Snapped: Women Who Murder - Vanessa Cameron

Episode Date: September 7, 2025

The body of a young San Antonio man is found dumped in a local cemetery.Season 32, Episode 19Originally aired: Sep 3, 2023Watch 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.

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to answer your most intimate relationship questions. So don't be shy. Join the conversation and head over to YouTube to watch Nick Cannon at night or subscribe on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. A body is discovered in an unusual location. You're at a cemetery. It's full of dead bodies. But this one is not in a grave. He has no idea on him at all.

He was sort of just dumped there. The investigation reveals a love triangle that might have turned violent. I think that she is obsessed. And he said he's going to break up with her. I went to him and asked him, have you lost your mind? Detectives uncover a killer

with a single-minded need for more. She wanted to see if she could get his last paycheck and the insurance policy. It was all part of her cold, callous personality. She is a master manipulator, manipulating people to do her dirty work. I see, well, I know that. I'm going to tell you everything.

On Sunday, January 17th, 2010, detectives in San Antonio, Texas receive an unusual phone call from a patrolman making rounds in the city. About a quarter to five, the phone rang, and the patrolman said, I'm out of the cemetery, and there's a dead body. And I'm like, right. you're at a cemetery. It's full of dead bodies. And she says, yes, ma'am, but this one is not in a grave.

So I said, okay, so I drove over to the cemetery. When Detective Miller arrives at the cemetery, she is briefed on the discovery. A tourist went out for a walk. He said when he walked past the cemetery, he noticed someone he thought was sleeping. When he turned around to go back to his hotel, he looked again and noticed that the body had not moved. At first glance, Detective Miller doesn't see an obvious cause of death. You could actually see that there was blood in the chest area and in the head area. So we called the medical examiner, and as soon as they rolled him over, it was obvious that he had been shot multiple times at that time.

I'm not going to try to count bullet holes because you don't know what's entrance, you don't know what's exit. It's always better to just wait for the autopsy. Given the condition of the body and lack of blood at the scene, investigators surmise that the victim was shot several days earlier. I would say the body was in Lovidity.

He was very rigid. It was very clear that he was just sort of just dumped there. Where the victim was killed isn't the only mystery. He has no idea on him at all. It's going to be a John Doe. So we had to find out who he was. We started working to see if anybody had made a recent report

of a missing young, apparently healthy black male. Missing persons found a recent report that matched his general description His name was Samuel Johnson. 26-year-old Samuel Johnson Jr. had been reported missing by his parents after failing to come home from work on January 13th. He was supposed to go to work and then he would be back. His mom was unable to get in touch with him.

He's not answering his phone. Samuel was not the kind of person that just fell off. you know he wouldn't just walk away and not tell you or tell somebody nobody's been able to contact him he was missing that was a sign that something was up he is too responsible a young man for that the death sergeant asked for the description we filed a missing person report it's been five days since Samuel went missing missing, and his family is still holding out hope they will find him. Meanwhile, 40 miles away, a medical examiner is attempting to ID the John Doe.

We went looking for him. At this point, my mind is all over the place. You know, I just wanted to know where my son was. Samuel Johnson Jr. was born in San Antonio, December 8, 1983, to his mother Stephanie and his father, Sam, Sr. The oldest of three siblings, Sam was smart and determined. When he was in junior high school, I think they took a field trip to the courthouse. And he came home, and he told, he says, Mom, Mom, I want to be a lawyer. I said, okay, you know, that's going to take some time in school.

And he says, yeah, I know, I know, but that's what I want to do. After Sam graduated high school, a chance encounter at his day job led him to Erica Bridgeforth. I met Sam January 1st of 2004. He was 19. I was 20. He was a check casher, and that's where I met him. I remember specifically because I cashed my check. I said, well, you know, you can go ahead and write your phone number down on the receipt, which I still have that receipt to this day. I absolutely loved Erica. She would come over, we would sit, we would talk. It was so much fun being with Erica. Samuel, he knew how to treat a lady when he was with her. Erica was like another daughter to me. Sadly, after four years together, 23-year-old Sam worried he wasn't ready for something so serious. I went to

to him and asked him, what's going on with you? Have you lost your mind? And he's like, Mom, Mom, I just need to know if she's the right one. So he was trying to make sure. Sam took the time to focus on his dreams. He was doing law school for a little while, and then he left to pick up a job to start making more money to pay for college. In 2007, Sam's day job once again brought love into his life when he met 26-year-old Vanessa Cameron.

