00:00:00
a quick note this six episode mini series revisits one of the most interesting cases I've ever investigated
00:00:08
the prosecution of reynella Leith for the murder of her husband David though this series first aired in 2017 the case
00:00:18
still lingers in my mind to this day every case has twists and turns every single case does but few cases have the
00:00:36
twists and turns that take you aback underneath that very respectable surface it seems like everything's rotting to
00:00:47
the core when you have success sometimes that makes people more interested in your downfall I'll just say we waited
00:00:55
for the autopsy and one of the autopsy said homicide I'm Aaron Moriarty 48 hours and this is
00:01:05
married to death get ready to hear about such an unusual gaze we need six episodes to tell it all
00:01:15
this is the story of raynella Lee and her case begins like so many others do with a call to 9-1-1
00:01:23
[Music] on March 13 2003 this frantic call came into the sheriff's office in Knox County
00:01:33
Tennessee but the death of 57 year old David Leith would turn out to be no ordinary suicide
00:01:52
[Applause] covered up with blankets and covers fingers are cold and turning stiff but I checked the
00:02:02
toes this is the voice of the lead detective Perry Moyers that day As He Walks Into the Dead Man's bedroom
00:02:16
ok here's another hoe he's fired more than once there has been more ones look right here right into the
00:02:25
bed right where the gun slinging there's also a shot into the bed which is a little suspicious in itself
00:02:30
another detective questions raynella who found him when when you when you open the bedroom door and you went in you
00:02:38
said you touched him um okay calm down it's okay all right take your deep breath
00:02:56
thank you I understand raynella was telling the police that he had committed suicide that's Beth
00:03:04
Roberts David's cousin but is it impossible I mean it's not uncommon for men in their 50s well I'll just say we
00:03:13
waited for the autopsy and one of the autopsy say homicide we're going to Knoxville to solve a
00:03:23
mystery that continues to baffle the best investigators and legal Minds in the state
00:03:30
this is a case that is pitted a daughter against her stepmother raised questions
00:03:35
about a County's judicial system and has forever tarnished the reputation of the
00:03:42
mysterious woman at its Center we begin in a Knox County Tennessee courtroom on a morning in May 2017.
00:03:57
um [Music] thank you please see the high profile trial is beginning 16 jurors are in the
00:04:19
courtroom but only 12 of them will end up deciding reynella's fate senior State judge Paul Summers
00:04:26
presiding I was an appointed senior judge by the Tennessee Supreme Court most every case that I try is somewhat
00:04:34
controversial and this one's controversial because of the woman sitting in front of him in the
00:04:41
defendant's chair this Leaf just like anybody else who's charged in a criminal case
00:04:48
is innocent until proven guilt reynella Leith is the one who made that frantic 9-1-1 call back in 2003
00:04:57
reporting her husband's suicide and now more than 14 years later she's in court on trial for his murder and what makes
00:05:07
the case interesting is that she is anything but the usual suspect she's a woman in her late 60s this
00:05:16
elegant tall gray-haired grandmother and mother the last person you would suspect
00:05:22
of being a diabolical murderer she was born reynella large she married a dosset and then she
00:05:31
married Elise so she's got a long name when you throw it all together such a southern name Diane Fanning who wrote a
00:05:38
book about reynella's life titled her deadly web is one of the dozens of writers and journalists drawn to this
00:05:45
trial like moths to a flame you can feel the Spanish moss dripping off the story and that's very much like
00:05:56
this there is the gentility of reynella dosset Lee so many of these people in the community that are
00:06:06
professionals and underneath that very respectable surface it seems like everything's rotting to the core it made
00:06:15
me want to learn more and every time I turned a page in this story there was something more to learn
00:06:23
the courtroom is packed with journalists like me Spectators and family members like Beth Roberts David Lee's cousin who
00:06:34
went to the trial every day and what was your first impression of raynella she fills up a room I mean
00:06:41
that's the first thing is that she was very pretty Beth told me that she first met raynella
00:06:49
24 years ago soon after she had married David I said to my mother I thought he'd
00:06:55
hit the jackpot with this girl because she was so pretty and so interesting and when she talked to you it was like you
00:07:03
were the only person in the room and she was terribly interested in what you had
00:07:07
to say both of them have been married before reynella's first husband Ed Dawson had died just six months earlier
00:07:14
