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0:32

Tonight on Dateline. Ghosts

0:34

can't talk. And

0:37

I'm supposed to be dead. Travis, down to

0:39

9-1-1. My husband got out of bed and

0:41

my dogs were barking. There was shots fired.

0:47

He had fallen under the kitchen

0:49

table. I could tell

0:52

that he wasn't alive. A

0:54

family that was very close-knit, very

0:56

happy, just exploded.

1:00

We wanted to look at a potential motive

1:02

that she would have. One is Ted's life

1:04

insurance. How much are we talking about? A

1:06

million dollars. I'm like,

1:08

of course, it has to be the wife. It can't

1:11

be that we're jewelers and it's a robbery. They

1:14

liked shoes and cars and

1:17

electronics. There was a pretty

1:19

clear gap in data on both of their phones. This

1:22

person is accessing the security system.

1:24

Multiple times. I felt

1:26

like a fool for not having seen it. Hello.

1:31

Take off the blinders. A jeweler

1:33

murdered. A robbery gone wrong. Or

1:36

an even more tangled plot. I'm

1:39

Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's

1:50

Andrea Canning with Ghosts

1:52

Can't Talk. What

1:58

happens that night? You know, it's just a normal. or

2:00

even just absolutely normal. You know you eat dinner, you

2:02

watch little tv that a bad you gonna wake up

2:04

and go to work the next day. Ordinary

2:07

moments that together add up to a

2:09

life. Corey Shaughnessy and her

2:11

husband had had had thousands of nights

2:13

like that. Did usually say i

2:16

love you before? bad or anything. Wouldn't that be

2:18

nice? I shower every night because you just never

2:20

Now. The. Little things

2:22

they took for granted on

2:24

that quiet street in Austin

2:26

where they built their lives,

2:28

raise their son. a tight

2:30

knit family that had everything.

2:33

Until. The early morning hours of

2:35

March Second: Twenty eighteen. Feet.

2:39

Your sound asleep translate were

2:41

both asleep. And

2:43

then I'm. We're. Ah

2:46

when of the dogs. It.

2:48

Was around for thirty am. Korean had

2:51

were the only ones home. Their nineteen

2:53

year old son Nicholas lived with his

2:55

girlfriend two hours away had went to

2:57

go see what was happening. She.

3:00

Got up, got his gun like he did

3:02

every single time, and usually it was because

3:04

there was a deer in the backyard or

3:06

there was a possum on the porch. As

3:08

normal he went to investigate and I turned

3:11

over to go back to sleep. And

3:14

I think I had just put

3:16

my head back on the pillow

3:18

when I heard the For shop

3:20

a gunshot against. right?

3:23

After that, there was a barrage

3:25

of gunfire. It was very

3:27

close the gunfire actually it was in

3:29

the kitchen which is run off of

3:31

our bedroom and so I jumped out

3:33

at that and I grabbed my three

3:36

fifty seven which is always kept that

3:38

my dad has she round at the

3:40

edge of the dead sea sauce and.

3:42

I see a bright light.

3:45

From. Through a Japanese curtain on the door

3:47

I see a bright light come through the

3:50

curtain. I see the dogs get shot. we

3:52

had. Our second dog was laying ss that

3:54

of the bed. their

3:56

beloved rottweiler bird was filled with

3:59

me I

4:01

realized at that point that I'm next

4:04

and so I couldn't see

4:06

a person. I

4:08

just, because of the light that

4:11

was shining on me, I could extrapolate

4:13

where the person was. What

4:15

was the light? What was being shined in

4:17

your face? It was very, it was

4:19

a very bright white

4:23

light. Small but very bright. Cory

4:25

began firing. I do

4:28

not remember the sound of my gun. I don't

4:30

remember anything. I remember the feeling, the recoil. I

4:32

remember seeing the muzzle

4:36

from the opposite gun and I was expecting that I

4:38

was going to be shot any moment. So this gun

4:40

is coming in now in your direction. He's shooting at

4:42

me and I'm shooting at him. And

4:45

then Cory's gun ran out of ammo. I

4:48

grabbed my cell phone. I figured if I

4:50

could just get the line

4:52

open to 911 that they might be

4:54

able to, I don't know, maybe find my

4:57

body. Maybe, you know,

4:59

send someone. So you're thinking I'm

5:01

going to die. I knew I was going to die.

5:05

There was no, I knew I was going to

5:07

die. She ran

5:09

into her husband's closet and called 911. I

5:13

was expecting the door to open and to

5:15

be shot. So I was just hoping that

5:17

I could get the line open. Got

5:20

the family 911. I live in

5:22

the city. My

5:24

husband got out of there and my dogs were working. I

5:26

remember shots fired. Shots

5:29

were fired for him? No,

5:31

I don't know. Help me. You're

5:33

helpless at this point because your gun has

5:36

ran out of ammunition. So if they do

5:38

come, you don't even have any, that's

5:40

it, recourse. That's it.

5:42

Nowhere else to go. I don't know where

5:44

else to find you. You

5:46

hear somebody moaning? Yes. Okay.

5:51

Help, help, help, help. Does it sound like

5:53

your husband? I don't know.

5:56

Okay, do you think you possibly shot your husband? I

5:58

don't know. Oh

6:01

my God! I

6:03

didn't know if he was moaning and

6:06

dying, or it was

6:08

a person that I had maybe

6:10

killed or maybe not killed that wanted to kill

6:12

me that was moaning and dying. Cory.

6:16

Cory, take it deep like you're doing a great job, okay?

6:18

The police are on their way. I've

6:20

been waiting for this to be my husband.

6:23

Is it just you and your husband in the house? I...

6:25

I don't know. I gotta go out

6:27

there and die. No, no, no, no, no. Stay

6:29

where you are, Cory. I want you to stay

6:31

where you are. Were you aware

6:34

enough of what was happening to think

6:37

that if that's

6:39

Ted? He's dying. And

6:41

I'm not there, yes. And he could be gone. Yes.

6:44

You want to go save him or help him or do you... Or just be

6:46

there when he dies. Yeah, or be with him and

6:48

you can't. Fifteen

6:51

minutes passed and then finally...

6:54

All right, ma'am, I do have you in a sound scene and they are going

6:56

to be approaching your house, okay? Let me

6:58

know when you're opening the door. Let me know

7:00

everything that you're doing, okay? I'm...

7:08

I'm looking at him. Oh,

7:10

God. Oh, God. Cory walked

7:12

out of the bedroom and saw him. Oh,

7:15

God. He... Ted,

7:19

her husband of 30 years, dead

7:21

on the kitchen floor. Go

7:23

to the door, ma'am. Go to the door, Cory. Go

7:27

to the door, Cory. What do you see? Cory,

7:31

what do you see? This

7:36

is over here. No

7:38

police, just silence. And

7:40

whoever had just murdered her husband... Out there, somewhere. Ooh...

7:58

Clarisha and I see had just survived. shootout

8:00

in her bedroom, only

8:02

to discover her husband Ted had been

8:05

killed. She

8:10

bolted to the front door, expecting to

8:12

see officers. But... I

8:15

opened the front door and there was no one there. I

8:19

had no idea my husband was there. Where

8:24

are the police? They weren't there. They actually

8:26

went to the wrong house. Travis

8:29

County Sheriff's deputies mistakenly went to the

8:31

house next door, one that looked

8:33

like the Shaughnessy's. When

8:36

they made it to the right house, Corey met them at

8:38

the front door. What's her demeanor

8:40

like? She is extremely

8:42

emotional. Travis

8:44

County Sheriff's homicide detectives James

8:47

Moore and Paul Salo. Hysterical

8:50

is a good way to describe

8:52

it, and rightly so, based

8:55

on what the situation was that we

8:57

were hearing about. I mean

8:59

the trauma that you just experienced. Your

9:02

whole body, like

9:05

every muscle starts clenching.

9:08

It's really horrible. Deputies

9:11

took Corey to a squad car. I

9:14

just, oh, oh my God,

9:16

I love you. No, no, no. In

9:20

the moment you just think about how your

9:22

life is over. Everything is

9:27

like waking up on another planet. Scared

9:32

alone and broken, she asked a deputy

9:34

to call her best friend, Karen Tanner. Hello?

9:37

Karen? Yes? Is

9:39

it Corey? What's the matter? Ted's

9:42

dead? No. No? No,

9:46

where are you? Where

9:49

are you? I was just

9:51

in panic. How

9:53

can Ted be dead? What's this? It

9:55

was totally, it was a complete, I couldn't

9:57

process that. How do you process that? you

10:00

know, one of your two best friends is

10:02

gone. Karen met

10:04

Ted when she wandered into the Shaughnessy's jewelry

10:06

store one day. Ted and

10:09

Corey built gallery jewelers together over

10:11

two decades. I was looking

10:13

for a specific type of pearl and nobody had

10:15

it, so I went into his

10:17

store. He just started up a conversation and

10:19

he got me what I

10:21

wanted. She left with this

10:23

ring and a new friend. It's

10:26

rare that you have an instant connection like that

10:28

with someone in a store. Ted's

10:30

that way. Ted was genuinely interested in

10:33

the motivations behind what people were doing.

10:36

Ted was the face of the store. Corey

10:38

was the appraiser. Her

10:40

personality is very much

10:42

more straightforward. She was welcoming,

10:44

very matter of fact. I

10:47

think Ted was more comfortable with people on the

10:49

whole. Ted Cole was Ted's

10:51

best friend. They bonded over

10:53

their love of cars. Ted

10:55

was an avid racer. He especially

10:57

loved go-karts. The more they

10:59

hung out, the more Ted says he wished some

11:01

of Ted would rub off on him. I

11:04

kind of hoped it would, like

11:06

I would get the Ted dust because

11:09

he was just very effusive

11:12

and just easy to be around and

11:16

very engaging. Ted and his partner

11:18

Vicki say the Shaughnessy house was full of

11:20

life and love. They both

11:22

were masters in the kitchen. Once I got

11:24

invited to their house for dinner, I

11:27

was in awe of their culinary skills.

11:29

I felt like I'd kind of hit

11:31

the lottery in a sense that good

11:35

friends that enjoyed cars and

11:37

cooking. Most of all,

11:39

the love in that house centered on Ted

11:41

and Corey's only child, Nick. They

11:44

seemed inseparable. They

11:46

were like the three musketeers. Yeah.

