Snapped: Women Who Murder - Clara Rector

Episode Date: November 20, 2022

After a beloved Missouri barfly is found stabbed in his home, detectives spend years chasing down leads until a local pastor reveals a shocking confession from one of his parishioners, revealing a twisted desire and deadly secret kept for years.Season 29, Episode 15Originally aired: July 18, 2021Watch full episodes of Snapped for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/WatchSnappedPodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondries Podcast American Scandal. Our newest series looks at the story of OxyContin, a popular painkiller that helps spur an epidemic of addiction and drug abuse, in which prompted a broad campaign to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable. Listen to American Scandal on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. He was a beloved fixture among the locals in this Midwestern Lake town. He had a good heart. He would have gave his all for anybody at any time.

He would give you the shirt off his packet if he could. But when his bar stool goes empty, his friends go looking. Uh, yes, ma'am. As early as the officer, ambulance, the whole nine yards over the second street. There was a lot of blood on the floor. He was lying in a pool of blood.

The cut to his neck. It was a rather large cut. Several inches long. As news of the gruesome crime spreads. Investigators must sift through rumors about money, drugs, and obsession. He owed some money to a drug dealer. He said, it's something happens to me. It's because I couldn't pay it.

He was scared. He was literally very scared. She says, I will destroy an effort in destroying you. In any homicide investigation, you look at a number of things, but the top three things. literally very scared. She says, I will destroy an effing destroy. In any homicide investigation, you look at a number of things, but the top three things, money, drugs, and sex. After years of searching, a smoking gun finally presents itself from the most unlikely source.

She wrote down how much she liked her pastor, how she wanted him to hold her. I said that said the devil is right out of the pit of the nail. I said that destroys churches and destroys families. You have somebody who is a good Christian wife and mother, but who's battling some very serious demons. She had addiction problems and addiction is hard to beat. I just didn't want to get in trouble.

She just had really lost all control. had addiction problems and addiction is hard to beat. I didn't want to get in trouble. She just had really lost all control. Wednesday, April 28, 2004, Camdenton, Missouri. At 6.30 a.m., Cindy Christensen and Brian Norton are checking on their friend, 48-year-old Tommy Hope, who they haven't heard from in several days. Tommy was known for speaking with friends often, meeting with them, hanging out. It was unusual to his friends and to his acquaintances when no one had heard from him for a while.

They went to the residence to check on Tom. They knocked on the door and yelled for Tom, and there was no response from inside the residence. That's when he and Cindy decided that Cindy would enter the residence through the window. When she gets inside, she sees Tom laying on the floor in between the kitchen and the living room.

There was a lot of blood on the floor. He was lying in a pool of blood. That's when she screamed and ran to the front door and unlocked it. Brian briefly goes inside, seeing for himself what left Cindy so shaken. Brian is the one that made a suggestion that they go to Bay Friends's house and call the police.

Cindy and Brian rushed to the home of Patricia Strauss about a half mile away, and Cindy attempts to explain what they have seen. She was in a panic, of course, very upset. And she told me that he was dead. She had found him. She didn't know what to do. And then Cindy had called the police from there.

Can I have a share of key traffic? Can I help you? Uh, yes, ma'am. Uh, there needs to be an officer, an ambulance, the whole nine yards over at the second street. OK, what's the problem? Palm hope is his name, and a bunch of us yards over at 2nd Street. OK, what's the problem? Tom Hope is his name and

he's been to the first round of battle, and we're trying to get all of him to the Friday. All I know is that he's laying there and he's not losing. He's all I know. I like he's got to Brian. Brian?

Yes, ma'am. What did you say in the house that he appeared in? Yes ma'am. He's laying like space down, but then there looks like blood on the carpet and stuff too right around his face area too, like he,

and all he'd been bleeding from his head. As Cindy and Brian talked to the operator, Patricia tries to wrap her head around what is unfolding. He was well-liked and such a nice person. It was very shocking. light and such a nice person. It was very shocking. Born on June 28th, 1955, Tommy Hope grew up in Texas. For Tommy and his two siblings, their early childhood was fraught with trouble. The parents would go places and leave the three of them, and they would be hungry.

