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Tonight on Dateline. How many TV interviews have you done? None. You're my first.
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Startling new allegations from the woman swept up in a dark mystery that began in broad daylight.
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We've got a gentleman that just got shot. Oh my God, it's Mark Hassen. He's assistant district attorney.
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He looked at me and then he stopped breathing. The door just, it eeked open like in slow motion.
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There are two shell casings. He said it's murder. They were both murdered. It scared me to death.
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I had no idea what we were dealing with. My thoughts were, it's someone we know.
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We get a tip. I said, this is it. Was he living a double life? I think he was. He looked so normal.
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It was just wow. Case closed. It's time to tell my side of the story. Why one woman says there's more to it than anybody knew.
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This is wrong. Y'all were told wrong. Y'all believe wrong on this. Be there as a dramatic new chapter unfolds in the triple tragedy that terrorized an entire state.
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I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with Bad Intentions.
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The courthouse. The moral center of every American city and town. The place we usually go to settle differences and resolve disputes.
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But not this time. Oh my God, someone just shot someone. They're laying on the ground.
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It was just bam, bam, bam. This time, it's where the story begins. Somebody was trying to send a message. It was just so bold.
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A story that quickly got too big for this Texas town. And like a prairie fire, spread across the nation.
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We have some new information this morning on the manhunt for a killer who gunned down a district attorney.
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May have been involved in the brazen murder of a head of Colorado. In this tale, the hunters became the hunted.
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That's what was so scary, was that it's not just me anymore. I have young kids, my husband, my family.
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My wife had two guns out, and I said, unless you know it's me coming through the door, be ready to use it.
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It was January 31st, 2013, just before 9 a.m. in rural Kauffman, Texas. I heard what I thought to be gunshots.
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Police officer Jason Stastny was a few blocks from the courthouse. He and his partner were investigating a burglary when something big caught his attention.
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And it was just a slow and methodical five shots. It was a little pause, I guess you'd say.
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And then three more shots after that. Prosecutor Shannon Hebert was inside the courthouse when she heard the sound of sirens.
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That's not unusual because there's a police station just a block away. There's a hospital a few blocks down the street.
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That siren was Jason Stastny's squad car. You know, I hollered at my partner. I said, hey, you know, those are gunshots.
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We need to go. We need to go. So we packed up real quick and hopped in the car. The car camera was rolling as he and his partner drove toward the gunshots.
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About halfway over, the dispatcher came across the radio and told us that a man had been shot and gave us the location.
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Coffin County, 901. Um, yes, sir. We've got a gentleman on Grove Street and a Madison that just got shot.
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That's just a block from the courthouse. 904, can you check a plate? Officer Stastny was one of the first on the scene.
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When I pulled up, I saw a man, he was laying here in the street, and there was a woman that was over him, looked like she was doing CPR.
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That woman had witnessed the shooting from her car, saw the shooter flee, then tried to help the man.
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Now Stastny was taking over, going on instinct and adrenaline. This was one of those scenes, when you pull up, it's nothing you could prepare for.
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He knew right away it was bad. He looked at me, and then he stopped breathing. That's when I started CPR.
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At that time, I didn't know who it was. As he continued CPR, he heard his sergeant identify the victim.
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He said that it was Mark Hasse, that he was a DA prosecutor. Mark Hasse, a seasoned and well-respected prosecutor, gunned down on his way to work.
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I got him to take seven breaths. I do remember that. As his car cam kept rolling, Stastny's body mic picked up his pleas for Mark to hold on just a little longer.
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Get your breath, Mark. Come on. EMS is almost here. The ambulance is coming. You hear the sound, Mark?
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You know, I tried my best to, you know, to tell him, you know, you're doing good, you're doing good.
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You know, keep breathing. The ambulance is coming. Officer Stastny had been at the scene for five agonizing minutes when the ambulance rolled up.
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Anybody know anything about him? He's one of the DA prosecutors. Back at the office, Shannon noticed that her secretary was looking out the window at some commotion on the street.
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My secretary turned around and she was crying. Initially, I just wanted to comfort her. I couldn't even imagine what she was crying about.
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And when she turned from the window, all she said was, it's Mark. My natural instinct was, did he get hit by a car?
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And she was like, no, Shannon, he was shot. Mark was not only her colleague, but also her friend.
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Shannon, too afraid to go anywhere, stayed inside, praying for him. And then she learned the severity of his injuries He had been shot in the head and at that moment is when I think it hit me like he might not survive We are now just waiting to hear if he going to live
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But bad news traveled fast. It didn't take very long for his trial partner to walk into the courtroom shaking her head and crying.
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And I think at that point we knew he was gone. I can only imagine how horrible a moment like that is.
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It's horrible. It will be in my brain forever. Like, I will never, ever forget that.
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There's not a day that goes by that I don't go by here and think back to that day
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and exactly what happened and exactly what I saw. It seemed the assistant DA had been targeted in broad daylight.
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When did it start to sink in for you that this could have been me? You walk into work with Mark.
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Right. Your office is right there. I think that was immediate fear. It could have been any of us.
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The courthouse was locked down in the morning, then closed for the day. Prosecutors and office staff were given extra security.
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The shooter was on the loose. All of us were scared. We didn't know if there was, you know, a bunch of people waiting to try to shoot us.
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Kaufman County Assistant DA Mark Hasse was dead at 57, gunned down on his way to work a block from the courthouse.
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I just never in a million years would have expected one of our prosecutors, much less somebody I knew personally, to be laying on the ground dead.
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With one of their own down, Lieutenant Jolie Stewart from the county sheriff's department
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quickly joined the swarm of law enforcement jumping on the case. I just remember thinking that none of it made sense to me.
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Lieutenant Stewart had worked with Mark on a number of cases. He was great to go to for advice if I had questions about a case.
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You know, he was good to go to. Mark was an experienced prosecutor, a guy who lived his job.
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Fellow prosecutors like Shannon Hebert looked up to him. Did you learn anything from him?
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Yes, of course. we would go to Mark for almost everything. That's because over the course of his career,
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Mark had prosecuted some of the worst criminals in Texas. He was tenacious, he was an intellectual,
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and he was very quick on his feet. Marcus Bush is now an assistant U.S. attorney.
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Back in the 80s, he and Mark Hasse were young guns working in the organized crime section of the Dallas DA's office.
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Mark was not afraid of taking on a fight. Some of the defendants on some of the cases were very bad people.
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And Mark had the personality to stand in the breach and prosecute the worst of the worst.
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Why did Mark move out of Dallas? He wanted a place where he had some room, so he bought a house on about eight acres, built a barn out there.
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He just loved being around animals, and he loved the space. Besides animals and wide-open spaces, Mark had another passion, flying.
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Back in 1995, it almost killed him. A high-flying commemoration of World War II's end 50 years ago this month.
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Mark was part of this aerial armada of vintage planes when something went terribly wrong.
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He believed the engine had failed, and he made a forced landing, ran off the end of the runway.
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He survived, but he had a very severe brain injury. Did he decide to fly again at any point?
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He did. Why do you think he wanted to fly again? He almost died. It's like being thrown from a horse. He wanted to be the person that he was before.
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He did it. He did. He did. But it took a long, long time. It took years, but Mark did recover from his injuries.
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His colleagues in the DA's office admired his strength to fight through adversity.
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But they also got a kick out of his weakness, his love for sugary snacks. He had a sweet tooth, and he would mostly eat everyone's stuff.