11:49

The thing that people say. They did everything

11:51

together. They just poured a whole

11:53

lot of energy into being parents. Now,

11:57

Corey had to tell Nick his father was

11:59

dead. I need to call my friend.

12:02

How did he take the news? I

12:04

don't remember. I guess I

12:07

would have thought it was a

12:10

complete surprise and shock. I

12:13

couldn't really form words. Mom, oh

12:15

my... Dad, dad,

12:17

dad, dad, dad, dad, dad,

12:19

dad, dad. Mom,

12:25

dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad. Mom?

12:32

Oh my gosh! I

12:34

need, I need, I need, I need, I

12:36

need you. Can you just...

12:39

What happened? I'm shooting, shooting. I

12:42

don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

12:44

Wait, what? Corey

12:46

tried her best to explain what happened.

12:49

Did your attorney hire you? Yes,

12:53

yes. I'm in the back of the car out front and the

12:55

police are here and they wanted me to call someone. I know

12:57

you're in college, but you don't know what to do about it.

12:59

I don't know what to do.

13:02

19-year-old Nick and his girlfriend of a year

13:04

and a half, Jackie Edison, drove

13:06

the two hours from where they lived in College Station

13:08

to Austin. Along the

13:10

way, Nick called his parents' friends, just sitting

13:12

down for their morning coffee. He

13:15

called me and told me that his dad

13:17

had been shot. I wasn't

13:19

sure I'd heard exactly what I'd had heard.

13:22

I couldn't figure

13:25

that Ted was dead. I could not.

13:29

That force of life that

13:31

I knew to be Ted Shaughnessy was no longer

13:33

that. They raced to

13:36

Ted and Corey's house. The home where

13:38

they had spent so many nights with the

13:40

Shaughnessy family was now a crime scene. When

13:43

they arrived, Nick and Jackie were already there.

13:45

Jackie looked over and saw us standing

13:48

there and she ran full

13:50

speed to me and threw

13:53

her arms around me and wailed

13:55

and cried and cried and cried

13:58

inside. My heart was broken. for

14:00

her. And Nick. Karen

14:02

was there too. How was

14:04

Nick handling the news? Um, he

14:06

was really urgent and you know what

14:09

was happening, what's going on, you know, has

14:12

anyone told you anything? Investigators

14:16

were starting to work their way through

14:18

the house looking for clues and

14:21

asking questions. So

14:23

tell me about between mom and dad,

14:26

is there, what's the relationship like? The

14:32

deadline was just around the corner. The

14:35

team prayed for the project to succeed.

14:37

They knew it all depended on the

14:39

teamwork. And then they found

14:41

monday.com synced perfectly and the project

14:43

was a success. Well yes, the

14:45

ending is kind of anticlimactic, but drama is

14:48

for stories, not work. On monday.com

14:50

you and your co-workers can work together

14:52

easily and share updates, files, data, and

14:54

more all on one platform. Cap the

14:56

banner to go to monday.com and create

14:59

endless success stories. Hey

15:03

everybody, it's Al Roker from The Today Show.

15:06

Let's make this year our best one yet.

15:08

Take the first step toward our healthy and

15:10

happy 2024 by joining

15:12

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15:14

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15:27

together and start the new year off

15:29

on the right foot. Just

15:43

hours after her husband Ted was shot dead in

15:45

their home, Corey Shaughnessy sat

15:47

in a police interview room with her friend

15:49

Karen, trying to process the

15:51

horror. Will you be able to

15:53

tell if I shot somebody? Yeah,

15:56

I mean that's something that we may be able

15:59

to do. investigators

16:01

were busy scouring the Shaughnessy house

16:03

for evidence focusing on the kitchen

16:05

where Ted had been shot four times. They

16:08

started inspecting the scene and noticed that there

16:10

were two different caliber

16:12

of shell casings in two different

16:15

locations in the kitchen. The

16:17

casings in the kitchen were from 40 and

16:19

380 caliber handguns. Are

16:22

you thinking two shooters? Right.

16:24

Are involved in this? Correct.

16:26

As investigators made their way through the rest of

16:28

the house they found a potential point of entry.

16:31

An open window in Nick's old bedroom.

16:34

Did you find any evidence on the

16:36

window, around the window, near the window?

16:39

Ultimately we discovered a

16:41

print on the glass of

16:43

the window. And there was something

16:45

else. So just inside the

16:48

window in a there's a

16:50

dresser there and in the

16:52

bottom drawer there was a box for

16:55

a 40 caliber Springfield. But

16:58

it's empty. There's no gun in there. Are you

17:00

thinking that that box perhaps

17:03

once contained the murder weapon? I mean

17:05

ultimately a possibility. I don't know how strongly

17:07

we thought that at the time. The

17:10

Shaughnessys had a home alarm but it wasn't

17:12

set. Corey explained they only turned it

17:15

on when they were out. But

17:17

logging into the security system did

17:19

provide some clues. The system

17:21

detected that bedroom window being opened at 4

17:24

27 a.m. Then 17 minutes

17:26

later the system recorded glass breaking

17:29

right around when Corey says the

17:31

shooting started. That meant the

17:33

intruders had been inside the house for a

17:35

while before Ted confronted them. Maybe

17:37

looking for something to steal. I thought

17:40

someone had broken in and

17:43

was going to awaken us at gunpoint and make

17:45

us open the safe and rob us. I thought

17:47

it was a robbery gone bad. You could have

17:49

an extensive jewelry collection being a jeweler.

17:51

Sure. We were flooded

17:53

with neighbors trying to give us information

17:56

on suspicious vehicles they had seen and

17:59

information about the family. The only. One

18:01

neighbor named Kim live next door.

18:03

Like. Most of the neighborhood she knew.

18:06

The family owned a jewelry store and

18:08

Apache. Anything.

18:15

Against having. Hundred

18:18

billions of dollars in your

18:21

and receivership. Class

18:24

Thirty Five Foot Kim said she did

18:26

know it wasn't the first time the

18:28

Sean as he's had been the target.

18:30

Of a crime scene to the bar.

18:38

So. Well, a burglary seems like the

18:40

most obvious scenario. Detectives were taking

18:42

anything for granted. Up

18:44

the scene they asked tad inquiry son.

18:46

About his parents' relationship. So

18:49

sort of. for moment of rove

18:51

was a really. Solid

18:54

as ever Says is had their and

18:57

thirtieth anniversary in January of one where

18:59

are you five and a bigger like

19:01

efforts of his oversight or. Else

19:05

notice any sort of. And

19:09

down at the station they treated Corey like

19:11

they would anyone who spouse had just been

19:14

killed. As a victim

19:16

and a potential suspects. I

19:19

was told that I had to give them

19:21

my night close. I had on a sleep

19:23

sources and a t shirt. so they're looking

19:25

at your clothes for a possible evidence sure

19:28

and I had an area already been. Gun

19:32

gunshot residue. They did that at the scene.

19:35

But. I'd already told him I'd suck the guns of. Course

19:37

I was going to have gunshot residue

19:39

of something about quarries. Burglary gone bad.

19:42

Theory didn't make sense to detective. They

19:45

were at least three cars parked in the

19:47

driveway. It should have been clear

19:49

to any intruder that someone was home. He

19:52

would have given you some food

19:54

from been doing This is my

19:57

very risky. places especially in texas

20:00

A lot of people are texting about that. I

20:02

mean, it does happen, but I mean,

20:04

that's a big risk for somebody to try

20:07

to pull off. I can't imagine

20:09

anybody knowing us doing that. Later

20:12

that day, Corey was free to

20:14

go. But investigators weren't done talking to

20:16

her or her son. Nick

20:18

was about to reveal something that sent

20:21

them in an unexpected direction. Her

20:23

husband is children of him, and I'm

20:25

looking for that brother. Ted

20:40

Shaughnessy was killed in an apparent home

20:42

invasion. A violent crime his

20:45

wife Corey had mercifully survived. When

20:47

did it hit you that Ted's not coming home?

20:49

Our life that we were planning instantly,

20:52

you know, for the rest of our lives is

20:54

gone. Instantly in the back of that police car. I

20:57

moved before that, probably in the closet, but I

21:00

just didn't know it. Investigators

21:02

spoke with their son Nick at the scene

21:04

and later down at the station. He told

21:06

them about an incident that happened years earlier

21:08

in the 90s when his dad ran a

21:10

pawn shop. He spoke of somebody

21:14

actually robbing them back

21:16

then. Nick said the

21:18

armed robber came into the store and opened

21:21

fire. His father fired back, injuring the robber,

21:23

who was later sent to prison. And

21:26

thought, well, maybe now they're out of prison. I

21:29

don't know. You know, maybe they maybe

21:31

they've come back because, you know, they got sent

21:33

to prison for trying to rob

21:35

the pawn shop that they owned. As revenge.

21:37

Yes. A

21:39

lead to follow. Detectives

21:42

asked Nick if there was anything else he could think of and

21:44

out spilled a curious story. He

21:47

shared something about Kim. The neighbor

21:49

investigators had spoken to hours earlier.

21:56

Kim Was going through a divorce and we

21:58

found out that she actually. Hired him

22:00

to follow her as has when.

22:03

I guess he was cheating on

22:05

her and she wanted proof. This

22:07

is so bizarre of Nicholas the teenager. What Is

22:09

he? A private investigator and mean it just

22:11

sounds I had that's what she hired and

22:14

for. Move.

22:16

Move. Move. Move.

22:20

Move. Move. Move.

22:33

Move. Move.

22:35

Move. Move. Move.

22:46

The model. If

22:52

the husband had found out lit

22:54

wonder if he'd gone to his

22:56

parents' house to retaliate against happened

22:58

at was one possibility to get.

23:01

Has also had to consider this

23:03

navy Kim had been the intended

23:05

target. Was as a potential.

23:08

For her new hero somewhere try to

23:11

do something to her. The. Were

23:13

to wrong house never It's very

23:15

dark the the homes were somewhat

23:18

similar night because the street is

23:20

not lead so perhaps the husband.