Vanessa met Sam at her gym. He was the guy behind the counter. She was outgoing. She was fun. Lots of guys liked her. She was beautiful. Born in December 1980 and raised in San Antonio, Vanessa grew up with her older sister, Susan. Her mother was a police officer and she was a serious woman who maintained a beautiful home and her father, he enjoyed having a good time. Friends say Vanessa took after her mom while Susan was more like her dad. Sue was more a free spirit. Vanessa always made A's and B's. She went to school. She ended up working for the San Antonio Housing Authority. She was helping children. She worked in an in like an impoverished apartment complex.

When Vanessa met 23-year-old Sam in February 2007, he was everything she was looking for in a partner. He carried himself in the way that she liked. He became an insta boyfriend. She purchased a home and he lived with her. And they were, you know, basically playing house. In 2008, they welcomed a son And that child became his reason for getting up in the morning, his reason for breathing. I saw my son grow into a man. And I've never been more proud of him. In April of 2009, with their son still a toddler, the family suffered a major trauma. Samuel told us that there had been a fire.

We lost the house, we lost the stuff, but everybody's fine. The fire was ruled as an accident, and fortunately, it wasn't a total loss for the family. When Vanessa purchased the house, she insured the house for its value. She got almost $300,000 for the damage to her house. As they figured out next steps, Vanessa, Sam, and their son moved in with Vanessa's sister Susan and her boyfriend, B.J. Brown. Sue and Vanessa weren't close when they were younger. Their closeness came in once they were adults, and Vanessa needed help. The stress of losing their home took its toll on Vanessa and Sam.

I think that Vanessa was trying to. trying to work out their relationship, and Sam was trying to separate. When she got the payout, she didn't give Samuel any of the money. His stuff that was there was burned up and destroyed, and Samuel got nothing. After two years together, they made the difficult decision to part ways. Vanessa remained with their child at her sister's home. We found out that Sam had left her, and he was staying with his brother. It wasn't long before Sam reconnected with his high school sweetheart, Erica Bridgeforth.

I realized Erica was still in the picture, which brought me joy and satisfaction like you wouldn't believe. I feel like we both grew up. He was taking classes, like night classes for bus driving. He was just so optimistic and happy about the life. that we were building moving forward. We ended up becoming engaged, and I found out we were pregnant at the end of November of 2009. He was excited about it.

But the happiness is short-lived when Sam goes missing on Wednesday, January 13th. Five days later, a medical examiner confirms the family's worst fears. We got confirmation from the medical examiner's office through fingerprints, and it was Samuel Johnson. With confirmation, it is Sam. The official investigation into his murder gets underway.

But detectives quickly realize they are limited on evidence. There was not a lot of evidence at the... that scene, there was no blood at the scene. There were no shell casings at the scene. Detectives reached Sam's father by phone to break the news. It was the worst day of my life. I dropped to my knees. You don't understand it, but you are trying to process it,

and nothing's making sense. Coming up, Sam's car unlocks chilling theories. There was a substance. It turned out to be human blood. But new questions arise as detectives trace back to his final hours. He was headed to pick up some money. The biggest question was, did Sam show up to pick up the money? January 18th, 2010. After five days missing, 26-year-old Samuel Johnson Jr.

has just been identified as the body found in a downtown cemetery. Sam's father, Sam's mother, they had been notified that their son had been murdered. Investigators speak with Sam's father, who informs them that Sam's 2006 Dodge Stratus is also missing. We put the Bolo out on the vehicle, and it was discovered the next day on the south side of San Antonio. Samuel's body was found on the east side. The car was discovered about 40 miles away from the body. We take it over to what we call 9th Street Pound, and there it can be processed properly. CSI didn't find any prints in the car.

Now, there should have been prints, obviously. somebody purposefully wiped off all the prints. The trunk, however, is a different story. There was a substance that appeared to be blood, so they went ahead and swammed it. And it turned out to be, yes, it was blood, yes, it was human blood. We had a feeling that it was Sam's blood

that was in the trunk of the car. It appears Sam was transported in his own vehicle after he was shot. There's no bullet holes in the car, so he wasn't shot in the vehicle, we're still looking for our murder scene. But we have a theory about Sam's murder. This looks like a carjacking.

