped and picked up money orders at a Western Union. They also remember that after the murder, he made a phone call, said into the phone, the job is done, heard a man's voice at the other end say,

come on home. Who was Cleveland Clark speaking to? And who had sent the money? That part, it turned out, was traceable, all in the records. The money had come from Jackson, Mississippi, from a 74-year-old man named Willie Fred Evans. Who the heck is that? He's a person who has lived his whole life in Jackson, Mississippi. Illiterate, didn't finish school, but was very street savvy. Phone records

revealed that Willie Fred Evans was the very same man Cleveland Clark called right after the murder. You needed information from him. We knew from the phone records and the wire transfers that he was connected to Cleveland Clark. They paid a visit to Mr. Evans. Was he forthcoming? Not at first. I said, you know, I know you're lying. The records don't lie, but I tell you what, why don't you think about it? There was a pause then. Days, weeks. The

detectives pretended disinterest. He was calling me nonstop, just calling. And you could tell his messages were getting a little more frantic. And sure enough, Willie Fred Evans was willing to meet at a Jackson, Mississippi Hilton hotel, and this time he brought a friend, 60-year-old Herbert Green. Was that the man who put out the contract on Sparkle? It's like, it can't be that easy. He's going to bring the guy to us. Who was Herbert Green? A little detective work made the connection. Herbert Green was a sometimes business partner of Chyman Rai, Ricky Rai's father. I remember looking at some reports and I see Chyman Rai's name and right next to his name, I saw Herbert Green's name.

Wait a minute. Chyman Rai? Was that the same man Ricky told Sparkle's parents he'd buried in India? Why, yes, it was. I never knew when he was telling me the truth or not. Right. He wasn't. The father who had supposedly died from diabetes, who so disapproved of Sparkle's presence in his son's life, was not dead at all.

Was not in India. He was alive and well and living in Mississippi, not far from Willie Fred Evans and Herbert Green. And now, Chimon Rye became the prime suspect in his daughter-in-law's murder. It wasn't the point to say as we got him, but that was the connection. The DA offered Green and Evans a deal. Tell the truth about their connection to Rye and stay out of jail. And with that, the two men who initially denied their involvement finally confirmed the convoluted plot. They were the middlemen in a plot hatched by

Chimon Rye himself to kill his daughter-in-law Sparkle. Chimon Rye had approached Herbert Greene to kill his daughter-in-law. Herbert Greene then went to Willie Fred Evans. Willie Fred Evans then went to Cleveland Clark and asked him and Cleveland Clark agreed. There was a price agreed upon of $10,000. $10,000 to kill Sparkle Rye. Still, the detectives wanted further proof of Rye's involvement, so they enlisted Herbert Green, asked him to pay a visit to his old friend Chyman Rye at Rye's hotel in Louisville, Kentucky,

that same hotel where Ricky and Sparkle first met. And there was a caveat. Green would have to wear a hidden camera. We told him to let Rye know that the Atlanta police are trying to contact him, that they had been to Jackson. They want to talk to him about the murder. Herbert Green walked into the hotel, camera rolling. Morning. He made small talk with the woman behind the counter. How you doing this morning? And who was she?

Why, it was Ricky Rai's mother, alive and well, and quite obviously not the victim of that terrible cyclone in India. And she had some interesting news about Ricky. How's Ricky doing? Ricky's all right. Ricky got married to an Indian girl. Oh, he did? Finally, the meeting was rye.

Hey. How are you doing today? You all right? Nice to see you. All right. I need to talk to you for a minute. The Atlanta police have been to my house twice. Your house?

Yeah, but I hadn't talked to the police yet. The Atlanta police. I guess they wanted to the police yet. That Atlanta police. I guess they wanted to question me about that girl's death. So I hadn't talked to them yet. So I need $5,000 so I can get around. Right now I have no money at all. The script was for him to ask him for money because he needed to get out of town. If the Atlanta police, you know, could catch up with me, what do you want me to tell them? I understand.

Huh? But I don't know. Because, you know, if I go to jail, you go in too. Well, we had to go to jail. We had to go. Huh? What can you do? Are you no man going to jail?

What can you do? We had to go. I can give you $500. That's all I can help you out. I swear you I don't have money. I swear to go. I can give you $500. That's all I can help you out. I swear you I don't have money. I swear to the God. But I had that done for you. You don't know anything. That's the only thing you have to say. I have no idea what is this. That's the only thing is.