23:22

Was. Trying to have his wife killed

23:25

and whoever he hired went to

23:27

the wrong house from Turtle and

23:29

they were all those cars and

23:31

the Shaughnessy driveway one was a

23:33

white Mercedes. Kim also dreaded white

23:35

mercedes. And when deputies responding

23:37

to the shooting had initially gone to

23:39

the wrong house, they'd gone tic thames.

23:42

So maybe as the police to go. The

23:44

wrong house. Maybe a killer to go to the

23:46

wrong house. I didn't think it was necessarily that

23:49

big of a stretch. Detectives needed to go. Back.

23:51

And talk to. Can I say

23:53

we far from up high. They

23:56

asked about her relationship with Next. Kim

23:58

said. She knew him well. He'd helped

24:00

her out with babysitting, dog sitting, house sitting

24:02

when she was away. How

24:04

about any like investigative

24:07

cutscenes? Um... Um...

24:11

Okay, yes. They're

24:14

not really investigative, but I did

24:16

have him follow a production shot.

24:19

Okay. I seem to be ex-husband,

24:22

uh, because, well,

24:24

it's interesting. There's

24:27

probably more information than you want to know.

24:29

Not so. Detectives wanted to hear

24:31

more, even as her housekeeper cleaned

24:34

in the background. So,

24:36

that's an answer. And he

24:38

really wanted to get all of his

24:40

family away from him. Mm-hmm. And

24:42

he went. Okay. I

24:44

just had an idea. Okay. Would

24:47

you like to talk to her before? Yes, please. All

24:50

I needed was just an address and

24:52

a night. That's how I like. I

24:55

don't want her to do anything I ask. You could have

24:57

had a person to go, uh, follow in

24:59

the problem at the time. You

25:02

could have. There was more than one occasion you

25:05

had to follow in the problem. So,

25:08

what did Kim say? What

25:10

did she think? It could be the wrong house,

25:13

that she was maybe a target. She didn't

25:15

fear for her life from him. According to

25:17

her, he wouldn't gain anything by her being

25:19

dead. And so, she did not, she herself

25:22

did not think that he would

25:24

have done anything like that. I think the

25:26

wife is dead. There's no one.

25:30

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Okay.

25:33

And did your husband, did he know

25:35

this? Like, did he end up in

25:37

find out that Nick had done this

25:40

or anything? No, I never said a

25:42

word. That

25:44

lead fizzled out, which brought them back to

25:46

the woman at the center of it all,

25:48

Cory. They discovered none of

25:51

the bullets from her gun had hit Ted.

25:53

Still, was she somehow involved in the

25:56

home invasion she survived? We

25:58

wanted to look at any potential. motive

26:00

that she would have. One is, you

26:03

know, being the beneficiary of Ted's

26:05

life insurance. How much are we

26:07

talking about? A million dollars. Not

26:09

to mention the business,

26:11

the house. There's a lot of

26:13

money at stake. There is. I mean, obviously the

26:15

jewelry store and the property was worth a lot

26:17

of money. So

26:20

it was back to the crime scene

26:22

and that question. Where

26:24

was the Shaughnessy's missing gun? Days

26:41

after her husband's murder, Corey Shaughnessy

26:43

returned home. What

26:46

were those nights like when you're back in the

26:48

house so soon after and this is the

26:50

house where your husband was just murdered? Crazy.

26:52

Just absolutely crazy. How do you even go

26:54

to sleep? You don't. You stay up all

26:57

night and you don't go to sleep until

26:59

it gets until the sun

27:01

comes up. And then you

27:03

set up zones in your house and

27:06

you set up lines of fire

27:08

so that you know that if

27:12

someone comes for you, you'll know where you're supposed to

27:14

be shooting. And

27:16

it's not good.

27:21

Nick was there too. He and his girlfriend

27:23

Jackie packed up their apartment in College Station

27:25

and moved in with Corey. It

27:28

seemed like a natural course of events. It seemed like they

27:30

were maybe

27:32

circling the wagons to keep the family

27:35

together and find strength in

27:38

doing that. For

27:41

Corey, having her son close provided

27:43

much needed comfort. After

27:45

all, Nick had been their miracle child.

27:48

Had you and Ted really wanted to be parents? Yes.

27:51

Yes. I was having difficulty

27:54

staying pregnant and

27:56

I didn't want to do

27:58

that anymore. And I came

28:01

to the decision that it wasn't important for

28:03

me to give birth to a child. I

28:06

wanted to be a mother. And

28:08

so that led to me being interested

28:10

in adopting a baby. Those

28:13

who have been through adoption will tell you the

28:15

process isn't easy. But the

28:17

desire to be a parent, to love a

28:19

child, is so strong you'll do anything. Go

28:21

anywhere. For Corey and Ted,

28:24

that meant jumping on a plane to

28:26

Ukraine. They said, well, we need to have

28:28

you here tomorrow. I can't even imagine your feelings

28:30

in that moment. It's crazy because you're going to

28:32

go and meet your child. When

28:34

Corey and Ted got to Ukraine, they went to

28:36

the adoption facility and were handed a little boy.

28:39

He was blonde and he had hazel

28:41

green eyes like mine. And

28:44

he was just the cutest little thing. And

28:47

he was, what, 16 months old? I

28:50

think so. Already walking? Yes.

28:53

But still that really cute age. Yeah.

28:56

Chubby little cheeks and chubby little hands and chubby little

28:58

feet. Did you just melt? It was the moment you

29:00

saw them? It was just instant love. Just

29:03

instant. How was Ted as a dad?

29:05

Oh, God, excellent. They were attached

29:08

at the hip. So

29:10

if Ted was doing something, Nicholas was right

29:12

there with him doing it. He

29:14

and Nicholas both actually did a

29:17

lot of cart racing and they

29:19

did quite well. He enjoyed that

29:21

very much. And Nicholas took to it just

29:23

like... Absolutely. Just like his dad? Yeah.

29:27

They loved racing together.

29:29

Now Nick and Corey had to learn to go

29:31

on without Ted. Investigators

29:34

were working hard to find Ted's killer. They

29:36

had a few leads, like the person who went to

29:39

prison after trying to rob the pawn shop

29:41

at gunpoint years earlier. Did you

29:43

look into that person? We did. And

29:45

I mean, it was so long ago. We had

29:47

no information that

29:49

this person was anywhere around

29:52

at the time of this incident. The

29:55

detectives had been investigating Corey's theory that

29:57

the attackers intended to rob the shop.

30:01

But there were some big questions. Did you have

30:03

to wonder why, you know, if they did come

30:05

there to rob the house, why leave

30:07

Corey? You know, why not take what they

30:10

could or get her to open the safe?

30:12

Right. We... That

30:15

was something very interesting to us. They

30:17

knew from the alarm system logs that a window opened

30:19

17 minutes before the shooting occurred. But

30:23

there was no indication of them going through

30:25

anything prior to the shooting. We

30:27

knew that they had made their way through more

30:29

than half the house before the shooting occurred. Was

30:34

there anything valuable stolen from the Shaughnessy home?

30:36

There was nothing stolen from the Shaughnessy home.

30:38

Detectives were still trying to track down the

30:40

.40 caliber handgun from that empty box in

30:42

the Shaughnessy house. They

30:45

believed two shooters were involved and

30:49

wondered if one of them had used the Shaughnessy's gun

30:51

in the crime. They started questioning me

30:53

about a firearm that we owned. Do you know where it

30:55

is? I said, yes, I do. I thought that it was

30:57

at the jewelry store in the bathroom on a shelf because

31:00

we would keep guns in certain places because

31:03

for protection and whatnot. And so she allowed us

31:05

to go with her to the jewelry store so

31:10

we could look to see, is there a .40 caliber gun there?

31:14

We got there. It was not there. Corey

31:16

brought detectives to the house to look

31:18

for it there. She was confident it would turn up somewhere,

31:21

and then police could move on. That

31:23

was a very interesting story. That

31:26

would seem really important,

31:28

except that we had a lot of guns and there were

31:30

gun cases in a lot of closets and a lot of

31:32

drawers in the house, but they found that one. At

31:36

the house, investigators asked Nick if he had

31:38

any idea where it was. He

31:40

told them his dad had let him borrow it, but

31:43

he'd returned it to his father. Yeah.

31:46

I took it to college station and then followed the car to the

31:48

back. We had no idea where you

31:50

made it. Did you get it or anything?

31:52

The father didn't tell me any intentions with it. Corey

31:55

says the whole line of questioning started to

31:57

feel a little off, and then this happened.

31:59

What happened? One

32:01

of the other detectives came in and

32:04

I remember her telling me the person

32:07

that did this might be closer to you

32:09

than you know. And

32:13

so then I'm thinking, okay, they're

32:15

looking at me and they're looking

32:18

at Nicholas. Does that

32:20

scare you? You're being looked

32:22

at for murder? Simultaneously terrified

32:24

and enraged. Corey

32:27

wanted to protect her son and get justice

32:29

for her husband. I'm like, why

32:31

aren't you looking for the people that did

32:33

this? Of course, it has to

32:35

be the wife or the son because we're the

32:38

family. It can't be the giant pink elephant that

32:40

wears jewelers and it's a robbery. Corey

32:43

hoped investigators would be able to cross her

32:45

and Nick off their list soon. And

32:47

she tried to go about resuming life without her

32:49

husband. She worried about

32:52

the future of the business they built together. Unsure

32:55

if she could carry on without the man

32:57

who had charmed and befriended customers. Expenses

32:59

were mounting and I thought I was going to close

33:01

the jewelry store. She filed

33:03

to collect Ted's million dollar life insurance policy,

33:06

but the check didn't come, so she called

33:08

the company to ask about it. And

33:10

when I asked her, you know, where's

33:13

my money? She said,

33:15

well, I'm sorry, we can't release that

33:18

because the police have told us that

33:20

they suspect foul play. And at that

33:22

point, that means me because I'm the

33:24

beneficiary. Well, because, yes, of course, there's

33:27

foul play. Right. But that means specifically

33:30

me. And so now

33:33

I knew if I had

33:35

any doubt before that I was a

33:37

suspect, now I know that I'm a

33:40

suspect. Corey no longer

33:42

felt like the investigators were on her side

33:45

and they weren't sharing everything they knew,

33:47

like whose fingerprint they found on that

33:49

open bedroom window. So a

33:51

check of the database revealed a match

33:53

to a particular person. Who was it?

