00:00:01
♪♪ ♪♪ -I think we have to fight
hard for our loved ones, and we have to listen to them,
00:00:16
and be cautious about the people
that we allow into our lives. I wish so much that I would
have fought harder for Mom.
00:00:25
♪♪ I'm an only child
of Kim Langwell. She made me her whole world. She was my best friend.
00:00:41
In July of 1999, I was
a normal 15-year-old teenager. Everything seemed
pretty perfect in life.
00:00:52
♪♪ -July 9th. What are your plans for
that night? -We were going to go out
to eat.
00:01:01
She called me after work just to
make sure that I was on track, you know,
ready for for dinner that night.
00:01:08
And then I can't get ahold
of her. I immediately start
texting her, 911. She just never called.
00:01:17
And all I could think about was,
well, maybe there's something, you know,
that she's just not telling me.
00:01:24
And you just keep
thinking she was just there. She was just on the phone. What do I do?
00:01:32
I woke up to my phone ringing, and it was Ken Weatherford,
my mom's boyfriend. "Hey, did your mom come home?"
00:01:38
And I said,
"No, she's not here." And he said, "Well, Tiffani,
I didn't tell you last night.
00:01:43
I was looking for her,
and I saw her car. I think you need to call
somebody. I think something's wrong."
00:01:49
-So, detective,
where was her car? -Her car was parked right
about where I'm parked now.
00:01:56
You're looking for
physical evidence? We were looking for blood, and we were looking for a body,
looking for a crime scene,
00:02:04
and we had none of that. She just disappeared. -I think for the first year,
I kept it together.
00:02:10
And then after that,
it just falls apart. The person that you depend on
for everything is now gone.
00:02:18
♪♪ -In the spring of 2023, my supervisors filled me in
on reopening the investigation.
00:02:33
Our overall goal was just
to get answers for the family. We definitely got the feeling
00:02:39
that people were
not being completely honest in their statements that
they had provided back in 1999.
00:02:45
-She had a social life, and she
interacted with a lot of people. -This man was writing
her love letters.
00:02:51
-There is a stack an inch
and a half thick. This is a lot of love letters. -It's a lot.
00:02:58
"Kim, I have developed this
terribly strong crush on you. Something must be done
about it."
00:03:02
We're seeing
obsessive behavior here. We didn't want to get
tunnel vision. Do we have any named suspects
in this file?
00:03:10
-You know, some cases rely
on the physical evidence. There's DNA, there's a body.
00:03:13
This doesn't exist.
We cannot find Kimberly. -We called Tim Miller. He's the founder
of Texas EquuSearch.
00:03:22
They actually specialize
in looking for missing people. -It doesn't matter
when we get that phone call.
00:03:28
We're there to help the family,
help law enforcement. We took a chance,
and it was a good choice.
00:03:34
-This house is where we
found the most disturbing scene. Something I've never seen
00:03:40
or heard of
in my law enforcement career. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -This case, even
after I retired --
00:04:37
This case has haunted me... I felt like I had failed. -And you felt
that you failed the family?
00:04:52
-Yes. And her. -It has been
more than two decades since 34-year-old
Kim Langwell disappeared,
00:05:03
and former Beaumont Texas detective Joe Ball
still relives those early days of the investigation over
and over again.
00:05:13
On July 10th, 1999, a day after Kim Langwell failed
to arrive home, Detective Ball was summoned
to a strip mall parking lot
00:05:23
in front of an Eckerd pharmacy. -My mom's car is there,
and nobody's checked it out.
00:05:29
We need to see what's
in the car. -Kim's daughter,
Tiffani McInnis, who was just 15 at the time,
and Kim's sister, Susan Butts,
00:05:38
had already arrived
at the scene. When you looked
through the window, what did you see in the car?
00:05:43
-I saw her briefcase
and a phone. -No purse. No wallet. No keys. -No, no. Yeah. The purse was not in there.
The car was locked.
00:05:50
-No keys inside? -Mm-mm, nothing. Just looked
like somebody walked away. -This is where
Kim's vehicle was.
00:05:57
-This is where Kim's
vehicle was parked. -And what did that suggest
to you? -It suggested to me
00:06:03
that she either met someone here
and left with them, or that she had been kidnapped
out of this parking lot.