Why you have to answer everything, right? And we knew at that point we had him because that is not something an innocent man would say. This is the closest we're going to get to a smoking gun. It gets no better than this. It was good enough that in September 2006, Chyman Rai, a former mathematics professor and business owner, was charged with murder. But why? Why would a man pay to have his own daughter-in-law brutally murdered? The killer that was hired by this man did a good job. Things were wiped down and they were clean. Prosecutors are at heart

storytellers. And the death penalty case against 68-year-old Chyman Rai was the story of a rage that burned so intensely in his breast. He arranged to have his own daughter-in-law

murdered in cold blood. Why? Listen to this from co-prosecutor Sheila Ross. Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence will show that it was this defendant, this man sitting right here, who sent that killer to her door. And the evidence will show that he hired a hitman to kill Sparkle because she married his son, because she had a child with his son, and

ladies and gentlemen, because she was black. We could reach no other reasonable conclusion than he had her killed because she was black and that he was against it and did not want that for his son, did not want that for his family. Chymon Rye was a racist, said the prosecution. To prove it, they called a former inmate who'd shared a jail cell with Rye as he awaited trial. Here's co-prosecutor Eleanor Ross.

Did the defendant ever express his feelings about people of other races, in particular black people? Yes. One particular time, he said that he hated it all in the s***. He wished he could get rid of them. At one point he said that he's already spent a lot of money to protect his family once. He wished he could get rid of the rest of them.

And as Sparkle's cousin told the jury, Ricky's parents did not approve of Ricky's relationship with Sparkle. They'd already made a different plan for him. Did Sparkle ever tell you during those conversations that Mr. Rye did not want her and Ricky Rye together because of cultural differences and that Ricky Rye had a prearranged marriage? She and Rick both told me that.

And then, the only witness who could finally offer some sort of explanation for the deception of the heart of the marriage for the secrets kept from parents, Ricky Rye, a reluctant witness. But he did tell the story. Did you tell your parents that you were dating Sparkle? I did not. I was supposed to be at the hotel working and going to school. I'm not dating anybody.

Did you tell your parents that she was pregnant? No. Instead, he lied to his in-laws, told them his parents were dead, all to avoid questions about why his parents weren't involved in his life and his baby's life. Did you ever tell your parents that you had married Sparkle?

No. You know, we were brought up that, you know, and his baby's life. Did you ever tell your parents that you had married Sparkle? No. You know, we were brought up that, you know, we should marry, you know, Indian, same race. He was very much so afraid of what they were going to do. If they found out, they let it be known to him early on in the relationship that they did not approve. And that is why Ricky and Sparkle, afraid of the consequences of disobeying his parents, moved to Atlanta in the spring of 1999, when she was not too obviously pregnant yet.

Did you and Sparkle move away in order to get away from your parents? Yes. But Ricky's parents soon found out about the marriage and the baby, and their new address wasn't kept secret for long. They hired a private detective to track down the couple. He testified Chime and Rye fretted about the family's reputation. He was attempting at that time to arrange a marriage for another child. He explained that the arranging of the marriage may be difficult because of the relationship that Ricky had at that time with his girlfriend, because of either being pregnant or because of her being an African-American. And so, said the prosecution,

Rye, who now knew Ricky and Sparkle's address, was determined to put an end to this forbidden love affair. Not only was Sparkle not part of their determined to put an end to this forbidden love affair. Not only was Sparkle not part of their cast, she was not part of their race. Rye approached fellow business owner and friend Herbert Green for help. He said the girl was causing him some problems, and he needed her. He needed her killed.

He's saying he needed it done quick, that's what he told me. Did he tell you why he needed it done quickly? No, he didn't tell me why. But the prosecution claimed to know why. Chyman Rye wanted Sparkle killed before his daughter's wedding. Rye's eldest daughter was getting married, and he did not want Sparkle showing up to spoil the party. So Rye's friend Herbert Green went to the middleman Willie Fred Evans who made the deal with accused killer Cleveland Clark. I told him I said now the man told me now that y'all wouldn't pay but ten thousand dollars. He told me he'll leave night. That same night? Yes, ma'am. Might have got away with it, too, save for the young women he picked up in Atlanta.