34:00

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knew it all depended on the teamwork. And

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34:31

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34:35

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34:38

with Tina Fey to talk about her

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can get our conversation now for

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free, wherever you download your

34:54

podcasts. Corey

35:04

Shaughnessy was struggling to come to terms with

35:06

the loss of her husband while her family

35:08

was being scrutinized by law enforcement. And

35:11

in the middle of all that, just days

35:13

after the shooting, her world shifted

35:16

again. Nicholas and Jacqueline

35:18

came to you with some big news. They

35:20

came to me and they said, we have

35:22

something to tell you. And they told me

35:24

that they had gotten married. Married

35:27

nearly eight months earlier than the summer of 2017.

35:31

Corey knew Nick and Jackie were serious, but

35:33

they were so young, just 18 when

35:35

they got married. She remembered the

35:38

first time Nick brought Jackie over. Do

35:40

you all instantly take

35:43

to each other? Ted thought she

35:45

was awesome. He really liked her. Over

35:50

time, Jackie even started to call Ted,

35:52

Dad. You were a

35:55

little slower to warm up to Jacqueline. I

35:57

think so. There was nothing about Jackie that

35:59

I... that I disliked, it's

36:01

just that, you know,

36:04

it's my little boy. What do you think it

36:07

was that clicked for those two for Jacqueline and

36:09

Nicholas? I think they liked a lot

36:11

of the same things. They liked shoes

36:13

and cars and electronics and

36:15

things. I think they liked

36:18

to talk about going places, goading on

36:20

vacations and how the future was going

36:22

to be. Even though

36:24

Nick and Jackie were already married, Quarry decided

36:27

to help her son make a formal proposal.

36:30

I had told Nicholas to pick an engagement

36:32

ring setting out of the case. And

36:35

Ted and I had kept my

36:37

mother's original engagement diamond aside for

36:39

him to give to whoever at

36:41

some point. So we

36:44

had that set into a ring for her and

36:46

he, and he gave her that. You decide to

36:48

throw them an engagement party. Jackie wanted to have

36:50

an engagement party and everything

36:53

had been so awful. Planning

36:56

a party was a welcome distraction amidst

36:58

their heartache. They were family

37:00

determined to find their way through the

37:02

pain together. Once

37:05

I realized that she is my

37:07

daughter-in-law, well, I'm going

37:09

to love her like a daughter. And

37:12

Quarry did just that in a very

37:14

shaughnessy way. She gave Jackie

37:16

a diamond pendant. I gave

37:18

her a half karat diamond solitaire. It was

37:20

also a way of welcoming her into our

37:23

family and telling her that, you know, she

37:25

was, she was welcome. There

37:27

was another silver lining. Initially, Quarry didn't

37:29

see a way to keep the jewelry

37:31

store open without Ted. She

37:34

didn't think Nick had a keen interest in the

37:36

family business. Instead of

37:38

enrolling in college like Jackie, he was trying

37:40

to make a living day trading stocks, but

37:43

now Quarry had an idea. I

37:45

had gone to Nicholas and said, can you spend your

37:47

day trading or

37:49

maybe do that on the side and then we

37:51

could keep the store open. Jackie

37:53

had taken the rest of the year off from

37:56

school. I thought, well, if she helps

37:58

us this first year, maybe she. They were

38:00

on board with doing that. They were excited to do it.

38:02

That must have made you happy. I thought

38:05

we could do it. I thought with

38:07

his help I could do it. So

38:10

Nick and Jackie stepped up and the store stayed

38:12

open. But what Corey

38:14

wanted even more was to know who killed

38:16

Ted. She spoke to

38:18

detectives, but they just seemed to have more questions for

38:20

her. And I started realizing

38:22

that a lot of those questions were gotcha

38:26

moments, like aha moments. Like

38:28

they were trying to set me up as

38:31

something. She didn't trust the

38:33

investigators to solve her husband's murder. She

38:36

still thought they seemed fixated on her and

38:38

Nick rather than finding the real killers.

38:41

I assumed at that point that they were looking at him for

38:43

the very reasons they were looking at me. It

38:45

was easy. They would always send unmarked

38:48

cars by the house, which

38:51

looked exactly like unmarked police cars

38:53

by the house. So I figured they're going to

38:55

do overt looking at us. They're

38:57

also probably doing all other kinds of things.

38:59

And that was fine with me because I

39:02

had nothing to hide. Corey

39:05

replayed the night of the murder over

39:07

and over looking for clues. You

39:09

and Nicholas and Jacqueline actually did reenactments in the house?

39:11

We did. I was

39:14

no one would talk to me about

39:17

how things really happened. So I took it upon

39:19

myself to figure it out. I

39:22

couldn't figure out what the light source was that

39:24

was shining at me because it wasn't a light

39:26

source. Because it wasn't a laser sight from a

39:28

gun. It was a bright white

39:30

light. I had gotten a flashlight and a pen

39:32

light to try and see if I could recreate

39:34

the kind of light that it was. What did

39:36

it appear to be? And it

39:39

wasn't until Jackie said, oh, was it like this?

39:41

And she pulled up her phone and used her

39:43

phone and it was exactly like that. So a

39:45

cell phone light. It was a cell phone

39:47

light. She finally understood what

39:49

she saw that night. Not that

39:51

it made anything better. Meanwhile,

39:54

the real investigators were holding their cards close

39:56

to the vest. They weren't

39:58

just looking at the family. They were getting their cards. sorting

40:00

through whatever evidence they had. Remember

40:03

that fingerprint they lifted from the open

40:05

window? The killer's likely point of entry?

40:08

A check of the database, it revealed

40:10

a match to a particular person. Who

40:12

was it? So

40:14

we learned that he was

40:16

actually an employee of

40:18

the Renewal by Anderson company

40:21

and what his job was, he

40:23

assembled windows. Oh, so here you

40:25

are thinking you might have this potential lead

40:28

and it's the window guy. So

40:30

maybe the print was just left over

40:32

from the factory. To be sure, detectives

40:35

did some digging. We looked at all

40:37

sorts of information about him. We got with

40:39

the employer. It turned out

40:41

the employee didn't live in Texas. He was all

40:43

the way up in Minnesota. And

40:45

we had no indication he'd ever even

40:48

left Minnesota. A

40:50

dead end. But there was something else

40:52

about that window. Something Nick mentioned

40:54

to detectives. He had

40:56

talked about that he historically had used that

40:59

window as a door. That

41:01

was his own personal door in

41:03

and out of that house. And

41:06

Nick said he wasn't the only one. He

41:08

offered up a name. So

41:11

now you have someone, another person who

41:13

knows about that point of entry into

41:15

the house? Yes. Those

41:32

closest to Corey Shaughnessy knew she was

41:34

in agony after Ted's murder. And

41:36

they saw how she refused to let herself crumble

41:38

under the weight of it all. She's

41:41

got to be one of the strongest people I've ever

41:43

met. That's

41:45

not to say that she wasn't feeling

41:47

inside. But how she carries herself and

41:50

gets through things. I

41:53

can't imagine. Corey

41:56

without Ted was not...

42:00

She is an individual, but you know, they were

42:02

such a unit. They were each other's friends. All

42:06

those years together, and what a great relationship you

42:08

had in this life that you'd built and

42:11

how it was just gone in a

42:13

matter of seconds. Absolutely.

42:16

Everything that you have can be gone in a matter of seconds. It's

42:19

really important that everybody knows that. As

42:24

Corey grieved, detectives were running down a

42:26

curious lead they'd gotten from Nick. He

42:29

said he often used his bedroom window to go in

42:31

and out of the house. The very

42:33

same window, investigators now believe the killers used

42:35

on the night of the murder. Nick

42:37

said he usually locked the window, but

42:40

not always. I

42:42

may have forgotten. I do not know. Especially if

42:45

I can call in someone during the drinking night.

42:47

And what we asked him was, well, is there

42:50

somebody else that knows about

42:53

this window that you use as

42:55

a door? And he mentioned his

42:57

friend Spencer. Spencer

42:59

was Spencer Patterson, Nick's best

43:01

friend. He didn't have a lot

43:04

of friends, but he had just one good friend,

43:06

Spencer. Spencer had even officiated

43:08

Nick and Jackie's secret wedding. Naturally,

43:11

police wanted to know more about him. He's

43:14

not as fortunate as I like to have friends

43:16

that were out there like Lana.

43:19

And so he's most of his sh** on his own job.

43:21

He's only seven or nine times better than

43:25

his brother's service school at Texas

43:27

State. So

43:29

a kid who didn't seem to have much money and

43:32

knew how to get into the Shaughnessy house. Nick

43:35

also told them Spencer knew where his parents

43:37

safe was. Do you track

43:39

down Spencer? We do. Hey,

43:42

is this Spencer? Yes,

43:44

sir. Hey, this is Detective Moore. I'm with

43:46

Travis County Sheriff's Department. How you doing? Detectives

43:51

first talked to Spencer over the phone. They

43:54

asked him about the last time he was over at

43:56

the Shaughnessy house. This isn't more

43:58

than like a month ago. Okay. Can

44:00

you tell me like how that night went?

44:02

I mean that night was fun. We

44:05

had talks that told them about my work.

44:07

Everyone was just in a great mood. I

44:09

mean, we just had dinner. We had some

44:11

drinks. We were having fun. We

44:13

were just getting along just like a normal

44:15

family, really. You guys never left the house

44:17

at night? Not

44:20

that night, no. But on previous nights, we usually would

44:22

go out to the barn. The

44:25

barn was in the Shaughnessy's backyard. Nick and Spencer

44:27

would have a few beers there late at night.

44:30

So when y'all would go to the barn, can

44:32

you tell me about that? How would y'all leave

44:34

the house and get back in and all that?

44:37

Usually we'd go out through one of

44:39

Nick's bedroom windows. OK. Do

44:44

you remember the last time y'all did that? No,

44:47

not really. No. It

44:50

was recent, but not like in the last month

44:52

now. Detectives kept

44:54

the call with Spencer brief, but they still

44:57

had questions. They

44:59

hadn't located either of the murder weapons. They

45:02

were still looking for the Shaughnessy's .40

45:04

caliber handgun, and Nick told them about

45:06

another weapon, a .380 he no longer

45:08

had. Nick said he had given it to

45:11

a friend. That friend was

45:13

Spencer. He

45:15

knew he was going in and out of that window, and

45:17

that Nick had also given him a .380

45:19

gun. .380

45:22

was used in the murder. Yes.