That's just what it looked like to us. People carjacked for all different reasons. They murdered him, they dumped his body, they used his car, and when they were through using the car, they ditched it on the south side of town. If Sam was the victim of a random carjacking, detectives have their work cut out for them. So the next day, the Bear County Medical Examiner's Office

performed the autopsy. He had had a gunshot wound to his head, two gunshots to forearms and hands, and he had three in his torso, most likely a 22 caliber. So if you have, you know, a gunshot wound in your hand and your forearm, then his hand is up somehow, knowing that, you know, he is going to be shot.

So that's a defensive wound. He had a contusion on his head. The wound was made while he was alive because it was swollen and it was bleeding. That told us that he was hit by something, but we didn't know what. Given the violent nature of the crime, investigators abandoned the carjacking theory,

believing Sam had a personal connection to his killer. They reach out to Sam's family for help piecing together Sam's final days. Sam's senior, Sam's mother, and Sam's fiancé, Erica, came in for statements. What we were looking for is who is the last person who saw Sam. Sam's father explains that he and his wife last heard from their son, as Sam was preparing to take his ex, Vanessa, and their son. son to the airport. He's telling me she's going out of town.

The Meridian, Mississippi, her and the baby, she's going to visit some friends. When they didn't hear from him for a few days, they assumed he was busy training for his new job as a bus driver. We called him, couldn't get a hold of him, so my wife and I assumed where he's working. Samuel Sr. tells investigators, his wife reached out to Vanessa, who said she hadn't heard from Sam since he dropped them off. She asked Vanessa, hey, do you know where Sam is? And while she was in Mississippi, you know, she said, no, I have no idea where he's at.

I did go to Sam's employment to verify that Sam did not show up for work on Wednesday. He didn't show up for work and he didn't call in. It appears that Vanessa may have been the last person to see Sam Jr. But when investigators speak to Erica, they learn that might not be the case. Erica reveals that she was with Sam after he dropped off Vanessa and his son. He had dropped her off at the airport. He came over to the house. Erica says Vanessa had finally.

agreed to leave Sam's cut of the insurance money from the fire at the home she shared with her sister Susan. He's like, she left the money with Sue. So now I'm going to go pick up the money from Sue. He was trying to, like, rebuild his life, but they needed that support and the money because everything he lost in that house fire, he literally had nothing. And then after that, he was headed to work, she would see him the next day. But Erica says she didn't see Sam the next day or ever again.

When I woke up that morning, I grabbed my phone and I looked down at it, and I didn't have nothing. Like nothing? I then asked Erica, who do you think would have done this? She told me if anybody murdered Sam, it would have been Vanessa. You know, when you look at your suspects, you're looking at motives, memes, and opportunities. Well, Vanessa didn't have an opportunity. She had an alibi in Mississippi. Erica pointing a finger at Sam's ex raises another possibility for investigators.

You try to get into the heads of these characters in your homicide investigation. Would Erica be jealous of Vanessa because... Because Vanessa has a son with Sam. They question Erica on her whereabouts the night Sam went missing. Erica had an alibi for the night that he was last seen. She was at church choir practice with the entire choir. Erica's choir practice alibi only covers a short period of time that evening. The last he had been seen was at 6.45 on Wednesday.

At Erica's, she was the last one to see him at that point. So we have a kind of a definitive parameter of time that he could have disappeared. I'm not saying she wasn't still in play, but at that point, there just wasn't anything there to give credence that Erica was involved. Her emotions were appropriate. She was crying. I didn't get any feelings or vibes or the hair standing. standing up on the back of my neck. As investigators wrap up Erica's interview,

they seize on a detail from her statement. Erica claims Sam left her house the night he went missing to pick up money from Susan Sutton at the home she shared with Vanessa. The biggest question was, did Sam show up to pick up the money? That was the question that needed to be asked. Coming up,

Vanessa shares her theories. He said it's going to break up with her. I think she had something to do with this. But a tip leaves detectives with more questions. She tells me that they were supposed to meet at a gas station. He ended up hitting his head on a curb. How hard is it to kill a planet? Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining,

and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere. When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene. Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our time. And crimes like that, they don't just happen. We call things accidents. There is no accident. This was 100% preventable.

They're the result of choices by people. Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime. These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing people. Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. It's your man, Nick Cannon, and I'm here to bring you my new podcast, Nick Cannon at night. I've heard y'all been needing some advice in the love department.