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So we would have weekly prosecutor meetings every Monday, and we would get donuts for them.
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And he would always get there first and steal my blueberry donut. We both loved that.
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In 2011, Mark and Shannon got a new boss who seemed to fit right in with their office family,
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the newly elected district attorney, Mike McClelland. My name is Mike McClelland. I'm the criminal district attorney for Coffman County.
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Mike's stepdaughter, Christina Foreman, says he loved the job. I think he really did embrace the role as a leader, and he enjoyed the people he worked with.
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And he would talk about, you know, oh, this person did this, and I was really proud of them,
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and this person did this, and I was really proud of them. Everything was new to him.
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He came in and just took it over. Was he tough? I wouldn't say he was tough on us at all.
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The greatest thing about him was that he let us do what we do best. And Mike quickly formed a bond with Mark Hasse, the experienced prosecutor.
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Mark was his best friend in the office. They were very close. Mike's wife, Cynthia, fit right in around the office, too.
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She was almost like a den mother. She worked as a nurse, but found time to bake cakes and cookies for the staff.
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But the once happy and humming office in a quiet small town was now shattered. It was overwhelming to have lost someone that works just a few doors down from us,
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that we talk to every single day, that is so happy. It was just so overwhelming.
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We didn't have time to grieve about it. We didn't have time to talk about our feelings.
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It was time to go to work. Lieutenant Stewart and others canvassed the area, but solid information was hard to come by.
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Witnesses said the shooter hopped into the passenger side of the getaway car as it sped away.
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So there had to be at least two people involved. They also said the car was silver, or was it gray or tan?
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A four-door, maybe a Ford Taurus, but with no license plate. The rest of that day we were just going around looking for you know the car I don think I ever noticed how many silver or light four sedans there are And even though the killer had brazenly attacked during the morning rush witnesses said he covered up
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One of the witnesses described him as wearing a hoodie that was black and covered their face.
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And then another person who saw him from a distance said, you know, all black, you know, dark clothing.
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But there was something more. A witness in a garage right across the street heard the victim's last words.
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Mark said, no, no, I'm sorry. And that was after a little bit of kind of a shoving match.
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Did that tell you that these two knew each other? That seemed very personal to me.
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No weapon was found at the scene and no shell casings either. Did that tell you anything that there were no shell casings?
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Yes. They told us there was going to have to be a revolver. That's because revolvers keep bullet casings inside the gun after firing.
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I can only imagine how terrified Mark must have been in those final moments. Mark was doing what he did every day, just going to work.
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Now, his fellow prosecutors feared he died for that work. We lost a really, really good man.
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District Attorney Mike McClelland stood tall when he addressed the media about the killing of his good friend.
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I hope that the people that did this are watching because we're very confident that we're going to find you,
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we're going to pull you out of whatever hole you're in, and we're going to bring you back and let the people of Kauffman County prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.
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But bringing this killer or killers to justice would take a lot more than tough talk.
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The case looked like it was about to get a lot bigger with more brazen attacks. I mean, we really did love him.
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It was devastating when he was gone. Monday morning, four days after the murder of Mark Hasse,
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fellow prosecutor Shannon Hebert returned to work with a heavy heart. Of course, it was a hard Monday at our weekly meeting without Mark.
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Our whole office was devastated. I mean, his door was closed. Security remained tight in and around the courthouse,
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and everyone was still on guard as they paid respects to their co-worker. Emotional afternoon in Kauffman County where hundreds of people attended a memorial service for slain prosecutor Mark Hasse.
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He was constantly begging for more of my wife's cookies. DA Mike McClellan. She makes cookies for the office about once a month and he would run out in about 12 minutes.
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Mark's longtime friend, Marcus Bush, also memorialized him. This world is a better place because of Mark.
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And so are we. The world lost a good man, somebody who was resolute, always knew the difference between right and wrong, and would fight for that.
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The murder brought an all-star army of law enforcement to the case. The sheriff's training center was turned into a command post.
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It was soon buzzing with local police, Texas Rangers, and federal agents from the ATF and FBI.
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That was what's amazing about this case is you had federal, state, law enforcement all
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working together in a team. Advising this team, Toby Shook and Bill Wurski, veteran high-profile attorneys from Dallas
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who were quickly named special prosecutors. Once you get over the initial shock and disbelief that a prosecutor and someone that you know
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has been murdered, kind of your professional training kicks in. And that's where Toby and I stepped up and volunteered to help them in that role.
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The crime seemed to be what every prosecutor fears, a revenge hit for putting away a bad guy.
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That struck a chord that reverberated from Kauffman to Dallas, throughout Texas and beyond.
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And I think every judge, every defense attorney, every prosecutor has that in the back of your mind.
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The initial theories were as numerous as the hundreds of cases Mark Hasse had prosecuted.
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The first place to look was right in Kaufman County, where Mark was a felony prosecutor for two and a half years.
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The big questions that we had is, who is he prosecuted recently? Sheriff's investigator Jolie Stewart was involved from day one.
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Is there something recent that he's prosecuted that's got somebody upset? So we started delving off into his caseload.
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Investigators looked into every local case Mark had prosecuted. There were robberies, drug prosecutions, and even a theft that involved an elected official who stole office equipment.
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They didn't immediately find anything that led them to a suspect. Any assistance that anyone can give us in finding the people that did this will be greatly appreciated.
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Even though investigators were convinced he was murdered because of his job as a prosecutor, they didn't stop there.
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You still have to interview friends, family members, associates. Mark was a teetotaler. He wasn't married and he didn't have any children.
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Those extensive checks into his background came up empty. There just wasn't anything there. He loved his mother who lived in Dallas and spent a lot of time taking care of her and taking her to dinner.
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All the initial checks into Mark's personal and professional life were not panning out.
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Then, four weeks into the investigation, a tip came into the county Crimestoppers Anonymous tip line that looked like a big break.
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The tipster said that they been in a bar in a small town in Kauffman and overheard two white males talking about the Hassee killing and taking responsibility for it
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The tip lacked the kind of detail that investigators needed to follow up. And using the Crimestopper system, the tipster remained anonymous.
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If this was going to be the game changer, investigators would need lots more information or a little more luck.
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You're still hoping for the big break and maybe a lucky traffic stop or somebody that
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knows about this murder is going to pick up the phone and call in and that'll be the magic
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phone call. Meanwhile, the task force widened the scope of the investigation beyond Kaufman.
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We don't have a lot of violent crimes in Kaufman, I mean, especially murders. So we just kind of naturally assumed it was someone from Dallas.
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Dallas, the big city less than 30 miles, but seemingly a lifestyle away. Remember, back in the 1980s, Mark and fellow prosecutor Marcus Bush locked up some pretty tough customers there.
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I immediately started thinking about the organized crime cases and the murder cases that we'd all prosecuted.
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Many of those people received life sentences and were starting to parole out. The way Mark had been murdered also suggested to investigators a possible link to organized crime.
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The killer had been lying in wait and Mark was shot at point-blank range, execution style.
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Rumors are sweeping the town. Talk of Mexican drug cartels and prison gangs. We're open to every avenue right now.
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And investigators also suspected another group, less publicly known but very dangerous,
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the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a prison gang of white supremacists. Why was the Aryan Brotherhood a potential group that may have done this?
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There had been some threats that had come out about that time that the Aryan Brotherhood had said
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they might want to get even with people in law enforcement. Get even because less than three months before Hasse's murder,
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federal officials announced that 34 alleged Aryan Brotherhood gang members had been indicted for racketeering.