45:26

So detectives went back to talk to

45:28

Spencer again, more than once. Spencer

45:30

was being, for the most part, he was

45:33

being forthcoming, but we can tell

45:35

that he was holding back some information. They

45:37

searched his home, took his cell phone,

45:40

and of course they asked him about that

45:42

gun. The .380 ended up,

45:44

we ended up locating that in Spencer's

45:46

car. You had it with you? Yes.

45:53

It seemed that Spencer knew more than

45:55

what he just told us. It

45:57

appeared Spencer had the means, a possible

45:59

motive. and maybe even one of the

46:01

murder weapons. And

46:03

investigators found one of the shooters. The

46:10

deadline was just around the corner. The

46:12

team prayed for the project to succeed.

46:14

They knew it all depended on the

46:17

teamwork. And then... They found

46:19

monday.com. It synced perfectly and

46:21

the project was a success. Well, yes,

46:23

the ending is kind of anticlimactic, but

46:25

drama is for stories, not work. On

46:27

monday.com, you and your co-workers can work

46:29

together easily and share updates, files, data,

46:32

and more. All on one platform. Cap

46:34

the banner to go to monday.com and

46:36

create endless success stories. Join

46:42

Hoda Kotb for a brand new

46:44

season of her podcast, Making States.

46:46

I assume this season is more

46:48

personal. To me, it's not lifting

46:50

conversations with television host Maria Minouna.

46:53

We both at Star and Olm have to bring both

46:56

and all of our guests provide them to

46:58

cash everything they want. I would say this

47:00

journey and I promise you'll be stronger than

47:02

when you started. All of it says it's

47:04

easy for us. The first time

47:07

we were there, they were all mad. We're never gonna give

47:09

up. We're never gonna give up. Travis

47:21

County Sheriff's investigators were looking closely at

47:24

a possible suspect in Ted Shaughnessy's

47:26

murder, Nick's best

47:28

friend, Spencer. We definitely

47:30

looked at him as potentially he

47:33

was the person firing

47:35

the 380. So we did

47:37

collect that weapon from him and

47:40

we did submit it for testing. Detectives

47:42

were also trying to figure out where Spencer was

47:45

at the time of the murder. For

47:47

that, they turned to his cell phone. That's

47:49

where the cell phone records come in as well,

47:51

as part of us trying to

47:54

pin down his location. The

47:56

cell records appeared to place him at home during

47:58

the murder, but... Couldn't he

48:00

have just left his phone at home? He could

48:02

have, ultimately, yes. The

48:04

big question was the gun that Spencer

48:06

handed over to investigators, the same caliber

48:08

as one of the murder weapons. When

48:12

the ballistics test came back... That

48:14

weapon was not used in that murder. So just

48:16

a coincidence that it was the same caliber? It just

48:18

was a coincidence, yeah. And that it was given to him by Nicholas?

48:21

Right. There was nothing to link

48:23

Spencer to the crime. He

48:26

ultimately was cleared as a suspect. But

48:28

the lead about Spencer wasn't a complete dead

48:30

end. Detectives couldn't help but

48:32

note who took them down that path. Nick.

48:36

In fact, since day one, they thought

48:38

Nick had seemed a little too eager

48:41

to help. It was

48:43

like he was volunteering information for us. You

48:45

know, it almost seemed to me like he

48:49

didn't think we were asking the right questions,

48:51

and so he would interject something.

48:55

It started in the early hours of the investigation

48:57

at the crime scene. Nick told police

48:59

about his parents' home security system. He

49:02

said he could access it from an app on his phone.

49:05

They're not talking about people, they're little. So

49:08

I'm not the only advantage of other technology.

49:11

He also wanted them to see his security

49:13

system back at the apartment he shared with

49:16

Jackie in College Station. Something that

49:18

might be able to help you all, and

49:21

I have my home security system on and every night

49:23

I actually have my entry in exit. I can do

49:25

this in my phone. It

49:28

seemed like an odd thing to be thinking about

49:31

right after his father was murdered. I

49:33

was harmed 12, 30 or so

49:35

after we watched him TV a

49:37

month ago. To

49:41

Detective Moore, Nick's whole demeanor seemed

49:43

just odd. I observed

49:45

him starting to run around the neighborhood, trying

49:48

to meet with different neighbors, trying to...

49:50

It appeared like he was probing for information. Corey's

49:53

friend Karen noticed it too, but thought it

49:55

was just Nick being Nick. He

49:58

was just very insistent and... obviously

50:00

a pet and he's also

50:02

a very high energy person

50:05

who's almost never sit still. So

50:07

he was very kind of moving around and bouncing

50:09

and he was just wanting to know what had

50:11

happened. So we had called him

50:14

over for a gunshot residue kit because

50:16

his behavior was slightly off. We

50:18

didn't want to exclude him from

50:20

a possible suspect. So as we

50:23

asked him to turn around, he

50:25

kind of was happy and did

50:27

a jump and he turned.

50:30

So it was just really off behavior and

50:32

smiling and joking. Do you think maybe he

50:34

was nervous given the severity

50:36

of the situation? Didn't appear to be nervous

50:38

behavior. So what was

50:40

it? Nick was pretty forthcoming

50:42

about his relationship with his parents. That

50:44

was a theory that my mother

50:47

and I, we were very, very

50:49

financial dispute and we said, he

50:52

was a he. He explained that he

50:54

had a good relationship with his parents, but recently

50:56

there had been some tension between them because

50:58

they had loaned him $30,000 to

51:01

fund his day trading. Nick

51:04

had dabbled in trading stocks in high school and

51:06

then told his parents he wanted to skip college

51:08

and make a career of it. They

51:11

weren't thrilled. Ted and I

51:13

had no illusions. We didn't think that it was really

51:15

going to work, but we thought that

51:17

we would give him that opportunity so that he could

51:19

kind of get it out of his system. So

51:22

Nick moved to college station with Jackie where

51:24

she was studying engineering at Texas A&M. Were

51:28

you hoping that Jacqueline would push him more

51:31

toward the college route? I thought what would happen

51:33

is he would get bored and I thought he

51:35

would end up saying, hey, I'd like to start

51:37

the next semester and go to school. Were

51:40

you hoping that she would help

51:42

with that a little bit? Yes. In

51:45

the meantime, his parents transferred that big chunk

51:47

of cash into a bank account so Nick

51:49

could start his trading business. That's

51:51

a lot of money. It is a lot of money, but I

51:53

told him, I warned him, I

51:55

said this is basically the equivalent of

51:57

your college fund. If something goes wrong...

51:59

and you lose it, well,

52:02

then you're going to have

52:04

to get a job. And you're on

52:06

your own. And you're on your own. Cory

52:09

and Ted also continued paying some of

52:11

Nick's monthly expenses. Was the

52:13

expectation that he would pay the money back? He

52:15

was supposed to be paying me

52:17

a little bit of money, plus

52:19

he was supposed to be reimbursing

52:21

me for his car payment, his

52:23

gasoline payment, and his insurance payment.

52:26

His father's friend, Tad, was supportive. He gave Nick

52:29

$5,000 to invest. He

52:32

seemed to have an intuitive understanding

52:35

of how markets work. But

52:38

pretty soon, Cory said Nick wasn't holding up his

52:40

end of their deal, wasn't paying his

52:42

parents back for the car and expenses.

52:45

And yet, Nick and Jackie seemed to be

52:47

living the high life. Every

52:50

time we'd see them, you know, they had

52:52

on their new clothes, you know, they had

52:54

on their new shoes, they had all of

52:56

their new things in their new apartment. And

52:59

I knew how that was going. So you're

53:02

spending the money on things that you want

53:04

and not things that you need, not your

53:06

responsibilities. Finally, I said, okay,

53:08

I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it

53:10

anymore. You're not upholding your end of the

53:12

bargain. I'm going to cut you off. How

53:14

did he take that? Oh,

53:17

he wasn't really happy with me. But

53:21

we'd had arguments before. A

53:23

few months before Ted's murder, Nick made good

53:26

on his word. He paid me

53:28

back. Did that feel good that you

53:31

had to hound him, but he didn't? I said, thank you.

53:34

That's what Nick told investigators, too. Whatever

53:37

problems they had were in the rearview mule. But

53:40

he was a housemate, cops, sat down,

53:42

and everything out cleared up. Detectives

53:46

weren't convinced everything was fine. In

53:48

fact, while Corey felt like she and

53:50

Nick were under suspicion, she'd only been

53:53

half-right. Detectives

53:55

cleared her early on and had

53:57

been focusing their attention on Nick.

54:00

That included poring over his financial records.

54:03

With Nicholas's financial records, we see, you

54:06

know, indications that his

54:09

accounts overdrawn, the trading account that supposedly

54:11

has all these thousands of dollars because

54:13

he's a successful day trader. The

54:16

balances of those accounts are zero. So

54:18

they're broke? They are. Was

54:21

Nick desperate enough to betray

54:23

his own parents? Has

54:26

he ever directly asked you to

54:28

kill his parents? His

54:56

wife Corey celebrated her first Mother's Day

54:58

without him. Her new daughter-in-law

55:00

Jackie gave her a card expressing how

55:02

grateful she was that Corey had survived

55:04

the horrible shooting. I was

55:06

touched. Corey was thankful for what

55:08

was left of her family, a family

55:10

she knew had been under the microscope. Investigators

55:13

weren't telling her much, certainly not

55:16

how odd they found Nick's behavior,

55:18

and that they found his money trouble

55:20

highly suspicious. So all

55:22

this together really started honing our

55:25

investigation, or leaning our investigation heavy

55:27

towards Nicholas, that he may have

55:29

had some involvement. Investigators

55:32

searched Nick and Jackie's apartment, where

55:34

they found the security system Nick had

55:36

mentioned. He's got cameras all

55:38

around the house. It's surprising how many he

55:40

had. Strange, but

55:42

a quick look at the security video did

55:45

seem to back up Nick's alibi. They were

55:47

home the morning of the murder? They were home

55:49

at the time. They were home? They were home. In

55:52

the apartment, investigators found a safe

55:54

full of jewelry, watches, and weapons.