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or subscribe on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. Want to watch episodes early and ad-free? Join Wondery Plus right now. Three days after discovering the body of shooting victim, Sam Johnson Jr., Detectives are eager to question Sam's ex-Vinessa and her sister, Susan. But before they can, a tip comes in from a woman claiming to have information they need. She said, look, I got a really weird phone call from my daughter, Adrian, who's living in Mississippi. Adrian said Vanessa came for a visit and some pretty odd things happened while Vanessa was there.

My mom talked to this detective in San Antonio Police Department. She said they want to ask you some questions. That's when Detective Bauer interviewed Adrian over the phone. Adrian says she is the friend Vanessa was visiting in Mississippi when Sam went missing. Vanessa and I were best friends. She showed up in my house to surprise me. My birthday was on the 16th of January. and she wanted to do something nice for me.

During their visit, Vanessa took a phone call that left her visibly shaken. When she got off the phone with Sam, she said that they had been working on their relationship, but his attitude in the way that he was acting now that she was in Mississippi, she just wasn't thrilled about it. She told me that Sam was harassing her for money

and she was just tired of it. A short time later, Adrian says Vanessa received another phone call, this one from her sister's boyfriend, B.J. Brown. She called me back into the bathroom, and she said, girl, I think that they accidentally killed Sam. And I said, they. And she said, yeah, BJ and Sue. Vanessa told Adrian,

Susan and her boyfriend and her boyfriend's cousin, Lakeisha, had gotten into it with Sam. She tells me that they were supposed to meet at a gas station. He ended up hitting his head on a curb. And they left, so they thought that he was dead. I told her that she was being overly dramatic because if they just beat him up and left him, then there's no way that they could confirm that he was dead.

I was just like, girl, come on, there's no way. Adrienne says she tried to blow it off, but Vanessa kept returning to the topic. The next day, she kept bringing up the Sam situation. I would look at her like, you know, girl, stop. You're being overdramatic again. That Friday, Vanessa and I ended up having a falling out, and she left a few days early.

After speaking with Detective Bauer, it was very clear that this murder wasn't an accident. I just felt betrayed by her. Adrian's information is firsthand, straight from Vanessa, and we realized that this is probably the way it went down. I called Vanessa the next day. I said, hey, I need back. investigation on Sam, can you come in and talk to us? And by the way, will you just go ahead and bring Susan with you?

Vanessa and Susan came into the office to talk to us. So we split them up. I interviewed Vanessa in one interview room, and Lisa took Susan in another interview room. Vanessa confirms she was in Mississippi when Sam went missing. and returned the day his body was found. How did you get to the airport? He drove me.

And when did you come home? On Sunday, the 17th. When asked about her relationship with Sam, Vanessa is eager to tell them that he was not getting back together with Erica. There was going to be no relationship. He said he's going to break up with her. I mean, we have to put it out there.

I think she had something to do with this. Okay, and what makes you think? That Eric had something to do with this? Because... Why is it you suspect her? I think that she is obsessed with Sam. Vanessa says she was the only real love in Sam's life. I loved him more than these flusies.

And that's kind of how I looked at it. In a separate room, Detective Miller presses Vanessa's sister, Susan, for information. Susan was very close. calm, very talkative, seemed to be very, very helpful. When asked about the night Sam disappeared, Susan admits he came by the house to pick up money, but she says she knows nothing about his death. Sam came, he knocked on the door, I gave him his money, he said he was going to go to work, he left, that's all I know about that night.

Investigators turn up the heat, hoping that a bluff will lead to a confession. Texas detectives are allowed to lie. They can go in and say, well, you know, your friend over there is already giving you up. They've already told us everything. How close is Vanessa to your boyfriend? The B.J? They've gotten closer. Vanessa's telling Detective Bauer that she received a phone call from B.J while she was at Adrian's house,

where B.J. told her that he... He had accidentally killed Sam. No, she didn't. No, she didn't. Yeah, she did. Okay, I'm ready to go. Because I don't believe that. Thank you.

She wanted to get the heck out of that interview room. And she did. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go. Okay, I don't believe that. Detectives return to Vanessa. and decide that's what I'm going to tell her. I've talked to Adrienne.

You don't know what she's told me, so I need you to tell me what happened. When they confronted her, Vanessa's face fell. Vanessa shifts the blame from Erica to Susan. I'm not involved. My sister told me. She said that they, um. When did she tell you?

The same day. Same day it happened. And she said that he was dead. And I tried to hold it together And I was just like, what did y'all do? Because it was just too much. Vanessa is telling us, I lied, it was my sister. So now we have her shifting gears and blaming Susan.