00:06:08
-But no one could recall
seeing anyone get in or out of Kim's car. -I do know that they said
to me,
00:06:16
"Maybe she just went off. Maybe she just had started
a new life." And left her child?
00:06:21
No, she didn't.
She didn't do that. -Esther Randall was
like a second mom to Kim,
00:06:27
who called her "Mimi." -I thought of her as my own.
We adored her. She was easy to love.
She was fun.
00:06:38
-She was an amazing mom. She had me at a very young age. But she treated me
like I was everything.
00:06:49
-It became clear
to Detective Ball that Kim would never
abandon her only child. -I was pretty sure that
something had happened to her.
00:07:00
-So we focused on those
who were closest to Kim, starting with Kim's boyfriend,
Ken Weatherford.
00:07:06
He was the one
who discovered her abandoned car in the parking lot
the evening she disappeared.
00:07:13
-He seemed like a
really nice guy. He cared about my mom.
He cared about me. -Kim and Ken had met
at the mobile chemical plant
00:07:21
where they both worked. They had been dating
for just six months. Weeks before Kim disappeared,
00:07:28
they took a trip
to Cozumel, Mexico. -She had a great time,
and she had a tan. And it was fun.
00:07:35
-Did you sense
they were both in love? -Yes. She was like,
"I'm happy, Mimi." -However, Detective Ball says
he was suspicious
00:07:43
of Weatherford, mostly
because of what he didn't do the night Kim disappeared. -He saw her car
in the parking lot,
00:07:51
but he did nothing. He didn't tell anybody. He waited until the next day before he told anybody that
he knew where Kim's car was.
00:07:59
-And did you think
to yourself, this man may be hiding
something from me? -I suspect everybody.
Everybody's a suspect.
00:08:07
-And that included co-workers and former bosses
like Frank McCormick. This is an ID photo taken
of him decades later.
00:08:16
-Frank McCormick was
a supervisor out in Mobile, and he worked in
the same building as my mom.
00:08:23
-Tiffani says McCormick,
who was married, often came around their house
and left
00:08:28
Kim presents like chocolates
from Paris. -He adored her. He talked about her big
blue eyes and how sweet she was.
00:08:35
And then it went from that
to a little darker. -McCormick began sending Kim
love letters, dozens of them.
00:08:44
He also sent
disturbing photo collages. These are grainy copies
that were given to "48 Hours"
00:08:52
by investigators. -Pictures of all kinds
of women with Kim's face on the bodies.
00:08:59
-Esther said that
Kim was upset about McCormick's bizarre behavior, but she didn't report him
for fear of retribution.
00:09:07
-Kim was nice to everybody, but I think he just thought
because she was nice to him
00:09:11
that she liked him. -Detectives say, despite
McCormick's obsessive behavior, he had an alibi.
00:09:19
Around the time Kim disappeared, he told investigators
he was at a grocery store
00:09:25
to buy some chips
for a poker game, and he had the receipt
to prove it. -We looked at him,
we talked to him, and, uh,
00:09:33
and we were able to rule him
out as a suspect. -But authorities had
someone else on their radar.
00:09:39
Terry Rose, Kim's ex-boyfriend. Kim and Terry dated and lived
together for about six years.
00:09:46
After they broke up,
the two stayed in contact. -I do know that she kept
a friendly relationship.
00:09:53
He would help her do things. -In fact,
the night Kim disappeared, Kim had stopped by Terry Rose's
house on the way home from work.
00:10:02
-He was doing something
in the house and needed help hanging
some boards, which I thought was strange.
00:10:09
-Just two days after
Kim's disappearance, Terry Rose willingly came
into the police station
00:10:15
and provided a statement. Terry said on the evening
she disappeared, Kim arrived about 5:10
or 5:15 p.m.
00:10:25
and was at his house
for just a short time before leaving to meet Tiffani. Terry claimed he had
not heard from her since.
00:10:34
-I felt
like Terry was not being completely truthful with us. It was the tone
of the whole interview
00:10:39
and how vague he was
about about details. -Yet Terry Rose was
cooperative. He allowed police to search in
and around his house.
00:10:50
-We went into every room
in that house. It was just a very junky house. There was stuff everywhere.