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The feds thanked, among others, the Kauffman County DA's office for its role in the investigation.
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So a lot of people were trying to put two and two together with the Aryan Brotherhood.
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It's one thing if it's one individual who went after Mark. It's another thing if it is the Aryan Brotherhood.
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Oh, yeah. Prosecutors, not just in Kaufman, but across the state, were terrified that, hey, if this is their brotherhood, we're all targets.
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And then, seven weeks after Hassie's murder, another assault on law enforcement.
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It looked like it was open season on the criminal justice system. The Colorado head of the Department of Corrections was shot here at his front door on Tuesday night.
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The man's name was Tom Clements, the highly regarded head of Colorado's prison system.
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and, like Mark Hasse, a public servant. Evidence pointed to a former inmate named Evan Ebel.
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He was a member of a white supremacist gang in Colorado, similar to the Aryan Brotherhood.
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Now, he was on the run from Colorado authorities, armed and dangerous. Two days after the murder,
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a sheriff's deputy in Texas would find out just how dangerous. A violent attack caught on a dashboard camera.
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The deputy pulled over this car during a routine traffic stop. He had no idea the driver was Evan Ebel.
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As you're about to see, Ebel had no hesitation about using his gun again. The unsuspecting deputy, shot in the face, would survive.
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Ebel was quickly chased down by law enforcement and died in an explosive shootout in Wise County, Texas.
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What grabbed the attention of investigators in the Mark Hasse murder is this. Wise County is just 100 miles from Kauffman.
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Could Evan Ebel have killed another public servant in Texas seven weeks earlier?
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The FBI is now investigating this case. They want to see if Ebel is connected to Mark Hasse's murder.
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Two public officials gunned down in two states. Someone seemed to be targeting law enforcement,
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and it was about to become even more alarming. No one could reach D.A. Mike McClelland or his wife.
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When nobody had called me back, that's when I started getting very worried, very worried that something was very wrong.
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The shooting of Colorado's prison chief at his home, allegedly by a white supremacist,
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had given Texas investigators a fresh angle in the murder of Prosecutor Mark Hasse.
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It's another strange attack on law enforcement in a small town. Ken Kaltoff covered the Hasse case
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for NBC's Channel 5 in Dallas. He says the suspected murderer ending up in Texas was especially
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intriguing to investigators. It made people wonder if perhaps there could be some connection
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with the Hasse murder. They did tests on suspect Evan Ebel's weapon. His bullets were
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identical to those that killed the prison chief back in Colorado. But then the Texas task force
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found out Ebel's gun was not the weapon that killed Mark Hasse. And what's more...
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Ebo was deemed not to have been in Kaufman at the time that Hasse was killed. So, eight weeks in, the Hasse case was going nowhere.
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Fewer and fewer leads are coming into the investigation. The command post was shut down, leaving just a small group to work full-time on the case.
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Slowly, you know, we kind of trickled back to our daily duties. The passage of time was allowing Shannon Hebert
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to finally get her equilibrium back. I just wasn't checking out my windows constantly,
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Worried about when I pull out of my garage if someone will be waiting there. So, you know, I think you just start letting your guard down again, and life just kind of took over.
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Same thing for hard-nosed DA Mike McClelland, according to his stepdaughter, Christina.
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Did things just naturally kind of start getting back to normal? Yeah, I think more of a sense of normal.
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It was still kind of at the forefront of, oh God, we haven't found anything, oh God, we haven't solved this yet.
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But, you know, life moves on. At the end of March, Easter weekend, the McClellans were looking forward to a big Sunday dinner
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Cynthia was making for friends. The perfect time to relax and not dwell on the tragedy of Mark Hasse's murder, at least
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for a little while. Was there any fear that we need to be on high alert? At that point, I don't think so.
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Christina spoke to her mom and stepdad on that Friday night. It was a normal conversation.
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It was utterly normal. Mom was making the Easter baskets. The next morning, Saturday, the sun rose over the McClelland house.
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It was Cynthia's day to prep. She had sent me a text about the menu that we were going to have for Easter.
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Leah Phillips and her husband, close friends of the McClellands, were excited about joining them for dinner.
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She was making our family all Easter baskets, and then she would make clues and hide the Easter baskets.
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Wow, that's elaborate. It was very elaborate. Leah, who was supposed to drop off some vegetables for Cynthia,
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texted her. And she never answered me back. Did you think that was odd that she didn't answer you
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back? The only thing I could think of was maybe she did go into work where she couldn't either
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answer the phone or text me back. Leah called Mike's phone and the house phone. No response.
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And she wasn't the only one. Christina was also trying to call her mom and stepdad.
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And I tried mom and she didn't answer. So I tried Mike and he didn't answer. By now, it was late afternoon and Leah was starting to worry.
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So I said, okay, I'll go on over there. She thought something was odd when she pulled into the driveway.
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The newspaper was still in the yard and Cynthia's car was there. So very subtle clues.
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Just subtle, but I'm still thinking maybe they went to the movie with someone. Leah called her son, C.J. Tomlinson, and told him what she'd seen.
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And I said, you just stay where you're at. Don't go inside that house. It was CJ's cop sense kicking in.
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He's a Dallas police officer. The feeling was, something's not right. It's just not right.
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A few minutes later, CJ drove up, along with his dad. We went to the door, and CJ knocked on the door and yelled for Mike three or four times,
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and there was no answer. They were messing with the key, and they were all standing behind me,
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and I just reached down to see if the door was open. And yeah, it was unlocked. And I'll never forget how that door opened up.
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The door just, it eeked open, just like in slow motion. What they found when they walked inside
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would change their lives and the course of the investigation. She points and she says,
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there's show casings underneath your feet. At that point, something's really wrong now.
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Something's bad happened. When Leah Phillips and her family showed up at Mike and Cynthia McClellan's house,
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they had no idea the nightmare they were about to walk into. Leah's son CJ led the way.
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I took a couple steps in and that's when mom hit the ground. and started crying.
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And I screamed, so they just stopped their shell casings. And then I just, my knees buckled and I hit the ground
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and just start crying because there's not supposed to be shell casings inside somebody's doorway.
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I looked down and sure enough, there are two shell casings right inside that front door.
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At that point, something's really wrong now. Something's bad happening. So I'd take a couple more steps inside and I'd see Cynthia laying there.
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Cynthia McClelland was dead. Her body was lying in a pool of blood on the living room floor.
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CJ turned his mom away from the scene and took her back to the car. Meanwhile, CJ's dad had gone farther into the house
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and found the bullet-riddled body of Mike McClelland. When your husband and son come back out of the house...
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There's no blood left in their face. They're white. Kauffman District Attorney Mike McClelland and his wife Cynthia had been shot to death.
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You never expect to have to see somebody like that, that you knew, that you loved, that was so close.
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And I think that was the most, and it still is, obviously. It's so difficult. Because she hadn't been able to reach her parents, Christina decided to drive to the house as well.
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Her mom's friend Leah met her with the news she was dreading. I just had the feeling that they were dead.
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And I said both of them. And she said yes. And then it occurred to me that, oh my God, this is going to hit the news.
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And my grandmother watches the news every day. And somebody needs to stop her before she turns on the TV.
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Mike is high profile. He was. And I didn't want somebody else to tell her that this had happened.