All right, well, we have to prove or disprove all of those stories. During Vanessa's interview, Susan returns to the police station with something to get off her chest. It was about 10 minutes later. The lady who works in the lobby called me and said, hey, there's a woman here. She says she needs to talk to you. I went back out in the lobby and it was Susan.

She said, Vanessa's trying to blame this all on me. I need to tell you what really happened. San Antonio detectives sit back down with Susan Sutton after she abruptly ended her own interview. She's evil. I know that. It's been evil since we were little kids. She used me every day of my life.

Susan reveals that the fire in Vanessa's home was no accident. I'm going to tell you everything. Okay. Vanessa was like she was trying to set the fire in the trash here Vanessa had received almost $300,000 for that The fire was ruled an accident and Vanessa and Sam moved in with Susan and her boyfriend BJ She used that insurance money from the fire to control them

She doled that money out based on getting them to do what she wanted them to do. Within eight months, Vanessa had blown through most of the cash. Susan says that's when she formed a plan to replenish her funds. There was a life insurance policy on Sam in the amount of three-quarters of a million dollars. He wanted to do something to take care of his child, so he took out this large seven-year-old. $150,000 life insurance policy and made the mistake of telling Vanessa because she was the baby's mother.

The original plan was for me to do it. What did she tell you she wanted you? She had wanted me to get a gun and she would say it. Susan had some mental health issues that Vanessa was willing to kind of play up. Vanessa had taken away her medication. That way, if... Susan went to trial for Sam's murder that she could claim that she wasn't on her meds

and that that led to the murder. Susan says she had doubts about the plan, but also felt she had no choice. Susan and her boyfriend were not working at this point. They were dependent on Vanessa. But Susan says, I couldn't do it. my boyfriend agreed to step up and do it for me. She claims her boyfriend, B.J. Brown, recruited additional help from his cousin, 27-year-old Lakeisha Brown.

Lakeisha agreed to cooperate and commit this murder, and she said that she needed money because she was unemployed. Vanessa offered to buy them all cars once she got the insurance money. She told us that we'd be taken care out. Susan tells investigators, Vanessa bought a last-minute plane ticket to visit Adrian. Vanessa was adamant that he had to be murdered while she had an alibi in Mississippi. After Samuel had taken Vanessa Cameron to the airport, he got a call from Susan saying she had some money for him. Susan said Sam came, he knocked on the door.

I didn't want any part of it, so I ran back upstairs. Later, she claims BJ and Lakeisha filled her in on what happened. She said they beat him up. They drove him out to a ranch, and it was there that they actually killed him. Susan points the finger at BJ and Lakeisha, but detectives aren't taking her word for it. I said, well, I'm going to need to talk to them. We'll call them and tell them we need them to come in. And they did.

Investigators need to confirm if Susan's allegations have any merit. And when they sit down with Susan's boyfriend, BJ, he has a different story to tell. My mom raised me up to, don't be like that. That's not in my blood to do anything like that at all. Okay. So you're telling me you got nothing to do with this. I didn't do nothing. I don't have nothing to do with this.

I'm hardly even associated with Vanessa. The boyfriend sat in an interrogation room crying like a little baby. Never in my life. I never killed nobody in my life. Lakeisha is another story. We confronted her and said, you know, Susan's already told us everything. At that point, Lakeisha was willing to give the story. The 27-year-old says she,

He met Sam at the door when he arrived at Susan's to pick up his money. He's so big, so I was scared. And I was like, I was shaking. Then I hit a little board, a small board. Okay. And then that was it. He went down. She said that Susan's boyfriend handcuffed Sam,

tied rope around his feet. He was duct taped over the mouth. Given the variation in Lakeisha and BJ's statements, Investigators don't know what to believe, and continue pressing for details. What happened after he got all tied up in the tapes on his mouth? He was putting in his trunk. She said they drove him out to the country, they got him out of the car. DJ took everything off.

And Sam kept saying, no, DJ don't kill me. Sam had begged for his life. And actually, he asked why. The response was because this is what Vanessa wanted. My back was to him, and the next thing I know, I heard the gun go off. How many times? Nine times. Then they put his body back in the trunk of the car

and parked that vehicle with the keys still in it, abandoned on the east side of San Antonio. LaHisha said that on the way back to San Antonio, she had dismantled the gun and thrown pieces out on the way back. I said, LaHisha, take us out to that ranch that you said Sam was killed at, and she did. Lakeisha led us to the showcasing. There was nine showcasings there.

