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you don't know for certain whether the gun was opened or the cartridges manipulated prior to that photo being
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taken I do not didn't have toxicology didn't have ballistics didn't have medical records I
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was very confident and 14 years later I'm even more so confident and so there's a difference between
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innocent and not guilty I have no idea if she's innocent I truly believe she's not guilty
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I'm Aaron Moriarty 48 hours this is married to death part four in March of 2003 57 year old David Leith
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was found dead at his Tennessee home of what it first appeared to be a suicide but when the evidence didn't add up to
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investigators his wife reynella Leith was charged with his murder she was actually tried three times the
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first ended with a hung jury the second trial reynella Leith was convicted but that conviction was
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overturned her third trial began in May of 2017. and this time we were in the courtroom and that's where we pick up
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the story in part four of married to death may I please the court ladies and gentlemen of the jury
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good afternoon [Music] as in most murder trials is more than one way to look at the evidence here at
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the County Courthouse in downtown Knoxville Tennessee it's now the defense's turn before we can talk about
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March 13 2003 we have to go back and understand how we got to that point attorneys Josh Hedrick and Rebecca
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Legrand feel their client has never had a fair shot that she never received any presumption of innocence every good
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thing she's done every normal regular everyday thing she's done is Twisted into some sort of sinister
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Act part of a vast complex plan to engineer the death of David instead of a fair trial they believe
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they're up against a decade of presumptions of guilt here's my producer Josh Gainer
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some of the trial was carried live on uh television and were plastered across the
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front page so their concern was how are you going to find people within this County who had not in the very least
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heard about what happened and at the very worst knew these people personally and we heard during jury selection there
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were some folks who whether their kids went to school with other kids or it's it's not a tiny town but it's not a big
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place either and I think the bigger concern was okay you knew her name but did you also attach that phrase Black
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Widow that's all you needed her hope for the justice system not failing her a third time is kind of on us is on us
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yeah and that's a terrifying responsibility she's got hope that the justice system isn't so broken that it
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won't eventually realize the truth which is that she's an innocent woman the defense tells the jury that there
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wasn't a murder at all it was suicide but before they attacked the state's evidence they first go after the motive
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as we've discussed in previous episodes prosecutors don't have to prove a motive
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in a murder case but the defense knows it's in the jurors Minds so attorney Josh Hedrick suggests
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to the jury that there was only one person with a reason to kill David Leith and it was David Lee himself
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see in the year 2000 David gets sick and goes to the hospital after being discharged from the hospital
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he's really never quite the same they say David was a man whose mind was failing him he began getting confused
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and forgetful he was going to lose who he was he was starting to lose his abilities
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he couldn't work anymore he struggled with fence Clips lifetime farmer can't do it
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it's frustrating demoralized but David Leith was also a proud man never wanting to appear vulnerable he
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was able to hide his problems from almost everyone give us your name please ma'am Katie Butler
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Ms Butler your reynella leith's daughter am I right I am raynella's youngest daughter Katie was just a teenager back
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then still living at home he just stopped being active um he would sleep in really late he stopped working out he
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just kept to himself more she told a story of finding David at the house watching TV
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he was eating ice cream he was lifting the spoon up and he thought he was making it to his mouth
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and it was just dropping so things like that out of character yeah did he have trouble with uh confusion
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yeah medical records show David was hospitalized several times and began seeing a neurologist he never told his
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friends or even his daughters Cindy there was something wrong with David's head the specific type of dementia isn't
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important what's important is he couldn't do the things he used to do and he talked to his neurologist and he
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knew this was a condition that was not going to get better it was going to get worse
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he was going to lose who he was the defense says it was that desperation that led David to do the unthinkable to
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take his own life and with that motive established the defense then focuses on the three shots
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discovered at the crime scene we go back to defense attorney Josh Hedrick that each and every one of these shots
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each and every one of these trajectories could have been accomplished by David Leith himself
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multiple shot suicides are not impossible they have the biggest challenge for the
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defense really has nothing to do with trajectories or multiple shots it's countering the compelling argument
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from the prosecution that the third shot was fired after David Leith was already
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dead cylinder remember prosecutors showed jurors picture taken at the crime scene of the guns open
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cylinder showing what they say was the order of shots what was that picture actually taken when investigators say it
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was one thing we'll do too what if we put after unloaded here we'll check make sure what the rotation is on the
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cylinder because that might be important if you have two on the right and it rotate you almost get brought right into
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the scene because that lead detective Perry Moyers had this recording device with him and turn it on and then go
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through his investigation so you sort of hear what he's thinking and seeing in real time
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the defense paints a picture of a crime scene in chaos with police and First Responders streaming in and out of the
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house this happened a long time ago it was 14 years so of the two first officers one is now who responded to the
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scene one is now deceased it didn't seem like there was a really organized chain
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of command if you will and the defense tried to paint that as a picture it's like we don't know if things were found
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exactly as a prosecution said so can the jurors be certain that the gun and bullets weren't picked up and
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moved before investigators snapped that picture Don Carmen is the state's expert
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he's a former agent with a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation you don't know for certain whether the gun was opened
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or the cartridges manipulated prior to that photo being taken I do not and as a result you're unable to say and I mean