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Christina couldn't fathom who would want to harm her mom and stepdad. The two were married for nearly 20 years and loved nothing more than spending time with family It something Mike enjoyed since marrying Cynthia when Christina was just a kid He would give great big bear hugs and even when I was older he would wrap me and pick me up and I like oh my God I 22
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Did you feel lucky that you got Mike as a stepdad? I do. Our personalities are just quite similar.
00:30:15
You're both straight shooters? Yes, our filters are quite off sometimes. Mike relied on the support of his wife, Cynthia,
00:30:23
who was always doing what she loved, quilting, entertaining, and cooking. You know, she's the old school cook who didn't use packages.
00:30:32
She bakes everything from scratch. Was he happy that she was this baker slash cook?
00:30:37
Clearly, clearly by his physique. He enjoyed the food very much. What made them a good match?
00:30:44
You know, it's really funny. She supported him greatly in what he was doing, but he's the conservative and she's very liberal.
00:30:51
So I think it was just a lot of balance. I think they balanced each other really nicely.
00:30:56
Cynthia also wanted her daughter to find the kind of love she had and wasn't shy about playing matchmaker with a guy she thought was a good fit.
00:31:05
She looked at him and said, do you believe in arranged marriages? Which I had to later apologize for because, you know, that's a weird thing to say.
00:31:13
That's embarrassing when you're the daughter. It's very weird. Maybe weird, but from a place of caring.
00:31:19
Now Cynthia was gone, and Christina was suddenly dealt a new reality without her mom or stepdad.
00:31:26
You must have had a million questions, though. Yes, there's a lot of things that run through your head at about a million miles an hour.
00:31:32
Looking at the scene, C.J. Tomlinson's police training told him the killer or killers were long gone.
00:31:39
He knew what he had to do. There was no reason to go back in that house. We closed the door.
00:31:47
We didn't call 911. There was no need for paramedics to go in there. They called the Kauffman County Sheriff.
00:31:54
The things that were in that house were very important, and they needed to be preserved until the right people show up.
00:32:00
And they did. They showed up. I was at my house, and we just finished an Easter egg hunt with about 30 kids in the backyard.
00:32:09
About 8 p.m., prosecutor Toby Shook got a call from his partner, Bill Worski. He said, hey, the McCullens were found murdered.
00:32:16
and the sheriff wants us out there. And it scared me to death. When I left the house, Bill came and picked me up
00:32:24
and my wife had two guns out. And I said, unless you know it's me coming through the door,
00:32:31
be ready to use it. The prosecutors raced to the scene. It was surreal. I mean, the front yard's lit up
00:32:37
and it's got the yellow crime scene tape and there's lots of sheriff's officers and Texas Rangers and FBI there.
00:32:45
Shook saw then-Sheriff David Burns standing on the lawn. Sheriff Burns is a pretty legendary guy, former Texas Ranger captain.
00:32:54
He was visibly shaken up. And if Sheriff Burns gets shaken up, that scared the hell out of me.
00:33:00
And all law enforcement out there was quiet. It was eerily quiet amongst them because they were dealing with something
00:33:06
I don't think any of them have ever seen before. Aside from the obvious, two people are dead, what was shaking them up so badly?
00:33:13
I think the big question is who's next, because everybody's assumption that was standing outside
00:33:18
that yellow crime scene tape was it could have been one of us. It sure seemed like the Hasse and McClellan murders were connected, and everyone was terrified
00:33:27
the killings might not be over. Did you start to think that there was a list? Oh, sure.
00:33:33
There was going to be another victim if this person wasn't found. Saturday night, Shannon Hebert was shopping for Easter dinner
00:33:53
when she was surprised by a phone call from her office. And I thought, my goodness, who's up there on Saturday, Easter weekend?
00:34:00
I'm just, I'm not going to answer right now. But her phone kept ringing. It was another prosecutor from her office.
00:34:07
And I knew then at that point, something's going on. And I answered, and she proceeded to tell me that the McClellons were found in their house shot.
00:34:15
Must have been the biggest bombshell of your life. Biggest. It's just so hard to imagine anyone you know being killed.
00:34:23
I mean, I was frantic. It was terrifying. Her colleague told her to watch her back.
00:34:29
We don't know who's next. We don't know if there's more attacks tonight. Just get home and be safe, Shannon. You know, watch out.
00:34:35
Are you all feeling now that we're all targets now? We all felt that. including the people she loved most in the world.
00:34:43
I think that's what was so scary was that it's not just me anymore. I have young kids, my husband, my family.
00:34:51
And I mean, I can't keep putting them at risk. And with Mike and Cynthia, we were all in danger.
00:34:58
As local deputies began a round-the-clock watch over Shannon's house, something kept nagging at her about the McClelland murders.
00:35:06
There's no way Cynthia opened that door to just anyone. I mean, my thoughts were it's someone we know or someone dressed like a police officer.
00:35:13
You know, I was just very concerned of even police officers. That someone could be dressed in a fake police uniform.
00:35:20
Right. Investigators also wondered how the killer could have gotten inside the McClellan's front door.
00:35:27
Mike, like his entire staff, was still vigilant ever since his chief prosecutor was gunned down.
00:35:33
The wary DA kept his own guns on a table near the front door, but never got the chance to use them.
00:35:40
Is it just like all bets are off when you hear that now they're going after family members?
00:35:44
Even though you don't condone it, you almost understand someone going after a prosecutor for what they do for a living.
00:35:49
But to go after a prosecutor's family was just a line that we didn't think we'd ever see crossed.
00:35:55
Both the Hasse and McClellan killings two months apart were bold One in a public square in broad daylight This one in a private home before dawn
00:36:07
Investigators hoped this latest crime scene would provide more leads than the Hasse killing did.
00:36:13
They already knew they had shell casings. Would there be other clues inside the house to help catch the killer?
00:36:19
It was just a straight-up whodunit. We didn't know. Texas Ranger Eric Casper was part of the team that entered the home.
00:36:27
The front door was not kicked in. The door was unlocked. Their shell casings are approximately four foot in.
00:36:34
The shell casings are .223 caliber. That told them the killer used an AR-15 or M4 type semi-automatic weapon like this one.
00:36:43
This started exactly when the door opened. Ms. McClellan and Mr. McClellan were retreating and trying to get away from the gunfire.
00:36:51
Cynthia's body was in the middle of the living room, and she clearly wasn't expecting anyone.
00:36:56
She's not dressed for company. She's trying to get dressed. Mr. McClellan, same way. He's in jogging pants with no shirt on.
00:37:04
There were shell casings next to Mike's body, indicating the killer had finished him off at close range.
00:37:10
The suspect was standing up right on top of him, over him, shooting him. To investigators, like Lieutenant Jolie Stewart of the Sheriff's Department,
00:37:20
it looked like a carefully planned operation, an ambush, just like the Hasse murder.
00:37:26
Did the scene speak to you at all? I felt like whoever went in there had a mission,
00:37:33
and they did it quickly, and they did it efficiently, and they were out. Later, records from the alarm company would confirm Stewart's observation.
00:37:44
The killer entered the house at 6.40 a.m. and was gone just two minutes later. 20 shots fired in 120 seconds.
00:37:55
That was a pretty brutal way to go. Lieutenant Stewart couldn't help but be affected by the sight of Cynthia,
00:38:04
shot in the head at close range. Just looking at her there on the scene, she was targeted, you know.
00:38:13
that, I mean, she didn't have a dog in this fight. Investigators talked to neighbors.
00:38:20
Surely someone had heard the shots. Assault rifles aren't quiet. The weapon used in this murder,
00:38:26
you should have been able to hear it outside. No problem. No one heard or saw anything.