There was a barbecue grill that had some burnt, clothing in it. There were a pair of handcuffs and some rope. With the puzzle coming together, there is still one lingering question. We asked Lakeisha, why is the vehicle on the south side? She goes, well, we don't know. We didn't do that. We have a theory. Somebody came by, saw the keys in the car, started it up, and they took it for a ride. When they found Sam in the trunk, it was they who took him to the cemetery and dropped him off there, and then abandoned the car later. On January 21st, investigators confront Vanessa with the evidence.

She changed her story and said, yes, she did have him killed, but she did it because he wanted to be killed. He had taken out a large life insurance policy, and he wanted her and the baby to have that, and he didn't have the nerve to kill himself. She said it was really Sam's idea, that this was essentially a very complicated assisted suicide. Investigators aren't buying it. All four are arrested and charged with murder. Vanessa didn't really seem that upset about being arrested. There were no tears. She didn't really show a lot of emotion about it. She really didn't.

Coming up, Vanessa throws one last curveball. After the murder, she wanted to see if she could get his last paycheck. And the verdict hangs in the balance. The jury was not out long at all. That was worrisome for those of us on the prosecution team. San Antonio authorities have four people in custody for the shooting death of Sam Johnson Jr.,

including his child's mother, Vanessa Cameron. Investigators work with prosecutors to build the case. When they speak to Sam's employer, they learn that Vanessa tried to cash in on Sam's death less than 24 hours after he was found. After the murder, she went to the bus headquarters, and she wanted to know how she could collect the insurance policy. She wanted to see if she could get his last paycheck. She claimed to be his common-law wife.

I just think it was all part of a cold, callous personality. Seven months after the arrests, Sam said, family celebrates a bittersweet milestone when Erica gives birth to a healthy baby boy. His second son has never met his dad. He's been nothing but other people's memories. Prosecutors focus their efforts on holding Vanessa accountable. In 2012, they add two names to their witness list. The two co-defendants, her sister soon, Susan and Lakeisha Brown, both pled guilty and made deals with the state, which including they're testifying against Vanessa's.

In February 2012, Vanessa's trial begins. Prosecutors present Vanessa as a greedy mastermind. The three things that you're looking at, motives, memes, and opportunities. Well, Vanessa didn't have an opportunity. convenient. She was in Mississippi that weekend. Did she have a motive? I would say three-quarters of a million dollars is a whole lot of motive. And did she have the means? She did not. But her sister and sister's boyfriend and cousin certainly did. She very much is a master manipulator. From manipulating people around her to actually manipulating people to help

her carry out this murder and do her dirty work for her. For her defense, Vanessa recants her previous statements and tosses blame to her co-conspirators. Her defense was this alibi she had set up, that she was in Mississippi when it happened. It was all a shock to her. After a lengthy trial, it is left for the jury to decide. The jury was not out long at all.

It was a complicated case, That was worrisome for those of us on the prosecution team. Vanessa's still confident that we have not tied her to this murder. She's sitting there looking in the mirror, putting on her makeup, because she knew that she was going to walk out of there. But that never happened. They convicted her. The judge who actually oversaw the case gave her 75 years.

In October 2013, B.J. Brown, the alleged Trigger Man goes to trial. There's a rule of law in Texas. If the primary evidence against you is accomplice witness testimony, there has to be some evidence other than that testimony. There was no evidence. Nobody ever found the gun again. Without corroborating evidence, the case against him flounders. The individual who I think actually pulled the trigger was acquitted. That is by far something that I still can't totally wrap my brain around. But even complete justice wouldn't have filled the hole Sam left behind in his family.

He was there. When you needed him, He was always there. It was, Mom, what do you need? Miss my baby. I miss him so much. The love is there. I feel Sam, like, through my son,

through reminders of who I am and what I've grown from because of you. And I'm grateful for that. Vanessa Cameron is serving her life sentence at the Dr. Lane Murray unit in Texas. Susan Sutton is serving a 25-year sentence at the Christina Melton Crane Unit. Lakeisha Brown was sentenced to 22 years as a result of her plea. Vanessa and Samuel's son is being raised by Vanessa's mother. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid.

We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well researched. Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group. With a touch of humor. Shout out to her.

Shout out to all my therapists out there's been like eight of them. A dash of sarcasm. and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. That mother f***er is not real! And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the way back machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast.

Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.