Snapped: Women Who Murder - Letti Strait

Episode Date: February 26, 2023

A man is murdered and questions are raised about his ties to the mafia, but a closer inspection reveals a spiteful killer with a more personal connection.Season 28, Episode 05Originally aired: October 4, 2020Watch 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 Wonder East 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. When a devoted father is found murdered in his home, dark secrets creep out of the shadows. He was lying face down with the blanket on top of him.

He had no defensive looms. He had no idea somebody was behind him. The trail of clues leads detectives through a maze of possibilities. Because of his last name, some people speculated that this might have something to do with organized crime. What investigators ultimately uncover is a cold-blooded plot that no one saw coming.

It was dead quiet in the house, and he heard we have to kill him. The crisis negotiators and the SWAT teams around at the house, she seemed to be a person who thought that if she talked enough, she could talk herself out of any situation. This thing's gonna explode like a bomb. You can't come down on this. And here I can say, I don't have any fear. The first

2007 Riverside Missouri Around 8pm in this quiet suburb just outside of Kansas City, Charlie Joe Kamasano and his friend Josh stopped by the home of 52-year-old Charlie Kamasano. The relatives went looking for Charlie because he hadn't been answering his phone calls. And he was supposed to attend a kid's sporting event

that day, which he did not. They knew their uncle had been out the night previous at a bar he liked a frequent called the Caddy Shack. So they thought their uncle might have had a little too much to drink. Charlie Joe bangs on the door, but gets no response. The house was all locked up. They said his Jeep wasn't there. And Charles climbed into the window to go in and check on his uncle.

He went into the living room area, and that's where he was met with what he didn't really want to see. He saw a blanket with what appeared to be a body underneath it. He quickly left the house, motioned for his friend, Josh to come in and said, hey, could you see who this is? Josh came in and then looked under the blanket and his worst suspicions were revealed.

It was his uncle dead under a blanket. At the time, of course, we didn't know what had happened to Charlie. In July 1955, Charlie Kamisano was born in Kansas City, Missouri. The Kamasano family was well known in Kansas City, but not always for the right reasons. During the 1970s and the 1980s, there was a large mob presence in Kansas City. The leader was a man named Nick Sivella. But a man named Willie Kamesano was his right-hand man. Charlie Sunko was Willie Kamesano.

His nickname was Willie the Rat. And Willie, I had dealt with when I was with Kansas City as a detective. Despite his brother's mob ties, Charlie's father Joseph never embraced the family's criminal connections, and instead managed a number of restaurants across the Kansas City area.

Like his father, Charlie had no interest in the mob. Charlie came from a big family, had a typical boyhood. He teased the sisters a lot. He played sports, family members and friends. Everybody said Charlie was a great guy, easy to get along with, and a likable guy. Charlie dreamed of following in his father's footsteps in the restaurant business.

But his dreams were put on hold in 1971 when his girlfriend Sally Brand found out she was pregnant. Their high school sweethearts and he tried to do the right thing, he married her. Charlie and Sally's son was born in August 1972 and a daughter soon followed. To support his growing family, Charlie worked in his father's restaurants and took odd jobs. He really cared about his kids, and he really worked hard at taking care of them

and providing for him. He was a good parent to all of his kids. As the years went on, Charlie and Sally grew apart. They were married for a few years, didn't work out, but they remained friends. Not long after his divorce was finalized, Charlie was working in one of his father's restaurants

when he met a young waitress named Ledi Kang Rivera. She was tough and she was good looking and she was funny and she just didn't take any flat for anybody. Born in 1960 in Nebraska, Ledi grew up in a religious family. But it was soon clear that Ledi wasn't the church going type. Ledi was a very wild child. Her parents sent her to this Christian reform school in Texas.