00:38:32
By the end of Easter weekend, special prosecutor Bill Worski said they had nothing.
00:38:37
We're just trying to figure out what to do next, and we're hoping against hope there's going to be a magic clue
00:38:42
in that crime scene or in that house that will answer this riddle for us. They were looking for that clue, and all of a sudden, it drove by.
00:39:05
What should have been a slow Easter news day in Dallas now had a lead story that didn't involve chocolate bunnies or egg hunts.
00:39:13
We're following some breaking news right now in Kauffman County, where County District Attorney Mike McClellan and his wife Cynthia have been found shot to death.
00:39:21
The news touched off a firestorm of public concern. Tips started flooding into the reopened Kauffman County Sheriff's Command Post.
00:39:30
Some tips still cited the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. Special Prosecutor Bill Worski.
00:39:36
With added media attention after McClellan's were murdered, we got hundreds of tips a day.
00:39:42
It was like drinking out of a fire hose during this whole thing. Lieutenant Jolie Stewart of the Sheriff's Department was right in the middle of it.
00:39:50
Hundreds of investigators from multiple agencies had swooped in. This was all hands on deck.
00:39:56
This became the number one case in the Bureau at that time. FBI special agents Michael Hillman and Lori Gibbs, who have since retired,
00:40:03
were coordinating teams from the task force, each team looking into different aspects of the case.
00:40:09
You have to look at everything. So you decided to just divvy it up. Everyone could focus on their individual tasks.
00:40:15
Right, and some of these teams had 25, 30 people on them. And there was a team that looked at all of the victims
00:40:21
and what they may have in common. They believed the killing of DA Mike McClelland
00:40:26
was linked with the shooting of prosecutor Mark Hasse back in January. But it was all one big collective hunch.
00:40:33
until they got a certain tip. Through the Crime Stoppers web-based tip line, we get a tip that claims credit for the Mark Hasse murders.
00:40:41
The computer message came in on Easter, Sunday night, the day after the McClellans were murdered.
00:40:46
It began, do we have your full attention now? We suggests more than one person. Did you think maybe it's a group?
00:40:54
My thought, I thought, how big is this group? What is this group? Is this some sort of anti-government militia group?
00:41:00
Is this white supremacist? I had no idea what we were dealing with. Law enforcement wrote back, you have our attention.
00:41:07
We wanted him to tell us what he wanted. While they waited anxiously for an answer,
00:41:12
computer experts tried to trace the tip back to the source. No luck. That's because the system is set up to protect the anonymity of all tipsters.
00:41:21
When a message comes in, the sender is identified only by a unique number. After 12 hours of nail-biting, there was finally a response that told investigators this person was the real deal.
00:41:35
Mark Hasse was killed with .38 caliber ammunition, fired from a .357 five-shot revolver.
00:41:42
Would anyone other than the killer have known that? No. This person knew way more than anybody would have.
00:41:50
The killer also wrote, Your act of good faith will result in no other attacks this week In return for that pledge the killer made a demand They wanted one of the judges in Kauffman County to step down by the end of the week or the killings would resume The fact that this tip came in and named these specific judges in Kauffman told us it was somebody local
00:42:10
That all but ruled out the Aryan Brotherhood, drug cartels and those old cases from Dallas.
00:42:15
And the language in the tip, referring to attacks, plural, convinced prosecutors that the killer or killers
00:42:22
were responsible for both the Hasse and McClelland murders. The tipster's message ended this way.
00:42:29
We are not unreasonable, but we will not be stopped. It's almost sounding like a game now.
00:42:34
I think in his mind, it was a big chess game. And I think it was just for fun to see if he could really exert
00:42:40
complete and total control over the criminal justice system in Coffman County. On Monday morning, when Shannon Hebert came to her office, she had an armed escort.
00:42:50
There's no leader at your office anymore. No one. When you come into work, how do you go forward?
00:42:56
We had to move forward. We couldn't let them win. We couldn't. And we had to fight for the honor of Mike and Mark.
00:43:03
Everyone in the office was on edge. My husband, I mean, he stayed up all night with a gun in his hand.
00:43:09
I know that I started carrying a gun, sleep with a gun under my pillow. Even Shannon, who wouldn't carry a gun before, now slept with protection nearby.
00:43:19
We had big old shotguns sitting on our dresser, just ready to go in case. The killer's threat to unleash more violence in Kauffman County kept the task force working around the clock.
00:43:31
A special team scoured the surveillance video collected near the McClelland crime scene, hoping for a new lead.
00:43:39
So many people now have surveillance cameras on their house, so we're trained to go in and collect that sort of evidence.
00:43:45
And finally, the video team's painstaking search seemed to pay off. They found images of a car that didn't belong, a white Ford Crown Victoria, cruising near the McClelland home about the time of the murders.
00:44:00
No one in the neighborhood owned a car like that. But the Crown Vic model is popular with law enforcement,
00:44:07
so the FBI jumped on that angle. Was there ever a thought that maybe this is one of our own,
00:44:12
maybe this is a police officer doing this? That was not out of the realm of possibility.
00:44:17
In fact, an old case was about to resurface, one that would send this case rolling in a dark new direction.
00:44:25
Has anyone connected with this investigation suggested to you that you are a person of interest in the investigation?
00:44:32
The End grief bid them an emotional farewell. I carry a lot of things from them with me.
00:45:11
They taught me very well. They helped a lot of people before they left this world.
00:45:16
They really did. They made a large impact on a lot of people. A beefed-up multi-agency task force
00:45:23
vowed to catch whoever killed the McClellans and Mark Hasse. Investigators had seen that Ford Crown Victoria on video
00:45:31
roaming near the McClelland home and thought it might be a police car. The terrible possibility it might be one of their own had to be ruled in or out immediately.
00:45:43
We checked with every law enforcement agency in the area and identified where every police car was in the area,
00:45:50
and none of them were even close to where this image was captured. Next, they looked for anyone who, for any reason,
00:45:57
had issues or disputes involving both prosecutors. There didn't seem to be anybody in that group of people
00:46:06
that were upset enough that they would want to commit homicide. But there was one defendant involved in a felony they couldn't ignore.
00:46:15
There was only one common denominator for those two prosecutors. Which was? That was Eric Williams.
00:46:21
Eric Williams? Who was Eric Williams? He was a former deputy sheriff and longtime attorney, with an office right across the street from the courthouse.
00:46:32
In 2010, he was elected by the people of Kaufman to be justice of the peace. Shannon Hebert worked with him and said he had a sharp legal mind.
00:46:41
In fact, he was a member of Mensa, the organization for people with super high IQs.
00:46:47
He was a great judge. I liked having him in there. I thought he was very fair. Williams, married for 15 years with no kids of his own,
00:46:55
was a strong advocate for children and specialized in child abuse cases. Lieutenant Jolie Stewart often worked with him on those cases.
00:47:04
How do you think he was perceived amongst his fellow colleagues, other attorneys?
00:47:09
I think that he had a lot of respect with his peers. He was kind of the go-to guy for family law.
00:47:17
I know he had a love for children. Tara Williams-Bellmare knows that better than anyone.
00:47:25
She's Eric's sister. He was a good uncle to my kids. Never missed their birthdays.
00:47:30
I never had to remind him. She says growing up, her big brother was her inspiration.
00:47:36
He made Eagle Scout, went to college, law school, and became a successful attorney.