While that killer was very good about not leaving behind any forensic evidence, he made a big, big mistake because he left not one, but two. Two eyewitnesses to this crime. And is this the man that was pulling the cord around her neck? Yes. Those two eyewitnesses were used to create a ruse to get Clark into the apartment. We asked her, we used the bathroom.

She said yes, and she walked away from the door. Cle went in the house behind her. I heard gasping sounds, choking sounds, and Cle was strangling her. They said Cleveland Clark called his contact, got his money at the Western Union, and that was that. Except, of course, for what the prosecution called its smoking gun, that hidden camera footage of Herbert Green telling Chime and Rye the police are on to them. I guess they want to question you about that girl's death. And the first thing out of Chime and Rye's mouth is,

uh-huh, that's it, uh-huh. He never says, what are you talking about, what girl. Never denies it. He knew exactly what Herbert Greene was talking about. Chime and Rye is guilty of every single count on the indictment. He hired someone else to do it. He's responsible for it because he sent the hitman to her door. So there it was, the prosecution's case for conviction of father's intolerance of his son's bride. True story? Maybe. Maybe not. In the steamy summer heat of Atlanta, Georgia,

in the artificial cold of courtroom 6G, Fulton County Courthouse, justice appeared finally to be closing in on a businessman, former math professor, and determinedly traditional father named Chiman Rai. Finally, this man would pay the price for arranging the brutal murder of his daughter-in-law, Sparkle, a young woman he'd put under the sentence of death for the unforgivable sin of being a different race and marrying his son. Really? This is defense attorney Jack Martin. Everybody would just laugh when I said, well, is he a racist? Of course not. He was a great man for the community. Everybody loved him

in the community. Would this man arrange a murder to end his son's marriage? Out of the question. This man had nothing to do with it. There was no question that the parents and other family members were upset with the relationship. It didn't have to do anything with race. It had to do with the fact that Ricky was young, only a teenager. The fact that he hadn't finished his education. The defense cross-examined Rye's son, Ricky. You were supposed to, in your family, get a college education, weren't you? Yes, sir. And any conversations that we did have, yes, they were targeted towards, you know, do what you want, but get your education first. So it wasn't that she was African-American or black. Even if she had been Indian, it was a problem, correct? Correct.

And there was further proof, said the defense, that Chyman Rai was no racist. For years, Rai had taught at an historically black university and among his many businesses owned a convenience store in a predominantly black community of Jackson, Mississippi. Did you ever notice him treat any of his black customers with disrespect? No, sir. You ever hear him disparaging black people? No. It's not in his makeup. Is Mr. Rye a racist? No, sir. None, not at all. The defense called Rye's other children, two medical doctors, a teacher, a financial analyst, to vouch for their father. Have you dated African-American women? I have. Has that been a big issue in the family, that you've dated women that are not Indian or African American?

No, no, not at all. No, said the defense. Race was not the reason that Sparkle was found dead. But if it wasn't about race, what was it? Why did Sparkle die? Defense attorney Don Samuel. What really happened was not that Chime and Rye sent out someone to kill Sparkle Rye. What happened was Herbert Green decided that they would go to the house

where Ricky Rye and Sparkle Rye lived and would steal money and would steal drugs. Drugs? Sure enough. Under questioning, Herbert Green admitted he'd heard some things. Did you tell the police repeatedly that Ricky and Sparkle were using drugs? That's what I heard on the street. Which is why, claimed the defense, Herbert Green and Willie Fred Evans hired Cleveland Clark,

who made the 400-mile drive from Jackson, Mississippi, to Atlanta to commit not a murder, but a robbery. In the apartment, he said at least four times, where are the drugs, where are the drugs? Yes. The murderer was looking for something. Where are the drugs, where are the drugs? Running through the cabinets.

That didn't make any sense for a hitman. And the very way in which Sparkle was murdered, said the defense, was further proof that the murder occurred after and because the robbery went bad. The stab wounds could be created by common knives and the ligature could be any kind of a cord. Sparkle had been strangled with a vacuum cord, stabbed to death with a kitchen knife. Not the work of a hired killer, said the defense. What type of hitman shows up with no weapon, goes there to use items he may or may not find in the house to commit the murder?