I think that probably made the situation worse. Letti ran away. At 17 years old, Letti started moving around the Midwest. She then married and gave birth to a daughter. When the young marriage suddenly fell apart, she ended up settling in Kansas City, where she got a job in the commasano restaurant. Charlie's operating this restaurant in Parkville

and Charlie met Letty. The two hit it off right away and quickly started a relationship. Charlie and Letty were not married, but they lived together for a long time. After more than six years together, Letty gave birth to their first son in October of 1986. Over the next decade, four more children followed. Letty was a good mother. She was always, you know, she tried to tend to their needs, make sure they were grasped nice,

and they had good meals, and had a lot of time with their friends. Charlie was a pretty loving family man. I mean, he loved his kids, he would do everything, you know, for his kids. But by the time their fifth child was born in 1996, their relationship was beginning to deteriorate. For the sake of the children,

Charlie and Letty did their best to make things work. Charlie came a son who came from a very tight knit, Italian family, you know, valued marriage. He thought, you know, he needed to do the right thing, since they had kids together. After 19 years together, Letty and Charlie finally tied the knot in October 1999, in hopes that marriage would strengthen their bond. But unfortunately, things got even worse.

And in August of 2001, they ended the relationship. There was a lot of dislike that was going on back and forth between, um, Lady and Charlie. And they were divorced. This was a long, drawn-out divorce process. There was, uh, motions to modify, filed by both, Lady and Charlie during this. Eventually, Charlie left to the restaurant world and started work at a local

car dealership, while Ledi followed her passion and started painting houses. We both had our own businesses and we were in like home remodeling. I did wallpaper and painting and she did some of the same things and did woodworking, but I think painting was her forte. Not long after her divorce, Letti met Terry Strait. At first glance, Terry couldn't have been more different from devoted family man, Charlie. Terry grew up in rural Kansas.

When he was growing up, he liked to fight and drink a lot. Terry and former wild child Letty immediately clicked. We like to do the same kind of work she did, and he was staffing, he was good looking and built. Terry loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. On July 20, 2003, only two months after her divorce with Charlie was finalized, Ledi and Terry married. Terry soon joined Ledi at her painting business.

Everyone knew Terry and Ledi never left each other side. They were always together. With their business booming, the future looked bright for the newlywed painting team. But by August of 2007, she had moved to a newer home in Parkville. This house was much larger and much bigger than their Riverside house. Terry was fairly involved with Letty's kids.

I know that he coached little league teams and soccer teams and stuff like that for the kids. By late summer 2007, Charlie and Letty were moving on with their separate lives. But for Charlie, his life as a single dad would soon end with his unexpected death. September 1, 2007. after a relative discovered Charlie Commissano dead in his home, first responders

arrive within minutes. When the patrol officers arrived on scene, they made entry. One of the patrol officers had lifted a corner of the blanket, and they could see he was shot in the back of the head. Yet multiple gunshot wounds to his torso in addition to his head. Coming up, investigators quickly make a crucial connection.

I dealt with multiple organized crime homicides, and the name commas, was prominent in those cases. That would make me think that Charlie was ambushed. Charlie had contact wounds, the back of his head, like an organized crime hit. On September 1, 2007, officers with the Riverside Missouri Police Department are surveying the scene of a brutal murder. The victim is 52-year-old father of seven, Charlie Kamesano. Charlie was found in the living room, he was lying face down with the blanket on top of him. When they removed the blanket, it

appeared that there were six gunshot wounds to his back and head. Some of the bullet wounds were at close range, and he had no defensive wounds. The bullets had entered his back. Would make me think that Charlie was ambushed. He had no idea. Somebody was behind him, let alone

someone shooting him in the back. There was a lot of blood. One of the bullets that went through his chest area was found playing on his chest when they rolled him over. As they take a closer look at Charlie's body, detectives find a potential clue to the killer's identity. When they processed his hands, they found a couple hairs. And one of them appeared to be a 14-centimeter,

chemically dyed hair. It had some root tissue, so we were hopeful to get who this hair might belong to. As the CSI team continues examining Charlie's body, detectives turn their attention to the rest of the house. The entire residence was secured, the doors were locked. There was no forced entry, there were no broken windows. You would think a door would be kicked in, but there was nothing of that sort at the house.

This wallet was there. He had money. He had bills as well as change in his pocket. Everything else was intact. There wasn't any obvious signs that anybody committed a burglary or robbery. It didn't look like it was ransacked. Charlie's house, it wasn't a maculate, because several kids live there with them, that anybody committed a burglary or a robbery. It didn't look like it was ransacked.

