Dateline Originals - Murder & Magnolias - Ep. 6: Judgment Day

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

The jury renders its verdicts. Afterwards, a remarkable moment of forgiveness takes place.This episode was originally published on December 13, 2022. 

It's a ridiculous notion, really. The idea that 12 adults selected because a judge deemed them relatively honest and lawyers thought them sufficiently malleable, that they should decide someone's fate with a show of hands? Bias and prejudice don't disappear when deliberations start. Of course they don't. Logic and reason don't always reign supreme. In truth, many verdicts are little more than good faith guesses

based on the evidence jurors are allowed to see. But for the most part, it's a system that works. If not always consistently. And that, of course, is the rub. I had butterflies in my stomach the first day I ever tried a case 35 years ago, and I had butterflies in my case on this date. It took more than 10 hours for the jury to decide the fates of Chris Latham and Wendy Moore. We couldn't understand why some of them didn't feel the same way as the others felt.

In this episode, you'll hear from some of the jurors who rendered those verdicts. Sounds like that might have been a debate. Am I right about that? Yes. You'll hear a remarkable moment of jailhouse redemption. Nancy Latham doesn't owe me forgiveness at all whatsoever. It's just very emotional, it is. And you may be surprised to learn what's become of some of the people we've met

over the course of this podcast. The only person I have to make happy is me. And man, is that liberating. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is the sixth and final episode of Murder and Magnolias, a podcast from Dateline. It was one of those February mornings in the South that seems to offer a hint of spring.

Temps in the 50s, light velvety breeze. The sun was a blurry white promise behind the morning haze, just like the light at the end of a very long tunnel. Or so it may have seemed to the jurors filing into the federal courthouse that Wednesday morning. They sat through nine days of testimony, 50 witnesses, more than 100 exhibits. But all that was over now. Closing arguments had wrapped up the night before.

This day was to be Judgment Day. When we started into deliberation, we tried to pick out the first charge and take a vote on one of the two defendants. In this case, it was Chris Latham. That's the voice of juror Bill Hogan. I think once we realized that we weren't together there, then we moved to the next one. The next one? Well, that was Wendy Moore.

And there seemed to be little disagreement about her. They'd kept their eyes on her throughout the trial. And several jurors felt she looked guilty. Wendy Moore had her hair hanging down over her face. That was every day. We couldn't really see her face. That was every day. We couldn't really see her face probably the first two weeks. Their review of the evidence against Wendy was exhaustive. The drop phones, the money grams to contract killers,

the hit packet printouts from her computer, and of course the fact that her ex-husband was supposed to be the hitman looked bad for Wendy. So they voted. Guilty of conspiracy. Guilty of solicitation. Guilty of aiding and abetting. Guilty of the gun charge. Later, jurors told me they believed Aaron Wilkinson when he described the plot. In fact, some of them gave him points for being brutally honest. Well, he told the policeman, he said, I'm a piece of s**t, but I'm no murderer. Yeah, that's exactly what he said.

I mean, he just laid it all out right there for me. As for Chris Latham, well, that's where all the good-natured camaraderie frayed a bit. I don't think that he orchestrated it. I always thought that she did. That's the voice of juror Christina Weatherby. I think he found out about it later on, what she was planning. And, I mean, but to actually say that he did it? No.

So round and round they went, through the morning, into the afternoon. Christina was one of three holdouts who did not want to convict Chris Latham of conspiracy to commit murder for hire. The majority kept pressing. I will say that I thought we might have had Chrissy coming over a little bit. At one time, yeah.

At one point, and we kind of got a little too pushy with her, and I think she finally got angry and stopped. That was sort of what I remember. Is that an accurate memory? Pretty much, because I did get frustrated. When some argue that Chris Latham, a rich banker, had surely provided the money that Wendy gave to Sam Yenawine, Christina had this response.

I looked at it as she's living in a house, in a beach house. She's still working. She's still getting a paycheck. She's not paying for the beach house. He's paying for the beach house. So where is all her money going to? So she's not paying anything, so she has access to her own money to be able to pay for stuff.