and happened to be her new husband's best friend in a small town those details don't go unnoticed they
00:07:23
were happy to be able to have this little romantic Scandal to talk about and oh some of Dave's friends were
00:07:33
merciless they would not cut him any slack they gave him a hard hard time about it but it was more in a
00:07:40
good-natured way although that was accompanied by a little bit of concern that he was moving too fast
00:07:45
but by most accounts it was a love match David Leith was the Handsome Barber in town raynella the attractive Widow with
00:07:53
a large home and farm left to her by Ed Dawson she had her own thing going on it's not like she needed a husband I
00:08:01
mean she you know she was a very attractive very well-read uh woman I would imagine she would have been a
00:08:08
catch for any band unlike her two husbands reynella wasn't from Knoxville she grew up 25 miles away
00:08:16
in Oak Ridge Tennessee that's the town high up in the Smoky Mountains best known for the Manhattan Project larger
00:08:26
reactors were built at the Clinton engineering Works near Oak Ridge Tennessee she grew up among the children
00:08:31
of the elite group of scientists who developed the atomic bombster built a city eventually the
00:08:39
fifth largest in Tennessee and even among the elites Diane Fanning told me raynella stood out so she was well
00:08:48
educated and yet in this environment she still stood out as an excellent student
00:08:54
she was in the physics Club in the chemistry Club she was a student that teachers noticed and noted then I talked
00:09:03
to some people who knew her in high school who were absolutely shocked and the woman they knew in high school could
00:09:10
not have been where she is now it was at East Tennessee State University that reynella met Ed Dawson she was 21 years
00:09:19
old when they married in February of 1970. he brought her home to Knoxville where he went to law school and she
00:09:27
worked as a nurse in a hospital in town raynella was such a Confident Woman and she would walk into a room
00:09:40
and it was like you knew she was there she had presents and I think that Ed was really drawn to that
00:09:52
she was taller than the average woman she held herself with pride and there was something like having her
00:10:01
by his side that made him proud indirectly she just was exactly what he was looking
00:10:08
for even though he didn't know it till he found her they soon became Knoxville's power
00:10:14
couple they were successful her husband was elected district attorney he was respected she was the director of
00:10:21
nursing but Knoxville was and is at its heart an old-fashioned southern town she
00:10:28
has a strong personality and Josh Hedrick a 37 year old local defense attorney says reynella's Manor put a lot
00:10:36
of people off when you have success sometimes that makes people more interested in your
00:10:42
downfall they want to see a successful person fall Diane Fanning agrees people are looking for a crack or a flaw when
00:10:52
things are suspicious it sticks with them harder and they hold on to it the resentment towards raynell
00:11:00
is simmered even more after Ed does it suddenly died on his farm in 1992 investigators concluded he had been
00:11:10
traveled by his own cattle after they found him in a field with puff marks on his clothes
00:11:17
and reynella's marriage to his best friend David Leith just six months later didn't help matters
00:11:25
and then on March 13 2003 there was that call to 9-1-1 [Music] gentleman's laying in a bed covered up
00:11:44
with blankets and covers fingers are code when the first officer comes in he finds David Lee deceased in the band he
00:11:54
is covered by the bed clothes the the comforter and the sheet this is Stephen crop he's the district attorney
00:12:01
general Prosecuting reynella Lee where's the weapon the weapon was a cult revolver a six shot revolver a police
00:12:09
type weapon very common weapon and it was laying with the hammer inside the hand of David Lee how soon did
00:12:21
investigators start questioning this story of suicide I think it was probably immediate because there were three shots
00:12:27
there was more than one shot three shots one bullet was found in the headboard another in the mattress one in
00:12:36
David Lee's forehead and and while that's not unheard of well it didn't look like a suicide scene
00:12:43
and so I think from the beginning Perry Moyer who was the detective really started looking this and saying I don't
00:12:51
know that this is exactly right maybe this is a suicide but it doesn't look like one isn't it possible that David
00:12:57
was trying to shoot himself missed and then just try it again I mean no it's not
00:13:06
when when you when you open the bedroom door and you went in you said you touched him
00:13:13
Stephen Crump wasn't on the case back in March 2003 but he has listened to all the audio tapes from that day and he's
00:13:21
troubled by what raynella Lee said she did when she found her husband she's a nurse
00:13:28