00:47:42
He also served as a captain in the Texas State Guard. He was driven, he was ambitious, he wanted to make us feel proud of him.
00:47:53
So Tara and the legal community were stunned in 2011 when her brother, the newly elected
00:48:00
...acted justice of the peace got into trouble with the law. Williams was accused of stealing three computer monitors for his personal use from the county IT department.
00:48:10
Here's surveillance video showing him carrying boxes of computer equipment. It just seems odd that someone like that would bother to steal a few computer monitors.
00:48:20
Exactly. It was just kind of shocking that someone would go and do that. Williams found himself on the wrong side of this police interrogation.
00:48:27
Williams tried to explain. He took the monitors because he claimed he needed new equipment for his office, but never got it.
00:48:45
It's been an ongoing kind of thing where I tell the IT people that I need to keep improving things.
00:48:51
I understand, but you hadn't put any kind of written request. Nothing like that's been documented.
00:48:56
No, nothing like that. Mark Hasse and Mike McClelland knew Eric Williams as a colleague in Kauffman's small legal community.
00:49:04
As boss of the DA's office, Mike rarely tried cases. But because Williams was an elected public official, he made an exception and teamed up with Mark to prosecute the case.
00:49:16
Christina says her stepdad believed Williams had violated the public trust. I think it did offend Mike on a basic level.
00:49:24
These people elected you. You're supposed to be doing good things for the community, not stealing from it.
00:49:29
A jury found Williams guilty of theft. He got probation but lost his job and license to practice law.
00:49:36
And now, a year later, both men who prosecuted him were dead, and Williams was under suspicion.
00:49:44
Did you bear either of those men any kind of garage? No, absolutely not. The media got wind of the interest in Williams.
00:49:50
And just days after the McClellan murders, he was interviewed by NBC affiliate KPRC.
00:49:57
He strangely swept in on his segue. Has anyone connected with this investigation suggested to you that you are a person of interest in the investigation?
00:50:05
No. After the denial, his sympathies. My heartfelt condolences go out to both the McClellan family and the Hasse family
00:50:14
because they were in public office doing the right thing. And for some reason that we're not aware of, have paid the ultimate price for that.
00:50:25
Williams was known to be a bit of an odd duck, but a murder suspect? It seems so far-fetched that a justice of the peace, a man who had served his county,
00:50:35
not only as an attorney, a judge, but also as a deputy sheriff, would then suddenly turn into this serial killer.
00:50:43
No one wants to think a lawyer would do that. A person who was a public servant would do that.
00:50:48
In fact, he was among the many people investigators had already looked at after the Hasse murder.
00:50:55
What was his alibi at the time? He said he had been at home either caring for his wife or his in-laws down the street.
00:51:01
He also had his arm in a sling when law enforcement came to talk to him. His excuse was he had frozen shoulder and wasn't able to use his right arm.
00:51:10
After the McClelland murders, investigators checked whether he owned a Ford Crown Victoria.
00:51:15
The car captured on video lurking near the McClelland murder scene. Records showed he did not.
00:51:20
The case was still stalled. But soon, the task force would get one of those lucky brakes they'd been hoping for.
00:51:28
In a filing cabinet in the garage, there was a manual for a Ford Crown Vic. and there was also a title to a Crown Vic.
00:51:49
I've cooperated with law enforcement. I certainly wish them the best in bringing justice
00:51:56
for this just incredibly egregious act. Eric Williams was making the TV interview rounds, but he hadn't sat down for a formal interview with investigators.
00:52:08
Because of his connection to both Mark Hasse and Mike McClellan, investigators had to take a serious look at him.
00:52:15
On the surface, it may seem implausible because he's a lawyer and a judge and successful.
00:52:20
The more we learned about him, the more viable in our minds he became as a suspect.
00:52:24
Just the year before, Williams had been prosecuted for theft by Hasse and McClellan.
00:52:29
You must be chomping at the bit to talk to Eric Williams. Obviously, we wanted to talk to him.
00:52:35
The problem with that was he was still represented by lawyers. Lawyers who kept Williams from talking.
00:52:41
But then, two weeks after the McClellans were killed in their home, the special prosecutors got a big opening they hadn't seen coming.
00:52:49
We get an email back from the lawyers basically saying, we do no longer represent Eric Williams.
00:52:54
They figured this was their one window to talk to him, and they knew they had to get it right the first time before he lawyered up again.
00:53:03
So FBI profilers came up with a strategy. Send over a top-level Texas Ranger so Williams would be more likely to let him in.
00:53:12
Was the idea that that would fit with his ego? Yeah, he would view a major with the Texas Ranger as someone equal on his intellect
00:53:19
that perhaps he would talk to. If you sent someone of lower rank, then he would just dismiss them.
00:53:25
The ranger and a local officer familiar to Williams went to his house carrying a hidden tape recorder.
00:53:33
Did it work? It worked great. Williams let them in without a search warrant. The subject quickly got around to guns.
00:53:41
Williams said he'd been forced to sell his weapons to raise money since he could no longer practice law.
00:53:47
I've been in your house. I know you've got lots of guns. Deal. Okay. How do you think I've been living?
00:53:54
Seven guns Yeah for two years You don have any more You got rid of all of them I have one gun I trying to sell and it just hard as hell to sell He said I don have any guns except one gun
00:54:05
And so he let them look around, and they began finding gun parts. Gun parts. Some very specific gun parts that appeared to match the type of automatic weapon used in the McClellan killings.
00:54:18
And at the same time, the FBI discovered Williams had done computer searches on Hasse and McClelland before the murders.
00:54:28
He specifically told them that he had not ever searched the two victims before the murders.
00:54:33
Now you've got him lying. Yeah. That lie and those gun parts were enough to get a warrant for a more thorough search of his house.
00:54:42
Investigators, including a crack FBI evidence team, were back the next day. They went room to room, then to the garage, and bingo.
00:54:52
In a filing cabinet in the garage, there was a manual for a Ford Crown Vic, and there was also a title to a Crown Vic.
00:55:00
The task force, of course, had been looking for a Crown Victoria. This one was registered under a false name.
00:55:08
That must have been a real big moment, finding that registration. That was huge.
00:55:12
Outside, Special Prosecutor Worski was on hand to give legal advice. One of the FBI computer techs came out and said, Mr. Worski, I don't mean to alarm you, but Eric Williams has been searching you and Mr. Shook on his computer.
00:55:26
What's the first thing you did when you heard that he had been searching you? I get on the phone with my wife and tell her to make sure she knew where the kids were and to get inside and keep the doors locked.
00:55:34
And don't answer the door for anyone, up to and including a police officer. What did she say?
00:55:40
I could hear the fear in her voice, and I knew right then we had to put him in jail for something.
00:55:45
became very personal and a matter of life and death for us. Back inside, searchers found something interesting,
00:55:52
a scrap of paper with two handwritten numbers. So they collected it because it was near the computer
00:55:57
and they thought it might be important. And it was. A sheriff's deputy recognized the user ID
00:56:03
for the county Crimestoppers' anonymous tip line. One of the numbers corresponded to a tip from early in the Hasse case
00:56:10
where the tipster claimed to have overheard two men in a bar saying they'd killed Mark Hasse.
00:56:16
The other number on that scrap paper was even more important because it matched back to that computer message
00:56:21
that gave details about the Hasse murder weapon and also threatened more killings.
00:56:27
So we knew right then that that tip that had come into the command post was sent by Eric Williams,
00:56:32
and we knew right then we were going to be able to put Eric Williams in jail. He was arrested, not for murder,
00:56:39
but for making a terrorist threat about killing a judge. We just didn't know if we had enough evidence to convict him.