So why would Herbert Green and Willie Fred Evans tell the prosecution they'd set up the murder under contract from Chime and Rye? Simple, said the defense. Their story was a clever cover-up that had the added advantage of a get-out-of-jail-free card. These were two liars who got probation instead of a jail term in exchange for their cooperation. They know they're caught. They cook up the story. We'll blame it on Mr. Rye. He's the one who did all this. You could have 100 liars testify to something, and it's not worth anything. But Chimon Rye and his defense attorneys still had one very big problem, that hidden camera video.

How could anyone explain away what sounded like Rye's own virtual confession? I did this murder for you. You know what I did, you know. You did it for me. I did this for you. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. What it really appears to be is Mr. Rye trying to get him out of there as quickly as possible. Often people say, uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, yeah, meaning I'm listening to you.

When are we going to get over this? I don't know anything about that. Am I right or wrong? I don't know nothing about that. A lot of what he's saying is, I don't know anything, you don't know anything. Was he right that Chyman Rai had nothing to do with Sparkle Rai's murder? That this tape was nothing more than an effort to frame an innocent man? Does a peaceful man with no history of violence in his entire life suddenly turn to violence and murder when he's older than 60? Their motive is weak and quite frankly, not there.

You don't have to decide who's telling the true story, but the jury would have to. They would hold a man's life in their hands. If they found Chyman Rye guilty of murder, the penalty could be death. This is a murder-for-hire case, which is why the defendant is guilty of murder without ever having stepped foot in the state of Georgia. It was a senseless, stupid, brutal crime. But this man had nothing to do with it. There is no telling quite how a jury will react to the stories it's told.

No way for a waiting family to know what to think. I was on pins and needles the whole time. The jury stayed out a day and then a day and a half. Has the jury reached a verdict, sir? We have, Your Honor. And then announced it had a verdict in the

death penalty case against businessman Chyman Rye. Actually, I said to him, I think we've got this. But I always had in the back of my mind, what if these 12 people are not seeing the same thing I'm seeing? They've been waiting for this moment eight long years. The judge asked the jury foreperson, read the verdict. We, the jury, find the defendant, Chyman L. Rye, guilty.

Count two, felony murder, burglary. We, the jury, find the defendant, Chyman L. Rye, guilty. Count two, felony murder, burglary. We, the jury, found the defendant, Chimon L. Ry, guilty. Guilty. Chimon Ry was guilty of murder and every count that followed. We, the jury, found the defendant, Chimon L. Ry, guilty.

Guilty came out of the mouth of the foreman. That was unbelievable. It's just the tears started flowing and they couldn't stop. I sat through everything and I never cried for anything. But to hear that guilty verdict, especially the second guilty, I couldn't help it. Guilty. Chyman Rye's face was unreadable. He seemed emotionless. He was not, said his it. Guilty. Chyman Rye's face was unreadable. He seemed emotionless.

He was not, said his lawyer. Guilty. He was just befuddled by it. And he expected to be acquitted. You don't know anything. That's the only thing you have to say. It may have been the incriminating hidden camera footage of Rye talking with Herbert Green that swayed the jury, but it was a death penalty case. And so now the jury sat to hear pleas for Rye talking with Herbert Green that swayed the jury. But it was a death penalty case,

and so now the jury sat to hear pleas for Rye's life. His children, with the exception of son Ricky, pleaded with the jury. It was the first time Rye showed any emotion during the trial. My father is still the greatest man I know. I ask that you allow him to live so that others may benefit from his positive traits. I ask you to allow me to hold on to my father. To me, he is someone who is very, very hard to find.

I assure you that no matter where I am on this earth, that he will always be with me. It is your decision today. You're responsible. Do you want to kill this man? Sparkle stepmom Donna Lowry also spoke to the jury, telling them the loss of Sparkle was especially traumatic for baby Inala. At six months old, her mother was gone, never to hold her or sing to her, never to read books to her, never to smell or touch her or feel her warmth. How alone she must have felt. In the end, the jury spared Rye's life. He was sentenced to life in prison. Mr. Chyman Rye, I remand you into the custody of the state where you will serve life without parole plus 25 years. We can live with the fact that he's going to spend the rest of his life in jail. But how can they live, they wonder, with what

he did. A man who hired a hit on their own sweet daughter just to keep her out of his family. Here's a man who could raise these kids to be so wonderful, to serve the public. One's a teacher, a couple doctors, and yet he could have a woman killed. It's inconceivable. And just to think, I'm going to get rid of her. I'm just going to pay $10,000 and get rid of her and she'll be out of my family. That's what a life is worth? That's it, $10,000.