00:10:57
Made it very difficult
to to conduct a search. -Ball says there were
no signs of Kim at the house
00:11:03
and no evidence that any
violence had taken place there. But he had Terry take
a polygraph test, and he failed.
00:11:12
-At that point,
I was pretty focused on Terry. I was pretty sure
that he was lying,
00:11:18
but I didn't have any evidence
to confront him with. -If not, even the authorities
can do something to find my mom.
00:11:25
Who's going to help us? ♪♪ ♪♪ -Once mom was gone for
a little while, you know,
you come to realize that, hey,
00:11:49
she's not going to come back. -Tiffani McInnis endured the
typical teenage growing pains
00:11:56
under the shadow of her mother's
missing person investigation. -I got to a point
of just complete denial.
00:12:02
You just don't want to look
anymore. Aunt Susan did a really good job
keeping it going.
00:12:08
She did searches and stuff
like that. -Like investigators, Susan says she became more
00:12:17
and more
convinced who was responsible. -It just always ended up
right back at Terry.
00:12:23
-Esther says Kim had shared
her fear of Terry Rose well before her disappearance.
00:12:29
-"I'm afraid he's
going to kill me. if I leave, he's going to kill me." -Kim had described
Terry's obsessive
00:12:36
and possessive behavior during
their six-year relationship, says Esther, which she
sometimes witnessed firsthand.
00:12:45
-She came to my house. My phone rang the entire time
she was there. When are you coming,
or are you still there?
00:12:50
Is she still there?
-Controlling. -Controlling.
Unbelievably controlling. -Esther says Kim told her
that, at times,
00:12:57
that need for control
boiled over into violence. And what are some
of those things he did to her?
00:13:03
-Strangled her.
He threw her on a bed and strangled her 'til
she couldn't breathe anymore.
00:13:09
And then she woke up,
and he was gone. -Tiffani believes
her mother shielded her
00:13:14
from witnessing any abuse, but says she did experience
Terry Rose's obsession firsthand
00:13:21
after the relationship
finally ended. -He would call the house at
all times during the day, night.
00:13:28
If mom wasn't home, he questioned me, you know,
"Where is she at? Where has she been?
00:13:33
When do you expect her home?" We had found him lurking
outside the house. -But that all stopped
abruptly once Kim was gone.
00:13:43
Was Terry concerned
about your sister? -No, not at all.
-Did he help look for her?
00:13:48
-No. Never. -In 2001, two years
after Kim's disappearance, the FBI assisted
by interviewing Terry Rose.
00:14:00
He admitted to one
physical confrontation with Kim, where he slapped her
in the face,
00:14:06
and he acknowledged that he had
no alibi for the crucial hours. From approximately 5:30 p.m.
00:14:14
on the day Kim went missing,
until he met up with a friend that evening. -He called his friend
David Wiley,
00:14:22
and they shot pool from about
9:30 until probably midnight or a little after. But after I talked to
David Wiley,
00:14:31
I was even more suspicious, because I was pretty sure David
Wiley was lying to me, too.
00:14:36
-But investigators still
lacked any physical evidence of an actual crime,
and the case went cold.
00:14:44
Decades passed until 2023, when the TV program
"Cold Justice" chose to investigate
the unsolved case,
00:14:54
and the Beaumont PD appointed
detectives to work alongside them. -When I got assigned the case,
we set the bar pretty low.
00:15:03
-Detective Heather Wilson
became the lead investigator, working alongside
Lieutenant Mitch Sliger and
00:15:10
Detective Jesus Tamayo. They began by looking at all the
original suspects once again,
00:15:17
like Kim's last boyfriend,
Ken Weatherford. -We had already
narrowed down the time frame
00:15:23
when we believe
something happened to Kim. -Weatherford declined
an interview with "48 Hours."
00:15:28
He was actually with Tiffani
around the time Kim went missing,
so investigators ruled him out.
00:15:35
-We also looked into
a former boss of Kim's named Frank McCormick. -That boss
who had sent Kim all those
00:15:42
disturbing love letters
and images. -You have to ask yourself, how far was he willing
to go to get her attention?
00:15:49
-Because obsession
can lead to something dangerous. -Absolutely. -Frank McCormick declined
an interview with "48 Hours,"
00:15:56
but he did speak
to investigators. Detective Wilson confronted him
with a stack of those letters.