00:56:46
They just had to figure out where the evidence might be. Did you think that Eric Williams had a hiding place?
00:56:53
We begin to suspect pretty early on if it's Eric Williams and we know what cars were used,
00:56:58
there may be a storage unit or some secret storage place that he may have access to that we haven't found.
00:57:03
At least now, 10 weeks after Hassie's murder, the investigation was finally on a roll.
00:57:10
We go home that night to get a good night's sleep, and I actually wanted for the first time in weeks to see my son play a Little League game.
00:57:17
But the next morning, his parenting plans were dashed by work again. His phone rang. It was a friend of Eric Williams who'd heard about his arrest.
00:57:27
And said, Mr. Worski, I have something to tell you about Eric Williams. I think I may have rented him a storage unit.
00:57:33
I could tell when I listened to his voice, this is it. This is the real thing. So Little League was out?
00:57:39
Unfortunately, it was. Little League was out. My son went three for three. But you were headed to a storage unit.
00:57:44
This is too important. So I got on the phone with the Texas Rangers, and I said, this is it.
00:57:48
I think we found it. The hot spot in the investigation was now a run-of-the-mill storage unit.
00:58:07
number 18 to be precise in Seagoville, Texas, just 14 miles from the McClelland house.
00:58:15
Eric Casper of the Texas Rangers was part of the task force caravan racing to Unit 18.
00:58:21
Everybody is running and gunning, you know, everybody wants to be there. So we're all just filled with expectations. We're making bets.
00:58:28
Okay, the white crumb is going to be there. No, it's not. We're going to find the murder weapon.
00:58:33
Ranger Casper did the honors, lifting the heavy steel door. This is one of those moments that I'll never forget because it was just wow.
00:58:42
What'd you see? We saw the white crumb, the car that we had been looking for all those days and all those man hours.
00:58:48
And there it was. And we knew finally we had Eric Williams. But there was so much more.
00:58:55
Police uniforms and bulletproof vests. More than a half dozen police badges. thousands of rounds of ammo, and enough guns to supply a small army.
00:59:06
He's got six or seven weapons of the right caliber that could have been the McClellan murder weapon.
00:59:11
We have five or six weapons of the right caliber that could have been the Hasse murder weapon.
00:59:15
Did you think that one of those guns had to be the murder weapon? I felt like our chances were pretty good because there were just so many in there.
00:59:24
The guns and ammo were sent off to the lab for testing. Inside this treasure trove of bad intentions,
00:59:31
there were also pickle jars filled with liquid, later identified as homemade napalm.
00:59:37
Unbelievable. It was like a tactical operator's closet. But they'd soon be dealt a serious blow.
00:59:47
The lab results came back on all those weapons. None of the forensics matched. The murder weapons were still missing.
00:59:53
that got to be extremely frustrating when you feel like well one of these guns I sure has got to be the murder weapon We were positive one of those guns was going to be the murder weapon
01:00:05
Even without the guns, the prosecutor believed there was enough evidence to finally go forward.
01:00:11
On April 18, 2013, 11 weeks after Mark Hasse was gunned down and three weeks since the McClellans were killed,
01:00:20
Eric Williams was charged with three counts of capital murder. Prosecutors said the motive was revenge.
01:00:27
One thing I found out about Eric Williams, the first big thing that went wrong in his life,
01:00:31
this is how he was going to react with rage and homicidal violence. It all seemed so senseless to the McClellan's daughter, Christina.
01:00:39
This all started over three computer monitors. And now we're talking about three murders.
01:00:45
Yeah, you know, normal people don't do that. God bless the United States and the great state of Texas.
01:00:50
Eric Williams went on trial for murder in December of 2014. State of Texas versus Eric Williams.
01:00:56
Williams wasn't on trial for the murder of Mark Hasse or Mike McClelland. Not guilty, right?
01:01:01
In a surprise tactic, this trial was only for the murder of Cynthia McClelland. Why not just try the murders at the same time?
01:01:09
What if something went wrong in the first trial? We wanted to have the ability to be able to try him twice and make sure he got justice.
01:01:16
Christina sat in court and had to relive the deaths of her parents. What gave you the strength to go to court every day?
01:01:23
I showed up every day for the three people who gave their lives for something good.
01:01:28
They stood up and they did what they were supposed to and they died for it. This is my chance to tell you the story of the murders of Mike and Cynthia McClellan.
01:01:40
Prosecutor Bill Worski thought if he could prove Eric Williams had killed Cynthia,
01:01:45
That would obviously show he killed Mike. Take your seat in the witness stand. One of the first witnesses called C.J. Tomlinson, Dallas police officer and friend of the McClellans.
01:01:57
C.J. told the jury how he and his parents found the McClellans. I took a couple more steps inside the residence.
01:02:06
I was hollering for Mike, Mike, Mike. For three days, prosecutors brought a blizzard of witnesses.
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They told the jury Williams had been linked to that tip that came in after the McClellan murders.
01:02:20
He sent an email in the law enforcement claiming credit for the murders, thinking law enforcement would never figure it out.
01:02:27
Well, he was wrong. Investigators didn't have the murder weapon, but they had something else.
01:02:33
A bullet they found inside a bag taken from Williams' storage unit. You know this is what you and your team recovered?
01:02:40
Yes. A ballistics examiner compared that single, unfired bullet to the shell casings found at the murder scene and came up with a match.
01:02:50
That live round was ejected from the same weapon that killed the McClellans. So that was a big moment for us.
01:02:57
And prosecutors thought this security video outside the storage unit nailed the case down.
01:03:03
They said it traced the movements of Eric Williams and the Crown Vic on the morning of the murders.
01:03:09
Approximately 6 a.m. real time. That's when Williams, in his black SUV, pulled up to the entrance of the storage unit, according to the prosecution.
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At 6.12 a.m., the White Crown Victoria pulled out. By 6.42, investigators knew the McClellans were dead or dying on the floor, based on the motion detectors in the home security system.
01:03:33
At 7 o'clock, here's that white Crown Vic coming back through the entrance. And 17 minutes later, that black SUV pulled out.
01:03:44
He committed this crime. His acts alone and his acts alone condemned him to be found guilty of capital murder.
01:03:52
The prosecutor said they had a lot of circumstantial evidence, including the Crown Vic and that matching bullet.
01:03:59
Ladies and gentlemen, the jury. But the defense was about to tell the jury what the prosecution didn't have.
01:04:05
Eric Williams did not commit these murders. Defense lawyer Matthew Seymour laid into one of the state's star witnesses, that ballistics expert.
01:04:16
He reminded the jury investigators never found the murder weapon. You didn't actually have access to that firearm.
01:04:22
Correct. He tried to poke holes in the prosecution's matching bullet theory. Someone of different experience becomes along and say they're not a match. Is that true?
01:04:32
Yes, potentially that is true. The defense didn't see the need to call any witnesses.
01:04:37
Our position was the state had not fulfilled their obligation to prove the elements of the indictment.
01:04:44
It was just that simple. There is no known murder weapon in this case. there's no one who can place Eric Williams in that scene at the McClellan home.
01:04:59
No one. Finally, this case that had rocked the justice system was about to be decided by the jurors.
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They needed only 90 minutes to reach a verdict. We, the jury, unanimously find the defendant, Eric Lyle Williams,
01:05:13
guilty of capital murder as charged in the indictment. Guilty of capital murder in the death of Cynthia McClelland.