Charlie's house, it wasn't a maculate, because several kids live there with them. But that night, the kids were with his ex-wife, Letty Strait. Nothing appeared to be missing except his car keys, and his car. We knew it was a Jeep Cherokee. We established quickly that it's gone when we get there.

The Jeep was quickly put in the computers of Stolen, and there were fires put out for local enforcement to help us find this Jeep that belonged to Charlie. After putting out a Bolo for Charlie's car, detectives at the scene received their first lead. While officers were at the crime scene, one sergeant for Riverp's side did receive a phone call from Letty Strait. Yes, you know, it filled her down to her that, you know, Charlie, you know, had been killed. And, you know, she was upset.

Letty Strait identifies herself as Charlie's ex-wife and the mother of his five youngest children. She tells police that she has just told them the devastating news. The fact that all the kids don't have their dad. It's tragic because he was a good father for him. And they knew that their father cared about all of them. It's one of the saddest things you can, you can hear about. Letty tells police that she has some information

that she hopes will help them track down Charlize killer. During that phone call, Letty straight told the sergeant that she had driven by Charlize house that morning, morning of September 1st, 2007 and saw the Jeep parked in his driveway around 915. The information from Ledi suggests Charlie was killed that day, sometime after 915 AM. The significance of Ledi saying that Charlie's Jeep was at his house

was that the murderer must have stolen his Jeep. Taking into account all the evidence at the crime scene, detectives consider the possibility that the crime could be tied to the legacy of Charlie's family. Charlie had contact wounds, the back of his head, like an organized crime hit. I dealt with multiple organized crime homicides and the name commasano was prominent in those cases.

Mirly because of his last name, some people speculated that perhaps this might have something to do with organized crime. Charlie was related to them, but only related. He was in nephew. We checked with the FBI and with Kansas City to verify that Charlie had never had any relationship or even association with organized crime in Kansas City.

With the mob ruled out, detectives take another look at the crime scene and one clue in particular stands out. One of the things that was most striking was that Charlie Comasano's body was covered with a blanket. Why would a killer cover the body with a blanket? You don't want to look at the body because there's a connection there. Whoever killed him didn't want somebody to see him the way it was. When you look at the crime scene, mafia hits, if you will, kind of do two things. They resolve a problem, but they send a message.

A locked door, a blanket over the body. These are not acts of someone who wants to send a message. This did not have any hallmark of any type of mafia hit. There was no evidence at all that indicated that was the case. This was probably somebody who was close to Charlie Comasano. Detectives hope talking to Charlie's kids will shed light on a possible suspect.

All the children were interviewed by detectives. Charlie really didn't have an enemy. Nobody disliked them. He wasn't in debt to anybody, so there wasn't really any other place to look. The kids say that the main conflict in Charlie's life was with their mother, Letti Strait. Tensions eventually drove the couple to divorce

and after watching Letti's behavior in court, a family court judge ruled in favor of Charlie. As reflected by the court judgment during the custody proceedings, she was an unstable person who had tremendous vitriol for her husband. The court awarded primary physical custody to the Charlie. They lived with their dad in this house here in Riverside. And then, uh, Letti had visitation rights,

and they went to her house every other weekend. Charlie was awarded child support. The kids all said a couple months before dad died, mom and dad really, really started to argue a lot more about this. I remember the kids were all basically saying that their mother had killed their father. We still had a lot more to look into and investigate at that

point. Coming up, detectives sift through personal connections in search of a killer. There were multiple telephone conversations, many of which became heated. Things were about to get out of hand. Her animosity was growing and growing. One of the kids said, my mom is the madness. Whatever your plans this summer, podcasts will make them better. Long road trip?

Lose yourself in the season of morbid. While laxing up the beach? Have a good laugh with SmartList. And right now is the perfect time to discover the summer of podcasts with two months free of Wondery Plus. With Wondery Plus, you get early and ad-free access to your favorite podcasts. You can also listen to our entire library of award-winning, binge-radi shows. That's thousands of hours of captivating content in any genre you like, from true crime

to business, comedy, sports, history, and even podcasts for the whole family. With Wondery Plus, you also get access to special live events found nowhere else, as well as discounts in the Wondery Shop. Don't let the summer of podcasts pass you by. Right now, new subscribers can enjoy two months free of Wondery Plus. Visit Wondery.com or download the Wondery app to get started. Charley, Kamasano, was found shot to death in his home. Police in Riverside, Missouri have just learned from Charley's children who they think was responsible for Charley's murder.