55:57

There were also bullets. Lots of

55:59

guns. them. We found lots of

56:01

ammo, which is not unusual here in Texas.

56:05

What was unusual, investigators

56:07

found a box of ammunition that was the same

56:09

brand and caliber of bullets as some of the

56:11

casings found at the crime scene. So

56:14

at the scene it's Sig 380 and the

56:16

380 ammunition that

56:19

he had there was Sig 380. What's

56:22

more, six rounds were missing from

56:24

that box. Okay,

56:26

so this is not looking

56:28

good for Nicholas at this moment? We

56:31

definitely thought there might be a connection

56:33

with that amount of rounds missing. To

56:36

try and root out that possible connection, investigators

56:39

dug into Nick's cell home. Both

56:42

he and Jackie had volunteered their phones to

56:44

help the investigation. So one of

56:46

the first things I noticed almost immediately, there was a

56:48

pretty clear gap in data on both of their phones.

56:51

Matt Danner and Stacey Kazmir handled the

56:54

digital forensics in this case. If

56:56

I was like, this is not normal, especially for a

56:58

couple of young 19 year olds, they

57:00

should have tons of data on their

57:03

phones. It's what we typically used to. It's almost like

57:05

they factory reset their phones kind of together at the

57:07

same time. It seemed very intentional,

57:10

like purposeful. But the

57:12

forensic folks knew something that perhaps Nick

57:14

and Jackie did not. It's

57:16

very common that people don't know

57:19

or understand that their messages

57:21

are syncing to a completely separate device when

57:23

they delete them and the deletions don't synchronize.

57:26

Whenever someone deletes messages from their iPhone,

57:28

it doesn't mean that it's deleted from

57:30

like their other Apple devices. So they

57:33

turn to Nick's computer, a Mac mini

57:35

and voila. Messages

57:38

from his iPhone had synced to

57:40

his Mac mini, specifically messages between

57:42

him and Jackie. Now

57:44

detectives could see exactly what Nick and Jackie

57:47

had been chatting about before Ted's murder, money.

57:50

In the days prior to

57:53

this incident, they're communicating about a dollar

57:55

amount. You know, she asks Nicholas, do

57:57

they want 50 K or 50,000

58:00

dollars for what? And

58:04

they're talking about, you know, well we can't

58:06

afford to pay half before. You're

58:09

thinking before means before the murder. Before the

58:11

murder. It just seemed like they were talking

58:13

about hiring somebody to do this.

58:17

And if there was a murder for hire plot,

58:19

it now looked like Jackie was in on

58:21

it. Just days before

58:23

the murder, there was another suspicious text. It

58:26

always tells Jackie he needs to have some

58:28

money if it happens so he can have

58:30

some cash in hand. And he's

58:33

asking her, I need you to withdraw a

58:35

thousand dollars from your account. Bank

58:38

records revealed she had taken out that money.

58:41

And it wasn't just the text messages that pointed

58:43

to a murder for hire plot. They'd

58:46

ruled out Nick's friend Spencer as one of

58:48

the shooters. But they couldn't shake

58:50

their hunch. He knew more than he was letting on.

58:53

After several meetings, Spencer started opening up

58:55

about things Nick said to him about

58:57

his parents. He

58:59

said, after

59:02

my parents go, I will have

59:04

eight million dollars. And Nicholas talked

59:06

about not only gaining the money

59:09

from the life insurance, but he also

59:11

talked about the money

59:13

from the sale of the jewelry store and

59:16

the sale of the property. But

59:18

that wasn't all. Spencer told investigators he

59:20

knew Nick had been looking for a hit man. Has

59:24

he ever directly asked you to

59:26

kill his parents? Yes. Nick

59:29

had actually offered him money to

59:32

kill his parents. And

59:35

more digital sleuthing revealed another key

59:37

discovery. Nick had told

59:39

detectives he could access his parents' home

59:41

security system. Turned out he had

59:43

opened up the app the morning of the murder at

59:45

5.39 a.m. Which

59:48

is a full five minutes before he gets

59:51

a phone call that there's

59:53

anything going on. So he's

59:55

already aware of

59:58

the situation. This

1:00:00

is your aha moment. It's a

1:00:02

big moment. Nicky! He

1:00:04

is not my mom. That's

1:00:07

good. Please, boy.

1:00:10

He's already awake and

1:00:12

he's already monitoring what's going on at

1:00:14

the home when he receives this call.

1:00:17

We knew that they seem to be closing in on Nick

1:00:19

and Jackie. Rick Flores

1:00:21

is a prominent defense attorney in Austin.

1:00:24

Early on, Corey hired him to protect

1:00:26

her son from investigators she thought were on

1:00:29

the wrong path. Corey didn't think

1:00:31

that her son had anything to do with it, and

1:00:33

so I think she wanted to make sure that he

1:00:35

had adequate representation and that they

1:00:37

would ultimately rule him out and continue to

1:00:40

find the people that did this. Could

1:00:42

you sense as the weeks were ticking by that

1:00:44

things were getting hotter for Nicholas and

1:00:47

Jacqueline? Could you feel it? With each

1:00:49

search warrant that was served, each affidavit had a little

1:00:51

bit more information and a little bit more facts that

1:00:54

law enforcement had been putting together. Flores

1:00:57

had enough experience to sense where this

1:00:59

was going. He made an agreement

1:01:01

with law enforcement that they'd inform him if

1:01:03

an arrest was imminent. On

1:01:06

May 29, 2018,

1:01:08

about three months after Ted's murder, they

1:01:11

did just that. Nick

1:01:13

and Jacqueline come into your office and then the

1:01:15

police come and arrest them. Corey

1:01:19

was devastated, but at the same

1:01:21

time certain it was some kind of mistake. I

1:01:24

certainly was not going to believe what

1:01:27

the sheriff's department was saying unless

1:01:30

I had absolute proof,

1:01:33

and it's also your child. And

1:01:35

so you love and trust your

1:01:38

child with everything. Even

1:01:40

if detectives were right about Nick and Jacqueline's

1:01:42

involvement, they knew they weren't the shooters.

1:01:45

There were still two gunmen on the loose and

1:01:48

new clues caught on camera. I

1:01:51

saw these two males who didn't appear

1:01:53

to be the type to hang out with

1:01:55

each other, show up to Nick's door and

1:01:57

enter his home. At this point, we have

1:02:00

I have no idea what's going on. The

1:02:30

Dark Prophecy foretold her death. Then

1:02:40

through fire, it came to pass. And

1:02:43

the faithful mourned. But

1:02:45

it wasn't the hand of God that looked after

1:02:47

me. Mortal Sin,

1:02:50

the new podcast from Dateline and from

1:02:52

me, Josh Mankiewicz. Listen

1:02:55

to all episodes of Mortal Sin

1:02:57

now, wherever you get your podcasts.

1:03:11

Investigators believe they had two

1:03:13

people responsible for Ted Shaughnessy's

1:03:15

murder behind bars. In

1:03:17

any other scenario, his wife, Corey, might have

1:03:19

been relieved, even grateful. Instead,

1:03:23

she was in disbelief because

1:03:25

her son Nick and his wife Jackie

1:03:27

had been arrested for criminal solicitation of

1:03:30

capital murder. I

1:03:32

read the arrest

1:03:34

affidavits and there

1:03:36

were quotes in them. And

1:03:39

the quotes could easily

1:03:41

have been taken out of context. I

1:03:44

am still thinking back to the way

1:03:46

that I was treated and how I

1:03:48

felt as though they were trying

1:03:50

to trick me into saying

1:03:52

or doing something. And

1:03:55

I thought that the same thing could be done to them.

1:03:58

And when Jackie was released on the phone, I was like, bail just two

1:04:01

weeks after the arrest, Corey hoped the case

1:04:03

was falling apart. I thought

1:04:05

that that might have been a good thing because

1:04:07

I thought maybe Nicholas would be coming out soon

1:04:10

after as well. Nick's attorneys advised

1:04:12

Corey not to speak with her son about

1:04:14

the case. And detectives

1:04:16

were keeping her in the dark about the

1:04:18

investigation. They still had a lot to

1:04:20

do. They knew Jackie and Nick

1:04:22

were not the actual shooters. So

1:04:25

you have two shooters out there that you need to

1:04:27

find. We still, yes. Investigators

1:04:29

took a closer look at those security videos they

1:04:32

gathered from Nick and Jackie's apartment. And

1:04:34

they found something. We saw two

1:04:36

people that arrived at the apartment

1:04:39

on February 28th in

1:04:41

the afternoon. And that's just a few days

1:04:44

before the murder? Yes. No

1:04:46

way to tell who the two people in the

1:04:49

video were. But they did spot a potentially big

1:04:51

clue. After the two males

1:04:53

entered the apartment, eventually one

1:04:55

of them accessed the apartment wearing

1:04:58

a green T-shirt from

1:05:00

Renewal by Anderson with the phone number on

1:05:02

it. That's the same

1:05:04

company as the

1:05:06

fingerprint from the window?

1:05:09

So at this point we have no idea what's going

1:05:11

on. They contacted the window

1:05:13

company and Luck seemed to be on their

1:05:15

side. Because even though it had been

1:05:17

years since the man in the video worked there, someone

1:05:20

remembered him. Who is he?

1:05:22

Cameron Vosmith. What's his connection to

1:05:25

Nicholas Shaughnessy? We have no

1:05:27

idea at this point. And

1:05:29

he didn't have any connection to the

1:05:31

window company employee they'd already investigated. That

1:05:34

was just a coincidence. They tracked

1:05:36

Cameron down and he willingly spoke to

1:05:38

investigators. He says the other guy in

1:05:40

this picture with me, his name is

1:05:42

Johnny Leon. He said Johnny

1:05:44

had approached him a few months back about a

1:05:46

job moving some stuff. They went over

1:05:48

to Nick's place. That's

1:05:51

when he said the conversation took a turn. Nicholas

1:05:53

tells him that some people in Austin are

1:05:55

costing him $30,000 a month and they may

1:05:59

be taken care of. So Cameron's starting

1:06:01

to get, you know, the hair standing up on

1:06:03

the back of his neck is what he's saying,

1:06:05

and he doesn't completely understand what they're asking of

1:06:07

him. So he keeps asking them

1:06:09

to clarify, and they keep telling them, the

1:06:12

less you know, the better. He

1:06:14

told the detectives he knew it was something bad

1:06:16

and decided to leave. Are you getting that sense

1:06:18

that he's telling the truth? Yes,

1:06:21

he explained how he knew Johnny, like where

1:06:23

Johnny lived. Investigators went

1:06:25

over to the apartment Johnny was staying

1:06:27

at and arrested him. What is

1:06:30

Johnny saying? Is he confessing that, yes, I'm part

1:06:32

of this, or is he saying

1:06:34

he had nothing to do with it? No, initially he

1:06:36

denied everything. He didn't know anything about it.