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this with all due respect you're unable to say with any degree of scientific certainty
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in what order the shots were that's correct because in my particular discipline that is they would be not
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testable if the state is right and the shots were fired exactly as the investigators say
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they were the defense had an explanation for that too I'm Greg Davis I'm a forensic pathologist at the University
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of Kentucky and I was asked to review the evidence in this case as a defense expert on behalf of Ms Leith
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Dr Greg Davis is a medical examiner for the state of Kentucky I've known him for years and I've seen
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his work on quite a few cases so I asked him could someone who was already shot in the head with his brain
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stems severed be capable of firing that third and final shot when somebody receives a gunshot wound to the Head
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they don't unlike John Wayne movies and that sort of thing they don't just fall down and are still they actually seize
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they have a seizure so the muscles involuntarily could have been clenching in his hand to fire off a third shot
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I'll I'll give it to you it's unusual but to say because of that it has to be a homicide
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I just can't go that far there is a phenomenon called catavaric spasm where a person can actually their
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hands can squeeze immediately upon death what would you have ruled this I would have ruled this undetermined if we want
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to say the death was consistent with a homicide I agree however if we want to say this death is
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consistent with a suicide I absolutely agree with that too all the term consistent with means is that there's
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nothing to rule it in or to rule it out and at the end of the investigation you just don't know
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[Music] okay Dr Davis is not saying that David Leith wasn't murdered he's saying we
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can't tell for sure and that the manner of death should have been ruled as undetermined not homicide
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remember within 24 hours of David Lee's death the medical examiner Dr darinka malusanec called it a homicide even
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though she had not yet seen records from his neurologist nor had she received a complete medical history
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didn't have toxicology didn't have ballistics didn't have medical records it went from
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can we figure out what happened to can we prove this was a homicide what's more tests showed traces of three medications
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in David's system a painkiller an antidepressant and an anti-nausea drug in a previous trial Dr malusinik
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testified that the combination of drugs would have rendered David Leith wrote unquote
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incapacitated in other words she says he wouldn't have been able to get out of bed let alone handle a weapon and kill
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himself but according to Dr Davis her analysis was wrong again you can't predict human
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behavior just because there's some antidepressant and painkiller in a person some people can have huge amounts
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of those drugs in their system and you might not even know it based on their tolerance the example I used with my
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early medical students is how many times have you been to a class party and somebody drinks a six pack of beer
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and they look kind of normal you know they're they're acting fairly normal and then there's their buddy over in the
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other Corner who drinks two beers and is a complete obnoxious yelling drunk jerk
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well we we've all experienced those types of discrepancies well the same applies to other drugs that have central
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nervous system depressant effects so for me to look at a chart and to say based on that chart there's no way that person
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X could have taken their own life or walked from one room to another is just speculation and is often completely
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wrong [Music] thank you [Music] it's interesting to note that in trial number three Dr milusic did not repeat
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her claim that David Leith was incapacitated so to give her the benefit of the doubt
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perhaps she just read up on the science and got it right this time he was wrong the first time and her being wrong sent
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our client to prison for six years defense attorney Rebecca Legrand is referring to raynella's previous trial
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for the murder of David Leith in 2010 reynella had been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to
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life in prison and Legrand believes it was in large part due to Dr malusanex testimony
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and Legrand says it may not have even been the first time that Dr malusinik was mistaken in court testimony
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she's referring to the case of Elizabeth Ogle a Tennessee woman charged with murder in 2010 after an alleged lethal
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dose of morphine was found in a terminally ill friend whom she was caring for Ogle spent 27 months in jail awaiting
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trial after Dr melusinek the medical examiner in that case as well ruled it homicide
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but Dr Davis testified there too he said Ogle's friend died from her disease not a drug the judge agreed and
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threw the case out Dr Davis is still angry about what happened to Ms Ogle and what I saw was
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an injustice in this case where a woman was accused of murder where I saw no evidence whatsoever that it was even a
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murder I was hoping to discuss the Ogle and leaf cases with Dr melusinek but she
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declined 48 Hours request for an interview still it's clear from her testimony in
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reynella's third trial that she still believes that David Lee's death was a homicide
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I was very confident and 14 years later I'm even more so confident Dr Davis can you say unequivocally that
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she didn't kill her husband no I cannot but there's not enough evidence to say she did right and so there's a
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difference between innocent and not guilty I have no idea if she's innocent I truly believe she's not guilty so I
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have no idea as a human being whether she's innocent or not as a forensic pathologist at least on the evidence
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that I've been privy to there's no way on Earth I think she's guilty but there's more to the case that Dr Davis
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was not privy to if anybody has any doubts as to whether David was murdered by Renault
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maybe they need to talk to Steve Walker I see a killer because she tried to kill
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me I'm Aaron Moriarty 48 hours and that's married to death part four this podcast series Married to death is
00:17:21
developed by 48 hours in partnership with CBS News Radio Judy Tigard is executive producer Nancy Kramer is our
00:17:31
executive story editor Mike filet and Alan Pang are the series producer editors this episode was produced by
00:17:40
Josh Gainer Lisa freed and Luis Geraldo and edited by Mike McHugh Dwayne Tollison Jamie Benson and Meghan Marcus
00:17:50
things to composer Richard fioka for his original scores Gabriella de mergian and Morgan Canty
00:17:59
are our associate producers Kayla cadell is our production associate thank you to Craig swagler the vice
00:18:08
president and general manager of CBS News Radio and finally a shout out to all of you
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our fans we owe it to all of you the millions of fans of 48 hours in the U.S and around the world don't forget to
00:18:25
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00:18:37
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