So that's how I looked at it. When the majority pointed out that maps in the hit packet had been printed from Chris's computer, Christina offered a counterargument. My thing of that was she had all the passwords to his computers, so he, she had full access to anything. And even if it was her or him, you don't know who it was that was accessing those computers. It could have been her. As it all unfolded throughout that whole time,

we realized that there were two charges for Chris Latham that we just were not going to agree on. Those two counts were conspiracy to commit murder for hire and a firearm charge related to the gun that was to be used in that murder. But on the third count, the charge of aiding and abetting, even the holdouts had to agree. Chris Latham had wanted his wife dead, and he'd helped the plotters, even if he'd not taken an active role.

The evidence seemed clear about that. The photos in the hit packet that were traced back to Chris's phone, the recorded jail phone calls with Wendy, the fact he'd paid the legal fees of people who were conspiring to kill his wife, it was just too much that couldn't be explained away. Aiding and abetting, we were unanimous about. Right. Count three is what we got

him on. He just didn't get his hands dirty. Yeah, he was very smart, very intelligent. At about six o'clock that evening, the judge asked the jurors if they wanted to go home for the night or continue. The jurors decided to keep going.

And two hours later, they notified the judge. They reached a verdict. When they filed into the courtroom, no doubt, some of the jurors saw Nancy seated just beyond the prosecution table with a tense and searching look in her eyes. My entire body was tense, and I was holding hands and just looking down, just saying, please, God, let him be guilty. Because if it was not guilty, I was so fearful

that it would give him the opportunity to do a better job. And the moment they said guilty, it just, I felt like I could breathe for the first time. So it was like all of a sudden, I was human again. Chris Latham, guilty of one count of aiding and abetting. Wendy Moore, guilty of all four counts against her. For the prosecutors, those verdicts were about what they'd expected, if not entirely what they'd hoped for. We didn't think there was any chance that they would acquit either defendant. I mean, Wendy Moore, obviously, as we noted in our close,

her goose was cooked. It was just overwhelming evidence. That's the voice of Prosecutor Red DeHart. We were pleased with the result. I mean, if the defense would have offered us before trial that he would plead guilty to count three, which he was convicted of, we'd have taken that deal. I mean, we convicted him of the substantive count. I think any way you look at it, it was a victory for the Justice Department.

In spite of the fact that he didn't get the full count against him, he didn't get them all. He was convicted on a serious charge. So, I mean, we were pleased, and we're just happy to have it over with. It was about nine when Chris Latham's defense attorney, Stephen Schmutz, stepped out of the courthouse and into the chilly night air. There was a light breeze, felt bracing after a long day spent waiting. As he walked to his car

beneath the streetlights, his shadows skittered across the white sidewalk. What was he thinking? Hard to know, but one thing that surely crossed his mind that evening was the jury. He must have wondered what happened in the jury room. What caused those jurors to hang up on two counts against Chris Latham and yet find him guilty on the third? By the time he sat down with us, the answer seemed inescapable. Chris Latham was in love with Wendy Moore. He still is. And I don't think the jury could get past

the fact that he continued to support her when the evidence, as they saw it, apparently, was overwhelming that she was involved in an attempt to kill his wife. It was a setup, of course it was. One of those contrived, made-for-television moments that one sees on reality TV shows. And yet, the substance of it, the emotion, could not have been more genuine. It was late March 2014. It was about a month after the trial of Chris Latham and Wendy Moore had concluded. Aaron Wilkinson sat in the county jail

waiting to do a TV interview with Dateline producer Carol Gable. Video from that day shows Aaron sitting with his back to the door and watching the TV crew set up their lights, tweak their cameras. He seems at ease in the company of these men, working men who posed no threat to him and asked no questions. Then behind him, he hears the unmistakable sound of a female's footsteps. In the video, Aaron turns to his left, expecting to see Carol, the Dateline producer. But instead, it's a face he has come to know well. Hi. I don't think we've met before. I'm Nancy.

Surprise? That would be an understatement. Shocked, more like. Aaron, at first, offers a limp handshake. He seems unsure of prisoner protocol in a moment like this. Should he stand? Should he sit? He stays in his chair, looking up at Nancy. He is speechless. Then Nancy takes control. Stand up. And with that, Aaron Wilkinson rises to his full six-foot, two-inch height and embraces Nancy, the woman he'd been told to kill. Thank you so much. How are you? You okay? Have a seat.