1:06:39

When they confronted Johnny with a picture of

1:06:41

him going into Nick's apartment, he started to

1:06:43

open up. Nick was

1:06:46

trying to hire him for a

1:06:48

murder, and that

1:06:50

he just didn't have it in him. Detectives

1:06:52

weren't buying it. They kept at him.

1:06:56

He did finally admit that

1:06:58

he did travel with Nick

1:07:00

to Austin because Nicholas was

1:07:03

going to do the murder. This

1:07:05

was just days before Ted was killed. What

1:07:08

happened? So he says they parked

1:07:11

on a side road across from the Chauncey House,

1:07:13

and he said Nicholas went up to the house.

1:07:15

He came back after a while, said, well, I

1:07:17

can't get in. And he said

1:07:20

they both drove back to College Station. Johnny

1:07:23

insisted that was the extent of his involvement, but

1:07:25

his cell phone data from the night of the

1:07:27

murder said otherwise. His

1:07:29

phone usage is in the

1:07:32

area of the Chauncey home at

1:07:34

the time of the incident. So you

1:07:36

now have one of your shooters, you believe? Correct.

1:07:40

Right. But there's still one more missing. Right.

1:07:44

Right. Johnny wasn't helpful when it came to

1:07:46

identifying the second shooter. Turns out

1:07:48

he didn't need to be. His phone records

1:07:51

did the talking for him again. Right

1:07:54

before the murder, Johnny had been talking

1:07:56

to a friend named Ariane Smith. Smith

1:07:58

denied being at the Chauncey house. and

1:08:01

said his ex-girlfriend would back up his alibi. He

1:08:04

said, she'll vouch for me, and she'll tell

1:08:06

you that we were together. But she told

1:08:08

investigators that on the night in question, he'd

1:08:10

left her in a motel room alone.

1:08:13

And he leaves in her car. She doesn't

1:08:16

know where he's headed. So

1:08:18

she actually tries to call him several times, and

1:08:21

she never is able to reach him. She

1:08:23

also told detectives about a gun he'd been carrying around

1:08:25

after Ted's murder, a .40 caliber, just

1:08:29

like one of the guns that was used in the crime.

1:08:32

Detectives later recovered the gun from one

1:08:34

of Smith's family members. Does

1:08:36

he get charged with murder? He

1:08:38

does. Yes, he does. For

1:08:42

investigators, the case was falling into place. Four

1:08:45

suspects enter arrest for one brutal

1:08:47

crime. But was

1:08:49

that the whole story? Jackie

1:08:52

had her own version of events. He

1:08:54

knew that they had a $1 million

1:08:56

license right off the gate.

1:08:58

But he told me it wasn't

1:09:01

about me. Nick

1:09:16

Shaughnessy sat in jail awaiting trial.

1:09:19

As his mother, Corey, struggled to comprehend the accusations

1:09:21

against him and his wife, Jackie, she

1:09:25

thought there had to be some kind of explanation. Was

1:09:28

it that they were out of the club and

1:09:30

talked to the wrong people? And

1:09:32

those people found out we were jewelers and meant to do us harm?

1:09:35

Did they owe money? Did they borrow money from

1:09:37

someone? I kept thinking maybe

1:09:40

they are involved, but only

1:09:42

in a circumstantial or tangential sort of way,

1:09:46

which would still be bad, but

1:09:49

not as bad as they

1:09:51

wanted to kill us. Since

1:09:55

Corey wasn't talking to her son directly, her

1:09:57

friend Karen acted as an intermediary of the police.

1:10:00

sorts. He would send me a

1:10:02

letter. I'd hand it over to Corey so she could see

1:10:04

what was going on with him. And he

1:10:06

also asked for things like books and

1:10:08

magazines. Corey sent him the

1:10:10

things he asked for. More importantly,

1:10:13

she paid for his defense attorneys. Nick

1:10:15

had been in jail for two years when they invited her

1:10:17

to meet with them. Nicholas's

1:10:20

attorneys wanted to

1:10:22

suggest to him that he take a

1:10:24

plea. They asked me to go to

1:10:26

Austin and to talk to them. How

1:10:29

difficult was it for you to have that conversation

1:10:31

with her about trying to help to get him to

1:10:34

take this plea because she'd been loyal to him for

1:10:37

so long? I think deep down in the

1:10:39

back of her mind, she knew that

1:10:42

Nick and Jackie had done this. I think as a

1:10:44

mother, maybe she was not wanting

1:10:46

to believe it, but she's a very

1:10:48

smart woman. So Rick Flores

1:10:50

went through the case with her, much

1:10:52

of it she'd heard by this point. But

1:10:54

she had one big unanswered question about

1:10:57

the 40 caliber gun recovered during

1:10:59

the investigation. Was the

1:11:01

40 caliber that they took

1:11:04

into evidence my husband's 40 caliber? And did he

1:11:06

say yes? Yes. It

1:11:08

was the missing gun they'd been looking for. Nick

1:11:11

had given it to Ariane

1:11:13

Smith. Ted had been killed with

1:11:16

his own weapon. I

1:11:18

finally had my questions answered and I knew

1:11:20

that Nicholas had done it. There

1:11:22

were no more excuses, no more

1:11:24

denials. The son she and

1:11:27

Ted raised and loved had wanted them dead. How

1:11:29

do you wrap your brain

1:11:31

around that? You don't. You just

1:11:34

don't. In a letter

1:11:36

to her son, she encouraged him to take the plea

1:11:38

deal offered by prosecutors. 35

1:11:41

years in prison with the possibility of parole.

1:11:44

I think having Corey help

1:11:46

helped us make

1:11:49

this decision. I told him that

1:11:51

he owed it to the memory of his father

1:11:53

to tell the absolute truth. Nick

1:11:56

listened. In April of 2021, he pleaded guilty.

1:12:00

to murder. That's bittersweet.

1:12:03

It gives the

1:12:05

human that he will have become a

1:12:08

possibility at having

1:12:10

some life, taking whatever

1:12:13

he has left and doing

1:12:15

something with it. The

1:12:18

hitmen, Ariane Smith and Johnny Leon,

1:12:20

also pleaded guilty to murder and were

1:12:22

sentenced to 35 years with the

1:12:24

possibility of parole. Ariane

1:12:26

Smith told investigators what happened after they

1:12:28

shot Ted. Her gun training may have saved

1:12:30

her life. Three

1:12:53

of the four accused conspirators were now

1:12:55

behind bars. But what

1:12:57

about Jackie? Shortly

1:13:00

after her arrest, she sat in a police interview

1:13:02

room and told them her version of events. Jackie

1:13:10

said she thought of Nick's parents as

1:13:12

family. That's why she said she couldn't

1:13:14

understand it when Nick brought up the idea of killing

1:13:16

them. According

1:13:26

to Jackie, Nick said his father was depressed,

1:13:29

miserable with his life. She

1:13:50

said Nick later told her it would be too painful

1:13:52

for his mom to live without his dad. So

1:13:55

he decided both of his parents needed to

1:13:57

go. your

1:14:00

parents like we visit

1:14:02

them every weekend we have fun we're

1:14:04

family I've always wanted what I

1:14:06

had with them I didn't think

1:14:09

we really had it in him to even

1:14:12

think about it and

1:14:14

that's why I never took his first initiative. So

1:14:18

other than his dad, him

1:14:20

thinking that his dad was miserable, what

1:14:23

other reason would it have to be? He

1:14:26

knew that they had a $1 million

1:14:28

license I

1:14:52

wanted to show him up I was

1:14:54

playing a game. She

1:14:56

told investigators Nick drove to Austin more

1:14:58

than once planning to kill his parents

1:15:01

and she went with him. I

1:15:04

never took it seriously, no I went with him.

1:15:08

You know, he wanted me to go with him and I

1:15:10

was like yes or whatever. I know he's not going

1:15:12

to do it. And if he is

1:15:14

going to do something crazy then I'll be

1:15:17

there to make sure he doesn't do it.

1:15:20

Did you buy that knowing all you knew

1:15:22

at this time? I think to us

1:15:24

it seemed more that she

1:15:26

was fully aware that he was serious

1:15:28

about it. I don't think she had

1:15:31

the intention to help him execute

1:15:34

the plan or hire the people

1:15:36

but she wasn't going to stop.

1:15:38

She had no intention on stopping it because I

1:15:41

think she had the same financial interest

1:15:44

that Nick was had. Jackie

1:15:47

had stayed quiet before the murder and

1:15:49

after it happened. Living

1:15:51

with Corey and every

1:15:53

single day how she would cry

1:15:55

about his and

1:15:58

how she needed it. She

1:16:00

was murdered and how she would

1:16:02

blame me all was really on you that... It

1:16:07

was her son and that killed me. She

1:16:11

deceived Corey after

1:16:13

the murder. She moved in. She deceived

1:16:16

us. Jackie

1:16:18

had been arrested along with Nick, then

1:16:21

freed on bail. Her case just

1:16:23

seemed to linger. She got

1:16:25

to attend all of her family events

1:16:27

and be with them, go to college,

1:16:30

go out with other guys, and

1:16:32

live her life. Jackie

1:16:34

divorced Nick while he sat behind bars.

1:16:37

Friends of mine would share

1:16:40

her pictures that she would post on

1:16:43

social media. She would be wearing

1:16:45

her jewelry, her diamond pendant. This

1:16:48

is like rubbing it in your face, you must have felt like.

1:16:51

I felt like that. Then,

1:16:53

in March of 2022, nearly a year

1:16:55

after Nick's guilty plea, it

1:16:57

looked like Jackie's case was finally headed to

1:17:00

trial. The charge against her was

1:17:02

changed to conspiracy to commit capital

1:17:04

murder. What would a jury

1:17:06

have to say about her fate? And

1:17:09

what would Nick say to us?