They had told people from the beginning that they thought their mom killed her dad. The kids tell detectives they are afraid of their mother, Betty Strait, and her new husband, Terry. One of the kids said, Terry's the muscle, and my mom is the magna. Everybody knew she controlled Terry. Terry did what Ledi said.

The kids tell police that Ledi refused to pay child support and owed Charlie thousands of dollars in back payments. Charlie had forgiven her 19,,000 worth of child support. He just wanted the kids to be safe and with him. However, the children say that forgiving leddy put their father in a financial bind. Charlie was not a rich man. He lived hand to mouth and trying to take care of his kids.

By 2007, Charlie was in such financial need that he went and applied for food stamps. When he arrived, he discovered that he could not apply for food stamps because someone was already collecting them and someone had been collecting them for around two years, and that person was like straight. Even though she didn't have custody of the children, Letti's straight had been claiming those children that she had had custody of them to obtain food stamps. For Charlie, the food stamps were the last straw. There were multiple telephone conversations

between Charlie, Kamasana, and Letty Strait about the food stamp situations, many of which became heated. The kids kind of overheard these fights. One of the kids talked about their mom like they and dad to claim that, you know, we have joint custody and stuff, and I'm able to get food stamps as well as you are. The kids tell police that this time,

Charlie wasn't backing down. I'm not gonna do that. I need these food stamps, so I'm not going to write off anymore, you know, credit for things that I'm owed by you. According to the kids, the tension escalated even further on August 31, 2007, when they left their father's house to spend Labor Day weekend with their mother and Terry.

The one thing that all the kids had to say is, when it was their mom's weekend for staying at her house, mom liked us to be there. It was mom's time. What was unusual about August 31st of 2007, three of the four youngest commasano children were not going to be spending the night at their mother's house. They were going to be spending the night at friends' houses.

Letty was putting a lot of effort into making sure that all the kids had some place to go, which was unusual. A-cording to the kids, by early evening, Ledi and Terry had found somewhere else for all of them to stay, except for her youngest son. All the night of August 31st, he was upstairs in the living room watching TV.

When being a young kid of nine or 10 years old, he decided he was gonna go play a joke on his mom. He quietly snuck downstairs to his mother's bedroom, and it was dead quiet in the house, and he heard his mother whisper, we have to kill him. He was terrified by this statement, went back to his room thinking perhaps,

as a nine-year-old boy, they were talking about killing him. So he went upstairs, packed his bags, and then they took the youngest boy, who was the last one in the house to his friend's house that night. All the young commasano children were scattered across the Keynes City metropolitan area. The two places they were guaranteed not to be that night, letty streets house, and Charles Vito commasano's house.

The commasano kids tell police that when they found out their father had been murdered, they immediately made the connection. The kids really kind of believed that her mom killed her dad because they didn't want to be with her mom. The Missouri Children's Division intervened in this case. They had been placed initially in the custody of their mother and ultimately children's division determined

that that was not an appropriate placement for those children and they began to live with other family members. We got to do more than just go on what the kids say so we have to prove it. In search of more evidence, detectives go downtown to the Cadyshack, the bar where family members say Charlie spent his last night. We interviewed a bunch of the people that had been there

at the Cadyshack within the night before. Everyone that we interviewed knew that very often Ledywood threatened Charlie's life. Bar patrons tell police that on August 31, Charlie seemed more worried than usual. Ledy's straight, her animosity toward her ex-husband was growing and growing. And Charlie Comasano saw that things were about to get out of hand.