I cannot possibly thank you enough. I think we all completely understand that the outcome would have been very different were it not for you. At first, the meeting is excruciatingly awkward. The TV cameras seem to demand some kind of performance or something. But as Nancy places her hand on Aaron's knee and he fights back tears, something quite real emerges. Feelings of forgiveness, even affection, become palpable. And before we get sidetracked, I heard you testify. You are so smart. You have so much potential. I'm going to expect great things from you.

You okay? Thank you. Aaron, quite overwhelmed, brushes a tear from his cheek and leans over for another hug. Thank you so much. You are so welcome, and I am so grateful for you. I think of all the people that Sammy could have pulled into his car to do this with him, and it would have been so different. So, just like you had my back,

tomorrow I'll have yours. You're welcome. Oh, yes, tomorrow. That'll be the day Aaron Wilkinson faces sentencing for his part in the plot. And Nancy assures him she will ask the judge to go easy.

Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm so happy I got to meet easy. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm so happy I got to meet you. Like I said, you're so smart. And obviously very chatty. You obviously talk way too much, too. We need to stop that. And so hopefully we're going to get a reduced sentence. And with that, they hugged again. And then as Nancy turned to leave, Aaron smiled. It's unbelievable that you, I mean, the graciousness is overwhelming. What was it like to spend some time with him in the jail? He is surprisingly gentle, surprisingly meek. In fact, he couldn't stop thanking you.

And I had to say, you have to stop thanking me because I owe you thanks. Was it important for you to speak at his sentencing to say something? Absolutely. To recommend something? Absolutely. At Aaron Wilkinson's sentencing, Nancy kept her word. She spoke movingly on his behalf. And perhaps because of that and the plea deal he'd made with prosecutors, the judge gave Aaron a reduced sentence, four years in a maximum security prison. Later that summer, just before Chris Latham and Wendy Moore

were to be sentenced, they agreed to speak with me, separately, at the county jail. Through it all, neither of them had spoken to investigators. At trial, neither of them testified. But when they sat down with me, they said it was because they wanted the truth to be known, a truth they had been keeping to themselves for the past year.

Wendy Moore was first. I think if Sam had not killed himself, I think he would have been able to show that I had nothing to do with it and that it wasn't, there was never any murder-for-hire plot. According to Wendy, her ex-husband Sam Yenawine would have exonerated her, would have convinced the court

that she had no role at all in the conspiracy to kill Nancy Latham. That is, if he hadn't killed himself seven months before the trial began. I don't think Sam would have let me go to jail for something I didn't do. I just don't think that would have happened. I have to believe that he would have done the right thing.

And you were waiting for him to do that? I figured he would, yeah. And Chris Latham, the once well-respected banker? I'm telling you the truth. I have no incentive to harm Nancy. According to Chris, none of this murder plot business made any sense. All he'd ever wanted was an amicable divorce. Murder? He knew nothing about a hit for hire.

He insisted on that. You dream about the outside, and then you wake up inside, and it pierces your heart. It makes you jump. You can't believe that you're here. And, you know, you first go through shock at what has happened. Then you're angry and bitter at what's taken place and where you are. I've spoken to Wendy, too. Your stories are contrary to the most obvious indications that you and she were involved in a plot to kill Nancy. And I think to myself, my God, if they're lying to me that skillfully, what does that say about them?

Are you lying? No, I'm not lying. I mean, what are you going to say? Yeah, I'm lying. Think this thing through. I mean, you've got to remove all emotion and look at it logically. Why would I do this? Why indeed?

For money? For pride? For love? When I spoke to Wendy, her eyes lit up when she talked about Chris. You still soulmates? I've never met anyone better than him, and I never will again.