00:16:14
-Regardless of what he said, he remembered.
McCormick still had that alibi documented by the
grocery store receipt
00:16:21
from around the time
Kim disappeared. -So, ultimately, we felt like Frank was
not relevant to this case.
00:16:29
-Who became your top suspects
in the disappearance of Kim? -Our top suspect was
Terry Rose.
00:16:38
He's showing all
the typical behaviors of someone who is abusive. He just couldn't...
Couldn't let go.
00:16:44
I'm Heather Wilson. -But when approached
more than two decades later, Terry Rose, now 66 years old,
00:16:51
was still adamant he had nothing to do with
Kim Langwell's disappearance. -And so we're trying
to find his inner circle.
00:17:07
So we wanted to find these
people that were close to Terry. -One of those people
was David Wiley,
00:17:14
who Terry Rose played pool
with the night Kim went missing. -We could feel
that David was the weakest link.
00:17:26
-Detective Jesus Tamayo showed
up at David Wiley's door in 2023 and interviewed him
in his patrol vehicle.
00:17:46
-Investigators were
convinced Wiley wasn't telling them everything he knew. So, in April of 2024,
the DA convened a grand jury,
00:17:55
where Terry Rose and David Wylie would have to testify
under oath. Rose stuck to
his original story,
00:18:03
but Wylie, while
also consistent, seemed uneasy. -He was very nervous.
He seemed very uncomfortable.
00:18:11
-So we decided
to call David Wylie and see if he would just be willing
to come in
00:18:14
and take a polygraph test.
He immediately was like, "You're going to need
to contact my attorney,"
00:18:20
and ended the phone call. So we knew at that point
that we were on to something.
00:18:27
-That hunch was confirmed when
Wylie's attorney called back. -He does have information
for y'all
00:18:33
that's going to help
you find her. ♪♪ ♪♪ -In April 2024, more than two decades
after Kim Langwell disappeared,
00:18:57
David Wiley was ready
to talk to investigators. -This was huge.
This is what we needed.
00:19:03
-But only under one condition. -His attorney told us
he wants full immunity from any kind of prosecution.
00:19:10
I said, okay, we kind of need to know
what we're working with here. -Detectives wondered if Wiley
could have been an accomplice.
00:19:17
-He said, no, he didn't -- he's not saying
that he killed her, that he just has information
of what happened to her.
00:19:23
So we're like,
"We can work with that." -With assurances
of an immunity deal, David Wiley met
with investigators
00:19:30
at his attorney's office. Wiley told detectives
that on July 9, 1999, the day Kim disappeared,
00:19:44
he received a call
around 6:15 p.m. from his friend and former boss,
Terry Rose.
00:20:34
-Later that evening, Wiley said he met up with Terry
to play pool. The two then had breakfast
the next morning.
00:20:41
Wiley was foggy on the timing, but says Terry, out of the blue, told him a horrific story
about what had happened to Kim.
00:21:20
♪♪ -We couldn't quite comprehend "She's under the slab
in a bedroom in his house."
00:21:32
-Days later, David Wiley
was given a polygraph test... ...and passed. But before they
could arrest Terry Rose,
00:21:47
the district attorney's office
insisted they get physical evidence that
would back up Wiley's story.
00:21:53
-We still had a lot of work
to do. We're going to be cracking
the slab of this house.
00:21:57
We're going to be looking
under the floor, as David described
where she was. It was going to be
a huge operation.
00:22:03
-And it would take intricate
and secretive planning. Detectives feared
that if Terry Rose found out,
00:22:10
David Wiley's life
could be in danger. They were also concerned
about the safety of Terry's
00:22:16
common-law wife, Violet. -What is his mindset? If this man is really
the narcissist psychopath
00:22:22
we believe him to be, will Violet's life be in danger,
too? -So they devised a ruse.
00:22:29
On June 10, 2024, Terry Rose and Violet were
called to the police station to discuss another case.
00:22:37
Terry's father had been
a victim of a homicide five years
after Kim disappeared.
00:22:44
After that conversation, the Langwell investigators
stepped in. -I think he was truly
caught off guard
00:23:03
that he was called to the
police station for one thing, and now this is happening.