The neighbor would keep his door unlocked because he knew Tom would come in to get food. Eventually, the hope children were placed in foster care where Tommy faced more hardship. There was a lot of abuse in these foster care homes that he suffered. And he went without a lot. Without food, he was neglected. He was beaten.

While his siblings were adopted, young Tommy was eager to strike out on his own. As soon as he was able, Tommy joined the military. He was like round 18, 19 when he went in. He was a true patriot. He loved his country, and he fought for this country. He's seen a lot, witnessed a lot during his time in the service. Following his discharge in his 20s,

Tommy relished a life with temporary commitments. He was doing odd jobs to make whatever money he needed in the moment. It was not like he was planning for a long-term situation. He would buy and sell vehicles, repair vehicles, probably some yard work here and there. Something that could help him get to the end of the week. He lived in California, and he did have a life partner

in California, which he said was fairly long term, and I don't know what happened, but she left. And then he moved to Missouri. By his mid-40s, Tommy settled in Camdanton, Missouri, and fell in with a group of locals he met through the bar scene. He just kind of started talking to me. When I hit the bar, just struck up conversation. He was just friendly. He loved to drink.

Every time I see him, he had had beer in his hand. When I would close down the bar, he would find music that we both liked and stuff. And we'd laugh and sing and enjoy the music. Tommy had little interest in devoting himself to a woman or a career, but there was no questioning his commitment to his friends. He would give you the shirt off his back if you could.

He just seemed very loyal, a very loyal friend. Somebody you could tell your most inner secrets to and he would take that to his grave. Now, friends are wondering what secrets may have led to his grisly death. I knew when I couldn't get a hold of him that there was something wrong, and I could feel it. Within minutes of the panic to 9-1-1 call,

officers arrive at Tommy's house. I walked over to the body, and at that point, I could see that his shirt was soaked with blood. There was also the stiffening of the body, and it was obviously laid there for some time. Sargent Beachum can tell Tommy suffered a violent death, but the circumstances are still muddy. We're unsure whether or not that it was an accident,

causing the death, or whether or not it was a homicide. It's just kind of puzzling when you have that much blood and not seeing that there was any type of struggle. We wouldn't prepare to make that call. We were waiting for the medical examiner. While they wait, investigators continue their search of the crime scene. They used Lumenol to illuminate proteins in the blood

and they could see images of footprints with blood leading up to the window. And then they found a little bit of blood on the window frame, indicating that somebody who had been inside the house had gotten out of the house through the window. The only real explanation of that was somebody had to have been inside the house at the time of death.

When the medical examiner arrives, detectives learn more about Tommy's injuries. The first thing that he observed and brought to our attention was the cut to Tom's neck. It was a rather large cut, several inches long. For investigators, it's enough to make one important determination. At that point, we made our decision that we were going to investigate the crime as a suspicious death. The medical examiner also discovers a bottle of pills in Tommy's pocket.

The name on the bottle discovers a bottle of pills in Tommy's pocket. The name on the bottle gets the attention of investigators. Cindy Christianson. The two people who found Tommy's body were Brian, and then Cindy is the other person. When somebody has your pills in their pocket, it stands to reason that you would want an explanation as to why they have your medication.

In terms of Cindy, Christianson, we wanted to know who she was, what type of relationship she had with him, why her pill bottle and pills were in his pocket. Coming up, investigators uncovered deadly vices. They had been using drugs and they continued to use drugs together. She had left her husband and moved in with Tom for a period of time. He had made a threat for him to stay away, or he would be sorry.

She was stalking him, which he took as a threat. April 2004. Investigators in Camdanton, Missouri have just recovered a pill bottle on the body of Tommy Hope. But the name on the bottle isn't his, it's the woman who'd first discovered Tommy's body. If Cindy didn't have any to do with it, then we wanted to know if she had some idea who might have. Investigators head to the nearby home of Patricia Strauss to speak with Cindy Christensen and Brian Norton, the two friends who found Tommy's body.