she says she talked to him and he didn't answer and she said she looked at him and realized that something wasn't right
00:13:36
there was an enormous pool of blood around him and she was a nurse and she said she immediately calls 9-1-1 she
00:13:42
grabs 9-1-1 she doesn't attempt to roll him over she thinks she covered him up she doesn't give him CPR no she doesn't
00:13:48
touch him there's no blood found on her she doesn't try CPR she doesn't she doesn't even check to see if he's dead
00:13:55
just 24 hours after raynell Elite reported her husband's suicide a medical examiner ended the autopsy and reached a
00:14:04
very different conclusion so the medical examiner determined it was a homicide yes what do you believe happened to
00:14:12
David Lee right now Elite killed it she shot him she missed with the first shot it's a
00:14:18
scary proposition to take a human life she missed with the first shot she scored with the second shot
00:14:25
he ended his life for that second shot and then an attempt to cover up he fired that third shot to get gunshot residue
00:14:30
on him that's what I think you're describing a pretty cold-blooded killer yes that's what I think she is
00:14:40
but as you were about to hear believing in a case is one thing proving it in court has been something
00:14:47
else entirely can you connect reynella to that weapon fingerprints anyone see her pick up the
00:14:54
gun no can you connect raynella to any of the bullets that were used in that gun no
00:15:01
no that's a problem isn't it in this case if a jury's looking for that then yes back in 2003 could have predicted what
00:15:12
it would take to get to this day in court or the fact that it would take more than 14 years and this is actually
00:15:20
raynell Elise third trial for the murder of David Leaf she was first tried for his murder back in 2009 but the jurors
00:15:30
were deadlocked 11 to 1 so the judge declared a mistrial prosecutors were much more successful the following year
00:15:40
reynella was convicted and sentenced to life in prison she spent six years behind bars when that conviction was
00:15:49
vacated the reason as it turns out the judge who had handled her trial had a serious drug addiction so raynella was
00:15:59
sent home to wait until the state could try her again this time around it's Stephen crump's job
00:16:07
prosecutors know the term snake bit Yeah because what can go wrong will go wrong
00:16:12
in a case sometimes but this one tortured from a procedural standpoint something that we don't normally see a
00:16:19
hung jury followed by a guilty verdict followed by the case being upheld on appeal then set aside and back for a
00:16:28
third trial so it's it's really an unusual unusual scenario Crump tells me he's determined to make a
00:16:36
conviction stick especially because he believes this is not the first murder she committed Crump suspects she also
00:16:46
killed her first husband Ed and Trump wasn't the only one who had those suspicions so the ambitious woman from
00:16:55
Oak Ridge Tennessee made a name for herself all right a name no one would want the black widow
00:17:04
that's life in a small town attorney Josh Hedrick says story that's being told regardless of accuracy is Juicy
00:17:15
it's interesting you know people are discussing it they have opinions about it they're weighing potential theories and
00:17:23
you know I think this is what happened and I think this is what happened and you know what I heard she yelled at some
00:17:28
guy one time down at the co-op about moving his truck or whatever you know and it it gets its own it has a life it
00:17:37
becomes a a thing it becomes a living thing those stories rumors whirling around
00:17:49
reynello leave worry attorney Hedrick because he's now defending her along with an out-of-state attorney Rebecca
00:17:57
Legrand they believe reynella Lee has never killed anyone she's not a kill nope she's not a black
00:18:06
widow she is a woman who had a hard life and the justice system treated her wrong
00:18:17
is it possible that reynello Leith is just a very unlucky woman yeah of a coincidence make me itchy
00:18:27
[Music] this podcast series Married to death is developed by 48 hours in partnership
00:18:38
with CBS News Radio Judy Tigard is executive producer Nancy Kramer is our executive story editor Mike Valle and
00:18:48
Alan Pang are the series producer editors this episode was produced by Josh Gainer Lisa freed Louise Geraldo
00:18:57
and edited by Mike McHugh Dwayne Tolleson and Meghan Marcus thanks to composer Richard viocca for his original
00:19:05
scores Gabriella de mergen and Morgan Canty RR associate producers Kayla Kettle is our
00:19:14
production associate thank you to Craig swagler the vice president and general manager of CBS News Radio and finally a
00:19:24
shout out to all of you our fans we owe it all to you the millions of fans of 48
00:19:30
hours in the U.S and all around the world don't forget to join me online I'm at EF Moriarty on Twitter and we are at
00:19:41
48 Hours on Twitter Facebook and Instagram see you soon