00:23:09
-As Detectives Tamayo and Wilson serve Terry Rose
with the search warrant, investigators were at his house
00:23:16
ready to begin looking for
Kim Langwell. -I think at that point, he knew that his world
was crashing down,
00:24:10
but he couldn't stop it. -Hi.
-Detectives Wilson and Tamayo then went to speak to Violet.
00:24:40
-She really wasn't worried
about Terry, I don't think. I think that she really thought
00:24:43
that he had nothing
to do with this. And we weren't going to find
whatever we were looking for.
00:24:56
-Oh, gosh. -Terry Rose and Violet
were free to go, but not to their home. Police put tracking devices
on Terry's vehicles
00:25:05
so they could monitor
his movements. The next day, an FBI evidence
response team assisted
00:25:12
Beaumont PD investigators
at Terry's house. -They brought in
their own equipment,
00:25:17
ground-penetrating radar. So they started
that tedious process of scanning all the rooms.
00:25:23
-By day three of the search, they scanned one of the two
bedrooms in Terry Rose's house.
00:25:29
But the next morning,
the equipment had to be pulled. -Now there was a little bit
of a scramble in a panic of
00:25:36
we need to get another GPR
out here, ground-penetrating radar. But Detective Wilson had a great
idea and somebody we could call.
00:25:44
-That somebody was Tim Miller, the founder of Texas EquuSearch, an organization that specializes
in finding missing people.
00:25:54
-You know, it doesn't matter
when we get that phone call, we're there to help the family,
help law enforcement.
00:26:01
-Later that afternoon, Miller and his team got to work
on the second bedroom. -Literally within
three or four minutes,
00:26:08
we noticed
that there's something here. There's no wire mesh.
This area has been disturbed.
00:26:14
And then I pounded on it
just a couple of times lightly. And that area was hollow.
00:26:20
-You could hear it.
-I could hear it. And it was like,
"She has to be here." -Almost immediately,
00:26:26
we start breaking
the tile flooring that was in that bedroom. -We started with sledgehammers.
-Sledgehammers.
00:26:32
And once we made
that initial break in the tile, we realized that
he had stacked cinder blocks
00:26:37
underneath the flooring. So those cinder blocks
just immediately collapsed and there was a divot.
-A void.
00:26:43
-Yeah, a void. So we knew this is not normal. We knew we were
in the right area.
00:26:52
-Then Detective Tamayo
made a discovery. -I found, like, a key chain
and a pair of sunglasses.
00:27:02
-Not long after,
they found something else. -One of our ID technicians
actually found three small,
00:27:09
very small bones
that we believe were toe bones. ♪♪ ♪♪ -Once we found human bones,
00:27:35
we knew she was there
and the decision was made. It's time
to get an arrest warrant.
00:27:43
-On June 13, 2024, more than two decades
after Kim Langwell disappeared, undercover Beaumont
police officers had their eyes
00:27:53
on Terry Rose,
tracking his every movement as they waited for
an arrest warrant for murder to be signed
by a judge.
00:28:02
Mitch, you're being briefed
on all this, right? -Yes.
I'm back at the police station.
00:28:06
-And where is Terry? -Terry is going to
a local restaurant here in town to have dinner with his wife.
00:28:11
Terry Rose is walking out
of the restaurant, and I could hear the chatter. Is that warrant signed?
We see him moving.
00:28:19
He's paying his check.
He's walking. And then I say "Warrant signed.
Arrest him."
00:28:29
-Let me see your hands.
Hands up! Hands up!
Back up, Violet, back up! Over here! Over here!
-Get down on the ground!
00:28:38
-Over here! Get her. Get her. -His demeanor was different. It wasn't the same Terry
I'd seen.
00:28:46
You could see the defeat
on his face. I think he knew it was over. -Terry Rose
was immediately transported
00:28:55
to the police department, where Detectives Wilson
and Tamayo were waiting to question him.
00:29:26
-His true character is
being revealed in that moment. -Detectives then brought
Terry Rose's wife, Violet,
00:29:50
along with her brother
and sister-in-law, into the interrogation room. -Do you believe that Violet
knew nothing about the fact
00:30:45
that her husband murdered
this woman and buried her under
the floor of the house?