Cindy explains that she and Tommy go way back. She had told us that she'd had a previous relationship several years prior with Tom, and then actually lived with Tom for a while. Cindy says, though their romantic relationship came to an end, she and Tommy continued to party together. She seemed to have a reasonable explanation as to why her pill bottle would have been in his jacket, that they had been using drugs and they continued to use drugs together.

In any homicide investigation, you look at a number of things, but the top three things, money, drugs, and sex. Patricia and Brian chime in, claiming that Tommy's traumatic childhood and time in the military pushed him into a pretty serious drug habit in his adult years. He had a thing for cocaine, and that if cocaine was around, he was going to do it. He always had some drugs, mainly user amounts, He had a thing for cocaine, and that if cocaine was around, he was going to do it.

He always had some drugs, mainly user amounts, and people would come over and party together and use Tom's drugs. There was a variety of drugs. Meth and phetamine, marijuana, cocaine. Patricia believes that Tommy's drug use might have something to do with his death. She thought that he owed some money

to a drug dealer out of Clinton, Missouri, by the name of Jeffrey Rourke. To investigators, it's a familiar name. Jeffrey Rourke was a big drug dealer. He supplied a lot of drugs to the Lake area. Patricia has one other lead for investigators. She shares that one of Tommy's recent romantic flings had been with a married woman, 27-year-old Clara Rector.

She did mention that Clara and Tom had had a relationship and that Clara's husband Jason had threatened Tom. Tom told me just a few days before he was killed, that Jason had made a threat for him to stay away from Clara or he would be sorry. He was worried about Jason because Tom did say he kept trying to get Clara to stay away and she wouldn't stay away.

Investigators move on to their two new leads. Kind of boil down to two different possibilities, one being a guy that he owed a lot of money to for drugs. And the second was Claire Rector's husband, Jason. As they begin tracking down their new suspects, investigators receive word that Tommy's autopsy is complete. The medical examiner reports Tommy died three to four days before he was found. They had a possible time of death, either on late in the evening on the 24th or early in the morning of the 25th. The medical examiner also determined time of death of either on late in the evening on the 24th or early in the morning of the 25th.

The medical examiner also determined the large cut to Tommy's neck isn't what killed him. That was not the lethal wound. He had been stabbed eight or nine times in his torso and his arm and there were three of those puncture wounds that the medical examiner determined was the lethal wound. With the amount of stab wounds and the cut to the throat, it would lead me to believe at that point that it was somebody that was angry at home. The autopsy findings support a motive for both current leads.

This was something that was more of a personal relationship type thing, somebody exacting revenge. Detectives decide to first investigate the affair with Clara Rector. On April 28th, they find her at her home and start asking questions. She was honest about the nature of her relationship with Tom,

that they had been in a romantic relationship, that she had left her husband and moved in with Tom for a period of time. And Clara told police that she had seen Tom recently within the past few days prior to his death. When Clara met Tommy, it didn't take them long to find common ground. Clara was born in California in 1976, and like Tommy, her early years were marred by upheaval and abuse. When she was less than two years old,

she had been removed from her home, her and her brother. They were eventually adopted by a family that moved to the lake of the Ozarks, and that's how they ended up at the lake of the Ozarks. Clara was a sweet, sensible person. Like, she would want a hug, you know. Somebody that she would want to walk up and give a hug to and just be friends with. At 19, Clara fell in love and married.

Just after learning she was pregnant, tragedy struck. Her young husband died in a car accident. She told me that she had a husband that had passed away. She was very much so in love with him, and she missed him a lot. She got angry with God for a while about taking her husband. That was when Clara's battle with drug addiction began.

Clara soon started dating Jason Rector. I would have thought that Clara and Jason had been together since high school, the way that they behaved together. Somebody was touching an arm or a thigh or, you know, they were just really sweet with one another. In 1999, Clara and Jason married. Jason adopted Clara's child, and over the next three years, the couple had two more children of their own.

Though they appeared happy, behind closed doors, there was trouble. They both were in addiction when they came together. Clara had addiction problems. The addiction problems, they were trying did not have that anymore. Not sure if it was pills or pot or meth or alcohol, but coming off that stuff makes you irritable. So they fought a lot.