He is a good person, and I love him. And he is, he's an innocent man. There is no reason not to love him. All of this was what, trumped up? All of this is a huge mess. Then neither one of us would have ever wanted Nancy harmed. The jury, of course, saw things differently. On the day Chris Latham was sentenced,

the judge gave him the maximum for the single count of aiding and abetting, 10 years, a $1,500 fine, plus three years of supervised release. At Wendy's sentencing, the judge handed down sentences on her four guilty verdicts that could be served concurrently. That meant Wendy would be behind bars for 15 years, after that three years of supervised release. When the gavel came down for the last time in August 2014, it had been almost exactly three years since that night on the lake when Chris Latham told Nancy he didn't want to be married anymore to her. For Nancy, at least, that big and turbulent chapter

of her life was over. Now the question was, what's next? It's sort of this liberating thing that has happened to me. Liberating, of course, is not exactly a word

Wendy and Chris would have used in that moment to describe their futures. It's like a horrible nightmare that you cannot wake up from. The love affair that entangled their lives was about to be put to the test in prison. It's awful. It's not right. And it's not fair. Picture this. It's a dark winter day in February 2022. Valentine's Day, perhaps? A middle-aged woman sits alone at her computer, her slender fingers moving rapidly over the keyboard. She's typing her name into the search engine,

and like a time machine, that old booking photo of her comes up. Blonde hair, blue eyes, attractive. Then she remembers she's nine years older now. She reminds herself that the time she spent in prison could have been worse. Much worse. She served much of her time in Florida, in one of those low-security, club-fed kinds of places. Yoga classes, softball outside when it wasn't too hot,

volleyball inside when it rained. Curious now. Imagine the woman at the computer typing another name into the search engine. L-A-T-H-A-M. Latham. And there he is. It's that old picture of Chris Latham and his wife, Nancy. Chris in a tuxedo, Nancy wearing an evening dress.

Above the photo, a headline reads, Nancy Latham's attempted murder. Where are Chris Latham and Wendy Moore now? Where are they indeed? Perhaps a look of reminiscent satisfaction flickers across her face as she reads on. The story says Wendy Moore got out of prison in October 2021. True. And Chris, according to the article, got out in January 2022.

January 14th, to be exact. They'd both been in prison for a little over seven years. Would he call her now if he had her number? She might have wondered. Maybe wish her a happy Valentine's Day? Would she answer if he did? Hard to say. They had been soulmates once, before they were both sent to prison. What was it Chris had said to the TV guy that is to me? She's going to be away for a long,

long time. You're not still thinking of getting married, are you? She's a wonderful person, and I have, obviously I have feelings for her, but, you know, I don't feel comfortable discussing future plans. There are a lot of things up in the air. Up in the air? Yes. But true love endures, right? At least that's what she told the nosy reporter back then when she'd sat for the interview you've been listening to. That he accepts every little thing about me as,

okay, it makes me comfortable with myself. And that makes me love him more. And I think he feels the same way. Sweet memories, yes. And those jail phone calls during the time when she was locked up and Chris was a free man. She'd been scared to death then, and Chris was so comforting. Well, it's so good to hear your voice.

Oh, my God. It is so, so good. So good. Like, you did not even know. My biggest fear is I'm afraid out of mind. I know. Well, you hang in there, you need to know that even at the lowest point that you have, don't give up because we are all right there beside you, and we're there with you.

And I hope that you feel that because you're on our mind every single second and we will not give up until you're here with us in our home okay i need to come home i need to come home i'm close to tonight i'm close to a middle break now well don't just keep. And, you know, we're doing everything we can to get you home as quickly as you can, okay? Thank you. Well, that was then. Later on, their solidarity cracked a bit. In their appeals and other court filings, Wendy claimed she'd only been following orders, implying, perhaps, that her

former lover had been the mastermind? Chris, in his filings, claimed the entire murder plot was a fiction, the work of a sociopath. Who was he talking about? Her? Sammy? Aaron, maybe? Well, no matter. She was out now, her 15-year sentence nearly cut in half when a court decided it was too harsh. At least she had her kids to lean on. But Chris? His kids had seemed to want nothing more to do with him back then. At trial, the oldest one, Emily, refused to make eye contact. And at his sentencing, Madison had called her father a monster. I didn't want to have to think someone who I lived with for 15 years or so was a monster. That's Madison when I talked to her back then. Do you think the day would come when you can have

a relationship with him? I don't think so. You never want to have a relationship with him? I don't see why Sartre now. Considering all of his actions that he's done against me and my sister and my mom, I can't see any way that I would want to be with him. But it turns out Madison has had a change of heart since then. According to Nancy, Madison stays in touch with her father these days. As for Emily, well, Nancy says she still refuses to take her father's calls.