Was thinking about a way to protect himself. He was concerned to the point that he was contemplating by any cap and ball gun. Friends say that when Charlie left the bar around 12,30 a.m., he disheveed a chilling warning to everyone around. Charlie had told people that if anything ever happened to him, that led he probably did. Though they've collected circumstantial evidence pointing

to ledding, investigators hope to find something more concrete. A break comes on September 5th, four days after Charlie's murder, when detectives locate his missing Jeep just a few blocks away from the Caddy Shack bar. They conduct an area canvas, so they're out talking individuals to try to see if anyone saw the Jeep. Investigators were able to find several residents of that neighborhood who indicated that that Jeep had showed back up in the middle of the night. That was important because it's a different timeline

than Letty Strait led authorities to believe. Letty told officers that she saw Charlie's Jeep at 9.15 on September 1. So many of the things that Letty told officers that she saw Charlie's Jeep at 915 on September 1st. So many of the things that Letty's straight said simply didn't match the facts of this case. The car seemed clean. There was no damage to it. That was noteworthy. It looked like somebody just parked it there.

They brought us this Jeep, both to finger brints and DNA, steering wheel, driver steering column, door handles, windows, things like that. While detectives wait for the DNA and fingerprint results, they secure a search warrant for Terry and Bloody's house. They knocked on the door, tried to get Letty and Terry to come out, so that they could execute the search warrant. But Ledi and Terry make it clear they don't have any interest in cooperating.

They told them they're not coming out. They were possible suspects of a homicide, so they ended up calling a tactical team. The crisis negotiators and the SWAT team surrounded the house. When she found out the whole house was surrounded, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police,

and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police,

and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, and the police, place them in separate interrogation rooms. Starting with Leti, police get right to the point. Did you have anything to do with Charlie's death? No. Did you take his chief?

No. You know who did it? No. I do not. Leti told investigators that her and Charlie had got beyond their differences, and they were getting along now. We knew this wouldn't accurate because everybody else was telling us different.

We were divorced, you know, but, you know, he was still fathered by kids and, you know, he was a good man. Investigators also tried and nailed down letty and Terry's whereabouts on the night Charlie was murdered. We were just asking what she had been doing the last couple of days.

And she acknowledged she didn't have any of the children with her and Terry that night. I was afraid of who especially got watching movie crash, where I mean. Yeah, yeah, when we come home, we sit in the living room and just kind of bed. On Saturday morning, you're going to a job. Yeah, the we come home, we sit in the living room and just kind of bed. On Saturday morning, you're going to a job? Yeah, the lights work Saturday.

Charlie, you're just going to pick the kids up Saturday and pick that up for it. In the other interrogation room, detectives aren't having any luck getting much more out of Terry. He didn't know what was going on, and he wasn't involved in anything. He didn't want to talk anymore. Though Terry invokes his right to remain silent, Letti is just getting started. She seemed to be a person who thought that if she talked enough,

she could talk herself out of any situation. Coming up, as the interrogation continues, detectives turn up the pressure. I can tell you this much. I know for a fact there's some things that you told us that are not true. I didn't have anything to do with this. Well, you know what my response is?

You're alive. You know what my response is? Your life. During her interrogation at the Riverside Police Department, murder suspect Letty Strait seems interested in talking about anything besides the death of her ex-husband, Charlie Kamisano. I got 10 inches of my hair cut off today, and I'm blonde instead of wearing that. What do you mean? My own place.

There's one to get my hair cut. I got my hair cut today. Donated my hair to the locks of love. You know, I said when I first saw you, I said that didn't look like that. You see, I'm using that on a bulk cap. Yeah. I love bulk cap.

Yes. I love baseball caps. I guess we're going to talk about this. I don't know anything that's going to solve this for Hayden. Let's go. Okay. But as Letty begins to run out of steam in the early morning hours of September 6, investigators pounds. I can tell you this much, okay? I know for a fact there's some things that you told us that are not true. I'm here to give you a this much, okay? I know for a fact there's some things that you've told us that are not true.

I'm here to give you a fair shake, okay? Because this thing's gonna explode like a bomb. Sh**'s gonna come down on this. And- Here I can tell you, I don't have any fear. I was not in my access to his home, okay? Did not kill my access. You weren't there when, whatever happened to him, happened. No I'm not your town. That's what I'm telling you. Well, you know, what my

response is, you're alive. I said as much as I should say, okay, I didn't have anything to do with this, okay, Nor did my husband, okay? In addition to Lede and Terry's tight-lit interviews, a simultaneous search of their residence yields nothing of value. We had nothing yet to hold her on, so we let her and Terry go. But as Lede and Terry walk out of the station,

they don't realize they are leaving crucial evidence behind. The whole time that we were talking to her, she was smoking cigarettes and putting the cigarettes in a coffee cup. We recovered that and got DNA off of it. The cigarette butts are immediately sent to the crime lab for DNA extraction.