They were not happy together at that time. The East right and up and Clara, it's just, addiction is hard to beat. When she met Tommy Hope in the summer of 2003, 26-year-old Clara found someone who understood her. They both had difficult circumstances in their childhood and growing up, so they probably connected in that way. While Jason worked on his sobriety, Clara continued to feed her addiction with Tommy.

The call of drugs was very strong for her, and despite wanting to be faithful to her husband and wanting to sort of keep on the straight and narrow, she moved in with Tom, it was obviously very upsetting to Jason. He was unhappy, he was angry. Her husband had kind of interceded a little bit and came in and got her. She ended up going to a rehabilitation center. After finishing rehab in December 2003, Clara returned home to Jason and the kids. She moved back in with her husband and they had reconciled their relationship.

She wanted to live a life of God and that's marriage is binding and so she wanted to uphold that. At least give it a try, her best effort. But five months after leaving rehab, Clara now sits with investigators in the wake of Tommy's murder, and admits that her sobriety hasn't lasted. According to Clara, she remained in contact with Tom, and would go by and use drugs with Tom on occasion without the knowledge of her husband.

She did not want her husband to know that she was seeing Tom again. Detectives now wonder if Jason found out about Clara's secret. He certainly had motive and he might have been the one that actually killed him. After wrapping up with Clara, investigators quickly turned to her husband, Jason, who isn't shy about his feelings for the victim, Tommy Ho. When Clara left Jason to move in at Tom's house in Camdenton,

Jason was very upset. He blamed Tom for a lot of clara's problems, blamed Tom for clara's drug use. He did threaten Tom and tell him he needed to stay away from his wife. Jason actually said that he knew that we'd be talking to him and that he would be a person of interest in this because of the threats that he had made against Tom. Coming up, had a jealous husband reached a boiling point.

He said, I'm glad he's dead. And a new lead pulls the investigation in an entirely different direction. He said, I owe somebody a lot of money, and I don't have it. This may have possibly been the break we were looking for. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, Hey, listener, it is me, Jason Bateman. I want to tell you that we've struck podcast gold in our new episode with David Letterman available four weeks early on one Dree Plus. It's like a late night talk show hangout, but with a smart list twist. We are diving deep

into David Letterman's incredible career in the moments that shaped him into the beloved icon he is today. Our interview with David Letterman was reported live in Brooklyn in front of thousands of our biggest fans from our smart list tour. This is the fourth of 10 interviews with new episodes releasing every Thursday. We're talking with celebrities and icons like the great Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, Mark Cuban, Jimmy Kimmel, so many more. Join us for an unforgettable conversation that will have you laughing pondering and quite possibly contemplating growing a beard like Letterman's.

I know I have. You can listen to these episodes four weeks early and add free on Wondry Plus, find Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, or on Apple Podcasts. Missouri authorities investigating the slaying of Tommy Hope are questioning Clara Rector's husband, Jason. While Jason doesn't hide his animosity for the victim,

he insists he had nothing to do with the murder. When they interviewed him, he said, I didn't do it, but I'm glad he's dead. He said that he had thought about killing Tom at one point, but he said he never followed through with it. Jason and Clara vouch for each other's whereabouts during the time frame investigators believe Tommy was killed.

It looked like he had died sometime late Saturday night, early Sunday morning, sometime. On Saturday, they had been out together running errands, and they spent the evening with their children watching movies. On Sunday, they attended church, and then afterwards, watched NASCAR at their home. So they told investigators that they were with each other

the entire time that Tom might have been killed. They both said that they had been together that we can, and that's the only information they have provided us. Despite a strong personal motive, investigators find no proof of Jason's involvement. He denied it. There was just no real evidence that tied him to it. Just hours after their interview with the Reckters, investigators hear from another friend of Tommy's

Brenda McCabe. Brenda tells them that days before his death, Tommy had shown up at her door asking for refuge. The look on his face and the look in his eyes, something was very, very wrong. And I said, well, come on in. And he stepped in. He said, they're going to get me.

They're going to get me. I said, who's that? What are you talking about? He said, I owe somebody a lot of money, and I don't have it. I was like, who are you talking about, Tommy? And he said, I'm not going to tell you that. He said, the least you know, the better off you are.