Chris Latham's sister told us he had no interest in speaking with Dateline again. Our efforts to contact Wendy were unsuccessful. And what became of Aaron Wilkinson, the heroin addict whose arrest and confession exposed the plot to kill Nancy Latham and set all these wheels in motion? Well, anyone doing a Google search of Aaron's name on January 14th, 2022, the day Chris Latham walked out of prison, might have turned up this local news item from Murray, Kentucky. Murray man charged with attempted burglary. Yes, that was Aaron Wilkinson, all right. Mugshot and everything. According to police, he'd been arrested at three in the morning for trying to break into a house while the occupants

were at home. His second chance squandered. Well, that's not where the story ends. In a recent phone call, Aaron told us he's been clean and sober since that arrest and now works at a drug treatment facility. Though his wife, Bethany, divorced him while he was in prison for the murder plot, Aaron told us he is happily married now with one child and another on the way. Remember that last encounter Aaron had with Nancy? Their emotional meeting in the Charleston County Jail just before his sentencing. You have been off drugs while you're in prison, right? Yes.

Okay. And you're going to go on to do something great. That's the rule. You saved my life, now you have to go do something great. That's right. So maybe, just maybe Aaron has finally turned the corner. Like any recovering addict, Aaron told us he's taking it day by day and trusting that a higher power will help him stay on the straight and narrow.

It's extremely liberating to be forgiven for something. When I think about and insulateam, I think about God. Obviously, I mean, you put God in the front seat, you know, you can do anything. Which brings us to Nancy Latham, now Nancy Cannon. What did she do after the dust settled? First, she left South Carolina and hit a reset button, away from all the sadness and heartbreak. I felt like it was time just to make a fresh start. So I left South Carolina. I, for the first time in my life, have an actual job where I feel appreciated and valued and I love it.

But every day I laugh. And again, maybe it's an age issue too, but the only person I have to make happy is me. And man, is that liberating. For a while though, Nancy also tried her hand at making other people laugh on stage. Any divorced people here? That's right, she did a bit of stand-up comedy.

Yeah, it was good for me too. Events that some people might find too painful to talk about became the raw material for Nancy's act. My divorce, like probably most of you, didn't go the way I'd hoped it would go. On stage, Nancy was in her element. She told me she loved performing, but late-night sets in comedy clubs are not exactly compatible with having a day job. At my advanced age, I have discovered that going to work at 7 o'clock in the morning,

which means I have to get up at 5.45 every morning to get there at 7, and then work a full day and then going to a comedy club at 10 o'clock at night to do a set. No, no thank you. There was a time, shortly after the trial ended, when Nancy felt compelled to tell everybody she met about the time her husband and his girlfriend tried to have her killed. Partly to control the narrative, to tell it on her terms, and partly to make yourself feel safe. Nancy's mother, Nancy, said,

Now that time has passed, I don't feel the need to share like that. Occasionally, I'll tell the story because it's a funny story. It's a crazy story, not funny maybe, but it's an insane tale to tell. But I don't feel like I have to do it, whereas before it was almost a compulsion. Do you feel safe now? Yes. Uh, yes. Yes.

Yes, she says, trying to convince you. Daughters Emily and Madison are grown women now with careers and lives of their own, and Nancy is happily resettled in a city far from Charleston, dwelling less on the past and more on what is to come. Can you ever see getting married again? I'd rather not talk about that. See myself getting married? Yes, yes. Oh, how very interesting.

Is there any gossip you want us to spread? No. If I wanted to spread the gossip gossip you want us to spread? No. If I wanted to spread the gossip, I'd want to do it myself. Are you kidding? Turn it over to you? No way. Wouldn't have expected otherwise. But anyway, that one crazy story was quite enough. Thank you. and Reese Washington are associate producers. Susan Nall is senior producer. Adam Gorfain is co-executive producer.

Liz Cole is executive producer. And David Corvo is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, Bryson Barnes is technical director, sound mixing by Bob Mallory. Nina Bisbano is associate producer.