Especially in 2007, DNA evidence takes a long time to come back. So we did wait on that. After a couple of months, detectives finally receive the results of the DNA tests, starting with the mysterious dyed hair found clutched in Charlie's hand. We had a chemically treated dyed blonde hair.

Turns out that the root hair didn't have enough DNA in it to do some comparisons. Still, detectives have a good idea who the hair might belong to. We noted in the defendant's interview with the police, she had died her hair blonde. And what do we find in the hands of her ex-husband? A chemically dyed hair. The results from the DNA swabs of Charlie's steering wheel have also come back. They determined that the DNA that was on the steering wheel

not only blonde to Charlie, but there was a female DNA hit as well. The DNA on the steering wheel was a somewhat matched to letty. It was a match to somebody in her maternal side. But will it be enough to get an arrest warrant for Letty and Terry? I knew in my heart of hearts that Letty Strait had committed this crime. I knew that we had some evidence to be used against her,

but I wanted as much as we could get. The Riverside Police Department continued to investigate and continued to do everything they could to try to collect more evidence. However, less than a year after Charlie's murder, the case stalled. It went cold in 2008-ish. We thought we knew who did it. We just didn't have enough evidence for the prosecutor to file charges on. After no new lead surface for more than a year, investigators decide to pursue another strategy in October 2009. When they discover Ledi claimed her children as dependence on her 2008 tax return. She claimed the kids on her food stamps when in fact she didn't have custody of them

and she did the same thing on her tax cases too so that was fraud on her food stamps when in fact she didn't have custody of them and she did the same thing on her tax cases too so that was fraud on her taxes. While I didn't feel like we had enough evidence yet to go to trial on the murder, I ultimately became convinced that we did have a very solid case against leddie's drape for tax fraud. In April 2011, more than three and a half years after the murder, the charges stick, and leddie is sentenced to three years in prison for attempted tax evasion. Investigators Khloé, her time in jail,

might lead to more charges. We knew that she was a talkative person, and I thought at some point that she might give up to somebody, what she had done that night when she murdered her ex-husband. After a few years pass and Letty's release date grows closer, detectives revisit the DNA collected from Charlie Steering Wheel. They've improved DNA technology a lot.

And we were hopeful to do some mitochondrial DNA testing. Mitochondrial DNA testing is a form of DNA testing that tests the maternal lineage of who that hair might belong to. Our crime lab people tell us that if we can get that maternal strand of her relatives, they can exclude each of them, which will make the DNA a higher hit probability. We contacted everybody in her maternal side. A few of them we had to get search warrant for their DNA because they wouldn't comply, but all the kids helped. Detectives gather DNA samples from Ledi's maternal relatives, and after months and months of waiting,

the results finally come in. The frequency of that DNA was a 440 million to one match of Ledi's straight. Detectives soon receive another lead from former friends of Terry Strait, Alice and Ron Goddard. Miss Alice Goddard had called, and she expects that her husband had loaned Terry again

several years earlier, a 25-auto Titan hang-up. That would be the same caliber of the weapon used at our murder of Charlie Comasano. At that point, it felt like a second wind had hit us. I felt we were getting somewhere. It was now progressing. The Grand Jury convened in 2014, and after the Grand J jury finished their investigation.

They were both indicted in that December of 2014 for a first-degree murder of Charles. On December 12, 2014, just months after Letti was released from prison, detectives arrest Letti and Terry Strait for murder. Letti was not happy with us. She had already had made it known that the Riverside Police were out to get her and she didn't do anything wrong.