He said, it's something happens to me, Brenda. It's because I couldn't pay it. He was scared. He was literally very scared. Tommy wouldn't tell Brenda who he was indebted to, but investigators already have a name in mind from a previous tip, Jeff Rourke. This may have possibly been the break we were looking for.

There's a possibility that this may be the guy. Investigators head to Clinton, Missouri, where Jeff has a reputation as a dangerous drug dealer. We made contact with Jeff and Clinton and talked to him about Tom. He was aware that Tom had been killed. He said that he had received phone calls from several different people.

Jeff admits that the last time he saw Tommy, he had fronted him a mere $35 worth of marijuana. Tom did not have the money for it, and so he allowed him to take the drugs, own him money for those drugs. This was a couple weeks prior, and Jeff had not received his money. Jeff tells investigators he has bigger things to worry about than a small debt from someone like Tommy. He admitted that yes, they were involved in criminal activity, but he had nothing to do

with Tom's murder, and he cooperated with the investigation. Jeff also provides an airtight alibi. We were able to follow up on the information he gave and it was accurate and we could not put him in the area during the time the Tom was killed. With no new leads to pursue, the investigation stalls in August 2004. We went through everything that we had in the leads, and we just kept waiting for more to come up, but as far as new information that was valuable,

we really didn't receive anything. The case was sitting on a shelf. It had been investigated. There had been several different theories and lots of ideas, but nothing that could be proven in court. Investigators have no choice but to move on to other cases. It is frustrating, sad, and I was very angry, and it's kind of a helpless feeling that you can't do anything about it.

and it's kind of a helpless feeling that you can't do anything about it. Nine years pass with no new leads until April 21st, 2013, when a surprising turn breathes new life into this cold case. I go in and they're like, well, Scott, we've got some stuff we need to talk to you about. And so I thought they were going to invite me to become a junior deacon.

And I got kind of excited. It's like, this is great. But the deacons have more on their minds than church business. Pastor Jerry Sousley explains that for the last year, a seemingly upstanding congregation member has been exhibiting disturbing behavior. He goes on to explain, this has been ongoing for several months that this church member had been leaving notes for him

at his desk at church, had come to his house. The church member is none other than Clara Rector. Clara became attached to Jerry Susley to the point where it almost became an infatuation. Clara's obsession with the pastor came to a head on April 19th when she left a spiral notebook on his desk. She wrote down her feelings and wrote a story in almost like a diary-type fashion.

And the story involved a woman and how much she liked her pastor, how handsome she found him, and how she wanted him to hold her and other topics that were of a sexual nature. She wrote these down as a spiral notebook and deposited this book on Pastor Sousley's desk. Pastor Sousley says Clara's erratic behavior reminded him of a conversation he had with her in July 2012. He was concerned because that previous summer,

Clara had detailed a crime that she might have been involved in that resulted in murder. Coming up, a pastor clears his conscience. Imagine the guilt is this kind of tumble-out, you know, it's time to do something. And a cold-hearted revelation comes to light. She said, I do what I was doing. She's in a water-borne drought. MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC

MUSIC Almost a decade after the brutal murder of Tommy Hope, detectives Scott Hines gets an unexpected break when his pastor, Jerry Sousley, reveals a string of concerning interactions with one of his parishioners, Clara Rector. She was stalking him, which he took as a threat, given the fact that she confessed to him

as she had killed somebody. I knew Clara, and oftentimes we share the same queue, usually second from the front. I couldn't believe the Clara would do something like that. After the initial disbelief, I had immediate acceptance of, okay, I have an obligation to find out what was going on. On April 22nd, Detective Hines asks Pastor Sousley to come to the station for a formal statement.

Once there, Pastor Sousley explains that he reprimanded Clara four days earlier, forgiving him a notebook filled with her handwritten erotic fantasies. I said, Claire, that was very inappropriate. You cannot do that. And I'm a pastor. I'm looking at these things from a spiritual standpoint. I said, that's up available. It's right out of the pit of hell.