00:30:51
-I believe that she
did not know any of that. I don't think
she ever speculated that he was actually involved.
00:30:57
-Violet declined
our request for an interview. Now in custody,
Terry Rose headed to jail
00:31:05
facing a murder charge. -And we watched him walk
down the stairs in handcuffs. You know, with police
escorting him to the police car
00:31:15
and then, you know,
stared him down, gave him the looks
that he deserved as he, you know, had to drive
right past us to go to prison.
00:31:28
-And your eyes
were sending a message, right? -Absolutely. -And that message was?
00:31:34
-"We got you. I finally have her back. Not the way I want her,
but he's -- he's finally going to pay for
what he did."
00:31:44
-Did you do it? -Did you? -Back at the Rose property, investigators continued to dig
into the early morning hours
00:31:54
to make sure they recovered
all of the remains. -So the whole excavation process
took about 13 hours.
00:32:01
So we were there
through the night. We found her
completely skeletonized. She had been wrapped
in a blanket,
00:32:07
so luckily she was all there. We found all of her. And there was also
a very obvious gunshot wound
00:32:13
to the back of her head. -Is there an emotional component
for you at this moment?
00:32:17
-It is. It's very -- It's kind of hard
to describe the room, but it was very quiet.
00:32:23
And we all knew that
this was a grave site, somewhere that she had been
buried and imprisoned for years.
00:32:30
And it was a great moment
knowing that we're finally getting her
out of this house
00:32:35
to bring her home to her family. -Weeks later,
the results from DNA testing and dental records verified
what everyone already knew --
00:32:46
that the remains were,
in fact, Kim's. -We were very excited about
going to trial in this case.
00:32:58
-Jefferson County Prosecutor
Luke Nichols was also confident. -They found a murder victim's
body under a man's floor.
00:33:04
So as far as proving it,
it was a great case. Strong case. -Nichols was ready
to share with jurors
00:33:11
his theory of what happened
to Kim Langwell the evening she was murdered. -Something that Kim said or
did brought home to Terry Rose
00:33:19
that he lost, that he lost her, that she was moving on
with her life. She had a new boyfriend that
she was getting serious with.
00:33:25
She did not need him anymore,
and that set him off. I think once he killed her and made the decision
to put her body under his floor,
00:33:34
it was just a sick, twisted way of maintaining
physical control over her body. -Terry Rose, you're being
charged with the murder
00:33:41
of Kimberly Langwell. -But just a week
before the trial was to begin, Rose's defense attorney
approached Nichols
00:33:48
about a plea deal. Nichols offered
a maximum sentence of 40 years without the ability to appeal
00:33:56
in exchange for a guilty plea
from Terry Rose. -With a guilty plea,
he's admitting guilt
00:34:02
for the first time
since this happened. More importantly, we can't
promise that a jury of 12 people
00:34:09
is going to always get it right. -When presented with the deal, Tiffani and Susan
had mixed feelings.
00:34:17
-I wasn't happy, you know,
at first. What I had to think about
is the fact that we have lived and breathed
this situation for 25 years,
00:34:28
and if I can walk away
from this courtroom and I don't have to come back
for any kind of appeals,
00:34:33
that's a good day. -Rosa's attorney agreed
to the terms. Now Prosecutor Nichols
would have to persuade the judge
00:34:43
to give Terry Rose
the maximum 40-year sentence. -We had this horrible story of
what he had done to this family,
00:34:50
and I thought it was important
to get all that out there. -Nichols would present
crucial evidence
00:34:54
at the sentencing hearing, including testimony from
his star witness, David Wiley.
00:35:01
-What I told him was
this is your chance to make it as right as you can
at this point.
00:35:05
You can't go back 25 years
and start telling the truth, but you can start now. The state calls David Wiley.
00:35:11
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -I'm anxious. I'm nervous
to have to look at him. So a lot of nerves
going in to that moment.
00:35:41
-That moment
over a quarter of a century in the making
came in December of 2025,
00:35:47
when Tiffani McInnis,
flanked by supporters, faced her mother's killer
in a courtroom.
00:35:58
-All rise. -The term of the plea deal were he would get anything
up to 40 years.