And we were lying and making things up. Prosecutors know that Ledi won't go down without a fight, but by 2016, they might have a new ally to bolster their case. About a year and a half after Lede and Terry were arrested, they were still in the county jail. And we were approached by Terry's attorney. Terry's straights lawyer said that his client might be willing to come forth and tell the truth about what

happened during that murder. They said he wanted to make a deal. Coming up, Terry tells all. She said we're going to follow him home. He's waiting in the car, sees some flashes inside the house. In the spring of 2016, a year and a half after Terry Strait and his wife, Leti, were arrested for first-degree murder, Terry's attorneys reach out to prosecutors and say that he is willing to tell them what really happened to Leti's ex-husband, Charlie Kahnisano, if the

price is right. Terry would agree to testify during Letty's trial for First degree murder. In exchange for that, the state agreed that they would amend the charges against Terry from premeditated First degree murder to conspiracy to commit First degree murder. It was always my belief that Letty's Strait was the driving force in this murder.

So ultimately, I was willing to enter into this agreement withty's Strait was the driving force in this murder. So ultimately, I was willing to enter into this agreement with Terry Strait. We met with Terry, but the Plac County jail, and that's where Terry profored that he did have knowledge about what happened to Charlie. According to Terry, Letedi and Charlie's relationship was at its worst when Charlie discovered

Ledi's food stamp fraud. I think her financial strain came to a head with the fear of Charlie wasn't gonna do what she wanted. He wasn't gonna do what she wanted on the child's port and Charlie wasn't gonna do what she wanted on the food stamps. I think at that point point she just simply broke. Terry says that on August 31, 2007,

Ledi told him that she wanted to talk to Charlie about the food stamp situation while all of the kids were out. Terry drove his wife down to the Caddy Shack bar where Charlie spent every Friday night. They found Charlie near his Jeep. Letty got out, talked to Charlie, got back in with Terry, and said, we're going to talk about this.

We're going to follow him home. According to Terry, Charlie had told her, we're not arguing about this here in the street. If you want to come up to the house and talk to me, that's fine. Terry tells police that when they arrived, Ledi and Charlie went inside. Ledi goes inside to talk to Charlie. Terry's kind of got no dog in this fight,

so he's waiting in the car, sees some flashes inside the house. And then Ledi ran out of Charlie's house. Ledi told him, hey, follow me, we're going to take Charlie's Jeep back down to the Caddy Shack. So he did. They drove back down to the Caddy Shack. Letty parked the car. Letty got in with Terry.

He did say that they never talked about it after that. Though the evidence lines up with Terry's story, prosecutors are skeptical. Do I believe that Terry's straight told the full story? I'm not sure that he did. But he certainly told enough, the give, the jury enough, to know that Letti's straight was responsible for the first degree murder of her ex-husband, Charlie Kama-san.

In 2016, Terry pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit first degree murder. His sentencing is delayed until after Letty's trial. In January 2020, more than 12 years after Charlie's murder, Letty's trial begins with Terry as the state's star witness. When Terry's straight testified at trial, he put Letty's straight in the home at the time of the murder. He also testified that she later told him that she had thrown the murder weapon into the Missouri River after the killing. Prosecutors present evidence that Letty's DNA was found on Charlie's body. thrown the murder weapon into the Missouri River after the killing.

Prosecutors present evidence that Ledi's DNA was found on Charlie's steering wheel, supporting Terry's story. However, the defense claims that Charlie allowed Ledi to drive his car months earlier. She was thinking about buying Charlie's Jeep, so she had test-droven it several months before the murder.

The defense blames Terry for Charlie's murder. They had someone else to point the finger at during this trial, and so the defense attempted to do that to say that Terry Strait had acted alone. On February 6, 2020, the jury reaches a verdict. The jury deliberated for around two hours and then returned a verdict of guilty in the first degree for the shooting death of her ex-husband, Charles Vito Comsano.

Lettie's conviction means she will receive a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole. Lettie's straight will take her last living breath inside the walls of a Missouri State Penitentiary. For Lettian Charley's now-grown children, Lettie's conviction means the end of a 12-year search for justice. That's the most memorable and most gratifying thing for me

as a prosecutor is when we got the guilty verdict, you know, for those kids, for me to be able to hug those kids and knowing what they went through. I think the adults that they are today is a true testament to how much Charlie loved and sacrificed for his children. Terry Strey was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He was denied parole in the fall of 2020,

but he straight his house at the Chila Coffee Correctional Center, her appeal was denied. house at the Chila Coffee Correctional Center, Murapil was denied.