I said, that destroys churches, it destroys families. I'm married. I got a family. You have a family. I said, it's uncalled for. You need to stop doing that. And she said she was sorry, you know, and she would do it.

The pastor says that when he refused to give the notebook back to Clara, she threatened him. She said, Jerry, if you tell the law, which you know about me, I will destroy you. I will definitely destroy you. She used the word, And I just hung up. That's when I said, OK, I've got to get. We got that careless. He became concerned for his own safety and the safety of his family.

He felt he had to say something to somebody about it. She just kept continuing to harass him, and so he filed harassment charges. Detectives ask the pastor for more details about Clara's alleged murder confession. He said one night, third-rector approached him and told him that she had some things to tell him. At some point, her other conversation continues and she tells him that she had killed someone in her past. A man in Camden in his home. And, uh, started telling me about how she had left Jason and the kids and had started doing drugs,

and got mixed back and mixed up with this guy. Um, and then she just kind of put her head down and said, uh, and I killed him. And I said, well, you may need to kill him. And, uh, she said, I stabbed him and she said, uh, and I killed him. And I said, what do you mean you killed him? And she said, I stabbed him. And she said, what in the drugs? She said, I do what I was doing. As Pastor Salisay continued to make the description

of what she told him, it started to click in my mind, and I remembered, well, there's only one case that's even remotely close to that, and it's the time you homework. The pastor urged Clara and Jason to go to the police and followed up with a couple a few days later. Jason said we wouldn't saw the lawyer. He said that we don't have to say anything

that the murder improves police. So we just kind of need to forget about it. And I was like, I said, why? I didn't really know what to do. Given the circumstances that she had confessed to him in a counseling session, in my mind, it was not inappropriate that he did not tell law enforcement for somebody else about that confession. Months later, when the sexual advances began,

Pastor Sousley knew he had to say something. I feel like I'm doing a lot of things. But one fear was, was you went crazy again and kills but it was like, and me, no, imagine the guilt. So it's this kind of, come about, of course, you went crazy again and killed some of the girls. And they know that I'm not in the kill. So it's this kind of come about, you know, it's kind of something. When investigators look into what Clara has been up to in the last nine years, they find that not only has she maintained her sobriety, Clara has tried to help others reach the same goal. She started kind of trying to help other people

get off of drugs. In fact, she had written an article for the local paper about drug abuse and helping people get away from it. Clara took a lot of strides to better herself. She really wanted to become a good wife and mother. She became, I think, a bit more outspoken about her faith and the way it helped her overcome a drug addiction

and drug habits. Nonetheless, investigators formulate a plan to place the 36-year-old under arrest. We had to get her into custody before we could even start thinking about talking to her about the murder. The only way to do that was to get her on the stalking case, which we had probable cause for.

We filed a criminal charge for some type of harassment based upon her stalking or her pastor. Assuming that Clara will show up at church Sunday morning, Detective Heinz executes his plan. We came to the conclusion that as the church service began, we were going to shut and lock the doors Sunday morning. Just in case Clara showed up, we didn't want there to be a disturbance inside the building. Within a few minutes of the beginning of the church service, showed up, we didn't want there to be a disturbance inside the building.

Within a few minutes of the beginning of the church service, the pastor's wife hollers for me. I charge off towards the back of the building, and as I go out the door, I see Clara's pickup truck heading south away from the church building. So I go on the phone and I called up to dispatch and I asked for them to send me a unit. The on-duty deputy went looking for her. The church service was still going on, and he called me and let me know that he had found her

and taken her into custody on the stalking charge. Investigators who worked Tommy Hopes' case back in 2004 arrive at the Camden County jail to conduct the interview with Clara. They had already talked to her before. They had the details of the case, and since they were so intimately familiar with the case, it was better for them to do the interview. They began by questioning Clara about the stalking charges

she was brought in on. Was it you were trying to express to the pastor? That I had feelings for him that I wasn't gonna after Acton, and I knew that it was wrong to have him, and I couldn't explain it to him any other way. So I just wrote it in a story. During the interview with her, initially it was about the shocking. And that was the way for the members of the patrol, the

investigators, to develop this rapport with her, to get her just kind of talking. But investigators soon shift the conversation to what they really came to talk about. Tommy hopes murder. At one point, one of the troopers asked her, Claire, do you remember me? And physically, she kind of leans back a little bit

and says, no, I don't think so. And so he says, well, we met years ago while we were talking about the Southern case. Was there a work at C? I mean, I'm the person who basically did a bulk event, know with the autopsy, the wounds. And I talked to you, and this originally happened. And we know what you told in conversations

with Pastor Jerry, OK? She knew she was caught. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened.