00:36:03
At his age, 40 years is
a life sentence, and my goal from the get-go was
to make sure he never breathed
00:36:07
one more breath of free air. -Prosecutor Nichols called
David Wiley to the stand...
00:36:13
-You swear
or affirm the testimony you're going to give in
this hearing will be the truth,
00:36:16
the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. -Yes, I do. -...who recounted Terry Rose's
confession to him back in 1999.
00:36:24
-Did he give you any detail
as to how that happened or where he shot her? -Only thing he told me
was the back of the head.
00:36:30
-That he shot Kim
in the back of the head. -Correct.
-Now, the police asked you about this in 1999, didn't they?
-Yes, they did.
00:36:36
-And did you tell them the truth
about what had happened and what Terry had said?
-No, I did not.
00:36:40
-And so you kept
your mouth shut, did you? -I did.
-You kept Terry's secret. -I did.
00:36:45
-Wiley said he now regrets
guarding that secret which caused so much
needless heartache and despair.
00:36:52
-25 years after it happened,
what made you come forward? -I didn't want to live with it
any longer.
00:36:58
I'm tired of it being
on my conscience. -Is there something
you want to say to Tiffani McInnis
and her family?
00:37:04
-I wish that I'd have came
forward right when it happened. -What was it like
to listen to Wiley on the stand?
00:37:11
-Frustrating. It's frustrating that here
we spent all this time trying to figure out what
the hell happened,
00:37:21
and you had an answer
right in your back pocket. -So, Tiffani,
I'm sorry you have to be here.
00:37:29
-Me too. -Tiffani was called to testify. -And once I'm on the stand, all I can think about
is do not stare at him,
00:37:36
because I don't know
if I'll be able to talk. -She described those
agonizing years not knowing
00:37:41
where her mother was
or what had happened to her. -My mom is the person
that I go to for everything.
00:37:48
So I'm lost. Very lost. -Tiffani recalled
her devastation on learning her mother's fate
all those years later.
00:37:58
-I just screamed
and pulled over my car. -And then expressed her hope
for Terry Rose's punishment.
00:38:05
-I would like him sentenced
to at least 40 years. I think he deserves that.
-And you and I have spoken.
00:38:12
There's not a number
that really makes this right. -No, there never will be. -The judge also heard
from Terry Rose himself...
00:38:26
...via a recorded jail call
with his son. At one point,
Terry Rose callously described
00:38:32
his frame of mind
when he killed Kim Langwell. Then the two coldly discussed
what they wished for Tiffani.
00:39:07
-"I will mail you
a cup of my [bleep] and you can pour it
on her grave." And to say that about
the daughter of a woman
00:39:14
you killed is just horrific. -The fact on that phone call that you said you're
not a psychopath,
00:39:24
who isn't a psychopath that kills someone
that they once cared about and buries them in their house
00:39:33
and lives on top of them
for 25 years? I would think that's
the definition in Webster's Dictionary
of a psychopath.
00:39:39
-Now Judge West handed down
her sentence. -And Tiffani's right.
40 years isn't enough.
00:39:46
There is a part of me
that wishes I had not accepted
this plea agreement and that we had gone to trial
last week,
00:39:51
because I do think
a jury would have given you life or 99 years. I actually do. I'm going to sentence you
to a term of 40 years
00:39:58
in the institutional division of the Texas Department
of Corrections. -And Tiffani got the final word.
00:40:06
-Milestones that should
have been shared with my mom -- My 16th birthday,
my 18th birthday,
00:40:14
my high-school graduation -- have all been shadowed
by her absence. It wasn't until we got to
my victim's statement
00:40:22
that I really stared at him, and I wanted him
to hear my words because I meant
every single one.
00:40:28
You refer to the day
you murdered my mother and buried her beneath
your bedroom as a bad day.
00:40:34
That bad day cost me everything. -If he's watching, do you have
anything to say to Terry Rose?
00:40:42
-I don't think I have
anything left to say to him. I hope he rots in jail. ♪♪ -When you think about your mom
now, what do you think about?
00:40:58
-Um... I try to remember all
the good times with Mom more than anything. The good memories. Her humor.
00:41:09
My mom was so strong, and she
deserves us talking about her and keeping her alive
in that way.
00:41:16
-How she lived
as opposed to how she died. -Absolutely. Yeah.