1:17:12

I'm trying to think of honestly what was going on in

1:17:15

your brain. You know, how does this happen? Nick

1:17:29

Shaughnessy says he's had time to think about what

1:17:31

he's done. How he ended

1:17:33

up here. Why did you

1:17:35

agree to sit down and do this interview with us? Nothing

1:17:39

can ever undo what I did, but it's

1:17:42

an attempt to make known factors

1:17:45

that are not already known and

1:17:48

to correct some of the narratives that are

1:17:50

out there. Nick says

1:17:52

there's one part of his story everyone agrees

1:17:54

is true. He had a

1:17:56

charmed childhood filled with love and support. It

1:18:00

was a perfect life, you know? Everything

1:18:02

you could ever dream of. I

1:18:05

had parents that cared for me, would do

1:18:07

anything for me. But

1:18:09

he says by the time he hid his teens, he

1:18:11

was searching for an identity. After blowing

1:18:13

through the money his parents gave him for his

1:18:15

day trading business, Nick says he

1:18:17

and Jackie discussed how he was his parents'

1:18:20

sole heir. This could all

1:18:22

be ours, you know? Like, you're

1:18:24

the only child you would get all

1:18:26

the money, the life insurance, the business,

1:18:29

the house. And so the more

1:18:31

that it became, that was

1:18:33

passively talked about, the more of

1:18:38

a reality it sadly became. What

1:18:40

is that conversation of how are

1:18:42

we going to kill them? It

1:18:45

was a

1:18:48

sad conversation. Like, part of me,

1:18:51

it's like, damn, this is my, this

1:18:53

is my family. The other part of me

1:18:55

is creating

1:18:58

a new life. Why do you need a new life? What's

1:19:01

wrong with your old life? Your parents loved you, they

1:19:03

gave you everything. I was seeking validation

1:19:06

and trying to create a new

1:19:08

sense of identity. Validation from who? Through

1:19:10

Jackie at the time. From Jackie? So

1:19:13

you're trying to impress Jackie? I

1:19:15

guess you could say that, yes, ma'am. And

1:19:17

what was this identity to be? That you were married and

1:19:20

you were rich and you could

1:19:22

have anything you wanted? Unfortunately

1:19:24

so. Power? I

1:19:27

can't speak to what enticed her about

1:19:29

it, but the power, the potentially

1:19:31

having the store. I mean, I'm trying to

1:19:33

think of honestly what was going on in

1:19:35

your brain. Like, is there a chip missing?

1:19:37

Is it, you know, were you somehow born

1:19:40

evil? How

1:19:43

does this happen? Because teenagers

1:19:45

mad at their parents or who want a

1:19:47

new life, they don't kill their parents. Most

1:19:50

definitely. I wish I had

1:19:52

an answer. I don't know if, is

1:19:55

there a chip missing, like you said? Like,

1:19:57

it happened and all my actions. I

1:20:00

understand, but I can't explain.

1:20:03

I can't justify them. Why not do

1:20:05

it yourself? I'm

1:20:07

a coward. I couldn't do that,

1:20:10

honestly. You don't think it's cowardly

1:20:12

also by hiring people to

1:20:14

go kill your parents? Most definitely. It's

1:20:16

extremely cowardly. You had

1:20:18

months to change your mind. This

1:20:21

was a well-thought-out, cold,

1:20:23

calculated plan. All

1:20:26

the doubts and all the hesitations

1:20:31

were outweighed

1:20:33

by Jackie's confidence and everything.

1:20:35

And we would just go back and forth

1:20:37

between talking each other into this idea, not

1:20:39

out of it. Nick

1:20:42

told investigators and us he doesn't

1:20:45

think Jackie was completely honest about the

1:20:47

role she played. She was very

1:20:49

involved with the planning. After

1:20:51

the murder, your mom never thought at all that you

1:20:53

would be involved in this. She got you an attorney. She

1:20:56

felt bad for you. How are you acting

1:20:58

like everything's fine and being there as a shoulder

1:21:00

to cry on for your mom when you were

1:21:02

responsible the whole time and you knew it? It

1:21:06

was truly eating me up inside. To

1:21:09

see the pain that we had caused, it

1:21:11

was not a good feeling. The hardest

1:21:13

part about this is she wanted a baby

1:21:15

so bad. She gave you a life

1:21:18

that most people could never dream

1:21:20

of along with your dad. They

1:21:23

did everything for you. And this is

1:21:25

how you repay them. I

1:21:29

just found the most deepest regrets. Nothing

1:21:33

should ever get

1:21:35

to that point. I

1:21:37

could trade places with my father, I would, just to

1:21:39

give that back to my mom. Do

1:21:41

you think about your father a lot?

1:21:43

Do you miss him? All the time. I

1:21:46

miss him getting on my ass. I

1:21:48

miss him, like, joking with me. Oh.

1:21:56

It's something I'll never have again. This

1:21:58

is the ultimate. active betrayal.

1:22:03

Yeah, it most definitely is, and it's

1:22:05

not something that I'm proud of. One

1:22:09

defendant remained. Jackie's case

1:22:11

was moving slowly. And

1:22:13

then in June, 2023, she agreed

1:22:15

to plead to a lesser charge, attempted

1:22:18

conspiracy to commit murder. The

1:22:21

court gave her something called deferred

1:22:23

adjudication. It's pretty unusual,

1:22:26

very unusual for these types of cases. Nick's

1:22:29

attorney, Rick Flores. So

1:22:31

a deferred adjudication in Texas is a way

1:22:33

for somebody to plead to

1:22:35

an offense, be placed on probation, but

1:22:38

ultimately not be convicted of it. There's no

1:22:40

finding of guilt if somebody

1:22:43

completes deferred adjudication. The

1:22:45

terms of Jackie's sentence, 120 days

1:22:47

in the county jail, and

1:22:50

probation for the next 10 years, during

1:22:52

which every year on the anniversary

1:22:55

of Ted's murder, he'll go to jail

1:22:57

for two days. Pretty

1:23:00

remarkable that he got 35 years and

1:23:02

she gets 120 days in the

1:23:04

county jail and two days every

1:23:06

year on the anniversary of Ted's death. Huge,

1:23:09

huge gap between those

1:23:11

two sentences. I

1:23:13

think the only difference between what Nick did

1:23:15

and what Jackie did is the relationship, is

1:23:17

that these were Nick's parents. Do

1:23:19

you think Jacqueline got off easy? Yes.

1:23:24

I would have liked to see any difference on this than

1:23:26

that. She was involved in

1:23:29

the planning? She could have stopped it all. In

1:23:32

a statement, the Travis County DA's

1:23:35

office told us Jackie provided helpful

1:23:37

information and that the

1:23:39

investigation revealed information that reduced her

1:23:41

culpability. The statement also says

1:23:44

their office is committed to holding people

1:23:46

who commit violent crimes accountable. Corey's

1:23:49

not so sure about that. Do

1:23:51

you feel like Jacqueline Edison essentially got

1:23:53

away with murder? Absolutely. My

1:23:56

husband is dead, my life is over, I'm supposed

1:23:58

to be dead. And she gets

1:24:01

probation. Is there anything

1:24:03

you want to say to the

1:24:06

district attorney? The term revictimization comes

1:24:08

to mind, and it is every

1:24:10

bit that. Corey didn't attend Jackie's

1:24:12

plea hearing, but she did record

1:24:14

this victim impact statement for the court.

1:24:17

We opened our home and our hearts to you,

1:24:20

and you and Nicholas took everything from us. How

1:24:24

long will it take for you to find another

1:24:26

family to destroy? How long

1:24:28

will it be before Bonnie finds her

1:24:30

next Clyde? You

1:24:32

are a monster. You

1:24:35

are evil. And everyone

1:24:37

needs to know it. Jackie

1:24:40

has already served her 120 day jail sentence. Neither

1:24:44

she nor her lawyer wanted to answer

1:24:46

our questions. Corey

1:24:49

hasn't spoken to Nick since his arrest. What

1:24:52

would you say to her? She's

1:24:54

going to watch this. I

1:25:00

wish that I could express how

1:25:02

truly sorry I am and that

1:25:05

the pain that I caused her was

1:25:08

so selfish and I'm trying

1:25:10

each and every day to be

1:25:12

the best version of myself to

1:25:15

hopefully show the world one

1:25:17

day that that is not who I am. I

1:25:21

have written to him, but

1:25:23

I keep the letters. I

1:25:25

never intend to send them. What do you say in the letters?

1:25:28

Lots of things. One of

1:25:30

which is how much I know he

1:25:32

would like me to talk to him, but

1:25:36

even though I will always

1:25:39

love my child, I don't

1:25:43

love the person that he is now.

1:25:46

In fact, I really hate the person that he

1:25:48

is now. And I

1:25:51

can't tell you what I would give

1:25:53

in this world to

1:25:56

be able to talk again to his dad,

1:25:58

but I can't. And so he's not

1:26:00

going to get to talk to me because ghosts can't

1:26:02

talk. And I'm supposed to be dead.

1:26:07

The legal cases are now closed. It's

1:26:09

already warm. And those who love Ted

1:26:12

are forced to carry on without him.

1:26:15

My friend is gone. I

1:26:20

don't get to grow old in

1:26:23

that friendship. There's not a

1:26:25

negative bone in that man's body.

1:26:28

He was a rare gift. And

1:26:31

he deserved to live

1:26:33

to be an old man and to live

1:26:35

life. What

1:26:38

do you miss the most about Ted? Everything?

1:26:47

Just my best friend. Yeah.

1:26:50

The little things? Just

1:26:54

everything. All

1:26:58

the little moments that added up

1:27:00

to a beautiful life together. That's

1:27:07

all for this edition of Dateline

1:27:09

and check out our Talking Dateline

1:27:11

podcast. Andrea Canning and Josh Mankiewicz

1:27:14

will go behind the scenes of

1:27:16

tonight's episode available Wednesday in the

1:27:18

Dateline feed, wherever you get your

1:27:21

podcasts. We'll see you again

1:27:23

next Friday at nine, eight central. I'm

1:27:25

Lester Holt for all of us at

1:27:27

NBC News. Good night. The

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