I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. long years, a killer hiding in plain sight finally tells all. I really wanted you to get a high, and we just started finding and arguing. When she didn't get what she thought she would, she lost it. We know now, based on the evidence at hand, and based now on this confession that she had given to Pastor Sousley, that we were going to be in a very close relationship with her. We know now, based on the evidence at hand, and based now on this confession that she had given to Pastor Sousley,

that we've got the right person. We knew if we get her in the room, get her talking, we can get there. I need you to tell this to him. I need you to just tell the truth. I want to. Clara recalls leaving her home on that fateful night in April of 2004.

It's not going to my house another night, because I really wanted to get high. And I showed up down there, and door was locked, and he wouldn't let me in. So I had him calling through the window, and it's up to him for a while. Tommy told Clara that he had already used most of the cocaine he had on hand. He gave me nothing, I really, really had.

But then there was no more, and we just started fighting and and I'm happy with you. When she didn't get what she thought, she would. She lost it. Clara grabbed a knife from the kitchen counter. I just jumped on his back. She got mad at him. And she describes taking

kitchen knife, and at some point she climbed up on his back and got us through. That was the only thing I was gonna do, and then he just kept coming at me. Like, he wanted to hurt me more than I was hurting him. Like, he was gonna kill me. And so I just was like, going like this, get away from me.

And I don't know, he just stopped and he grabbed my arms. It's for me on his bed. And then he went about to him to look at his neck. And when he did that, I ran in the kitchen and grabbed a knife again, because he was coming back after me, because he was pissed off that I cut his throat. And he just kept going in. She was stabbing him.

She said that she just had really lost all control. I still feel like I hate you. I hate you when you stand there against the wall. And then he's like, you know, I think you're killing me. I think I'm dying and he just fell over. Why did I know what to do? So I just grabbed a knife and I grabbed his wallet. I just didn't want to get in trouble.

Yeah. So I just jumped up the way I did, Ryan. Clara went home to find Jason waiting for her on the front porch. I walked up to him and I told him I did something really bad. And he didn't believe me at first. But I showed him the knife and the wallet and he said, you know, I don't know what to do. I guess take up all your clothes and he took the wallet and the knife and all my clothes and he burned it, burned my clothes and the wallet and everything.

I think she felt an enormous sense of relief for having finally been able to tell her story to the right people. Following her confession, Clara is charged with first-degree murder, but Clara isn't the only one who must face the past. Police also bring her husband Jason into custody. After I told him what she told us, and we had that moment of acceptance, then he says, yeah, I burned her clothes,

because when she got home the night after killing Tommy Hope, she was, she was covered in blood. I'm positive Jason had that sense of relief. Jason was glad to get that information off his chest, just like Clara was. But Jason won't be held accountable for his involvement. With a charge of tampering with physical evidence, there was a three-year statute of limitations that had expired long ago.

In November 2014, 37-year-old Clara pleads guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder. I don't think a trial was ever really considered a possibility, given her confession. I settled down recommending, I think, a 15-year sentence. Given that there have been so many years between the time of the murder until we finally solved it, there have been no indication that she was any risk

to anybody else. Many of Tommy's friends feel like the punishment is too little, too late. I know her prison sentence wasn't very long, and it was such a violent crime that still makes me angry. It made me sick to my stomach. Tommy was a good guy, and he had a good heart. He would have gave us all for anybody at any time.

No one deserves to die like that for any reason. MUSIC Clara Rector will be eligible for parole in January 2024. Clara and Jason's children were raised by Jason. Clara Rector will be eligible for parole in January 2024. Clara and Jason's children were raised by Jason.