01:05:20
You heard the word guilty. That was a gift. It was a gift for us. Probably a gift for everybody else because I don't believe that this would have stopped at the end of these killings.
01:05:29
There's a sad postscript to this case that raises a painful question. Could Williams have been stopped after the Hasse murder and before the McClellans?
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Did they have to die? We're going to find you. In a haunting irony, Mike McClelland always thought Williams was likely the killer.
01:05:47
He certainly suspected it was Eric Williams after Mark Hasse was shot, and he made no secret
01:05:52
what his opinion was. And I had numerous conversations where he said Bill it Eric Williams Williams was one of a handful of possible suspects early on in the Hasse case but there was no evidence linking him to the murder
01:06:06
And even with his conviction for theft, he'd had a good reputation. We had several discussions about it.
01:06:12
Of course, Eric's name came up in the discussions, but it doesn't matter what you think if you can't prove it.
01:06:17
And now, this former Justice of the Peace was a convicted murderer. How? Why? Was he living a double life?
01:06:26
I think he was. Most people were fooled by his exterior. He looked so normal. He looked so average.
01:06:32
He had the trappings of success being a lawyer and a judge. But behind that mask was a homicidal psychopath.
01:06:38
But this case was far from over. Prosecutors had won, but they were saving their best witness for last.
01:06:46
Investigators always suspected Eric Williams did not act alone. And he didn't. You're about to hear from his accomplice, someone with a first-hand account of the murders.
01:07:15
They'd won a guilty verdict against Eric Williams. But prosecutors didn't have time to celebrate.
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The jury would now decide whether he should get the death penalty. In a rare legal move, prosecutors had saved some blockbuster evidence
01:07:30
and a star witness for just this moment. As investigators figured all along, Williams hadn't acted alone.
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He had an accomplice. It was this woman. His wife, Kim. They'd been married for 15 years, but now she was about to testify against her husband.
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It was a cold day, and there was excitement in the air. Soon after Eric was arrested, Kim Williams was brought in for questioning.
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An investigator spent hours talking to her. At first, she defended Eric, but finally she broke.
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And what she told them was startling. She said not only did she know something about the murders,
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she helped her husband carry them out. Now, during the penalty phase, prosecutors planned to use her testimony
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to make sure the jury would give him a death sentence. She led us to a lot of evidence,
01:08:30
and I think it was important for the jury to see and have all their questions answered.
01:08:34
He came up with a plan to dress like law enforcement. They were a husband and wife murder team,
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and they went through a dress rehearsal the night before the McClelland murders.
01:08:46
He was modeling it for me. Describe to the members of the jury what he was modeling for you the night before.
01:08:52
I want to say he looked like he was in the Army or SWAT. He had a bulletproof vest that had sheriff on the front
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that more than likely Mrs. McClellan was going to answer the door and he was going to introduce himself as a policeman.
01:09:09
But if these had been revenge killings of Mike McClelland and Mark Hasse, why did Cynthia McClelland have to die?
01:09:15
Because she would be there as a witness, and he described it as collateral damage.
01:09:21
And prosecutors wanted the jury to know how Eric and Kim Williams spent the day after killing two people in cold blood.
01:09:28
We had steaks on the grill, and Eric cooked those. At your parents' house? At my parents' house.
01:09:34
Were you all celebrating the steaks? That's correct. The prosecutors didn't tell jurors about the Hasse case during the Cynthia McClellan trial.
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But now they were ready to use Mark's murder to cement their argument for the death penalty.
01:09:49
We had an airtight circumstantial evidence case on the Hasse murder. Witnesses to the murder, you remember, said the shooter jumped into the passenger side of the getaway car.
01:09:59
As it turns out, Kim was the getaway driver. As you're driving away from the scene of the Hasse murder, what is his mood like?
01:10:08
Happy. What is your mood like? Happy. I so believed in Eric and everything that he told me.
01:10:15
His anger was my anger. Who was he mad at? He was mad at Mark Hasse. He was mad at Mr. McClellan.
01:10:25
He was angry because he thought that they were trying to set him up. What did that tell you about this incredibly bizarre relationship?
01:10:32
that these two were in cahoots with each other. I think it proved beyond any doubt that Eric Williams was a psychopath
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and this was a horribly toxic, screwed-up marriage. I think it lets you know what type of darkness was going on inside that house and inside their hearts.
01:10:46
Kim Williams also said she helped her husband dispose of key evidence in the case.
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She recalled driving to this bridge one night and watching Eric toss a black bag into the lake.
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Do you know what was in the bag? I knew that it was guns. It took seven months of searching the lake before divers found the bag.
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FBI agent Lori Gibbs was there. Open this up and there's two guns. This is it. Inside the bag were two revolvers.
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Forensics would show one of those guns killed Mark Hasse. And one more thing, that bag those guns were in, it wasn't a bag at all.
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It was really a terrifying Halloween mask. Grim Reaper type Halloween mask. Exactly.
01:11:32
Kim Williams said her husband wore it to conceal himself when he shot Mark. And you can imagine the terror that was going through Mark Hassett when he recognized and heard the voice.
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She also told jurors that Eric had a hit list with more intended victims. Judge Ashworth.
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Including a judge whom Eric wanted to kill in a special way, with a special weapon.
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With a crossbow. That's correct. Kim Williams said he also screwed up a concoction just for the judge.
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You may remember there was homemade napalm and pickle jars inside the storage unit.
01:12:08
What was the napalm for? I guess to drive in an extra kind of FU. It's going to bore a hole in his stomach and pour it in.
01:12:18
It's one thing to say, well, Eric Williams did this, fine. But that his wife was along for the ride.
01:12:24
You just can't make this stuff up. You would think this was a Hollywood movie, but these people are living every day together
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and talking about murdering people. The defense countered by calling dozens of character witnesses,
01:12:37
from William's scoutmaster... Boy, he's a very smart young man. ...to his high school friends.
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She was very respectful. Never said a mean word, never frustrated, never expressed anger.
01:12:51
...and former colleagues. Very friendly, I mean, approachable, got along with all of us.
01:12:57
But the jurors weren't swayed. He was ordered by this court to carry out the sentence of death.
01:13:03
He was sentenced to die by lethal injection. He's appealing his conviction. Given the death penalty decision, prosecutors decided not to try him for the murders of Mark Hasse or Mike McClelland.
01:13:16
Williams pleaded not guilty to both. My name is Christina Foreman. Now, Christina, in her victim impact statement, would finally get her chance to vent her feelings as she turned to her parents' killer.
01:13:30
Pretty much the only thing I have to say is, f*** you, Eric Williams. That was pretty much the only thing I could think of to say to him.
01:13:39
Mark Cassie's longtime friend, Marcus Bush, believes Williams could still be dangerous, even on death row.
01:13:46
Eric Williams is a master manipulator. He is a very intelligent human being, and he's a very deadly, proficient killer.
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I think he's going to be a threat to the prison guards, and I think he's going to be a threat to anybody else in prison.
01:14:02
You're making him sound like Hannibal Lecter. This is a man who killed three people in cold blood
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simply because they prosecuted him for stealing computer monitors. Kim Williams pleaded guilty to the murder of Mark Hasse.
01:14:17
She was sentenced to 40 years in prison, avoiding the death penalty. But now, Kim is telling a whole new story.
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Did he threaten you? Yes, he did. What did he say? He said that if I did anything or tried to move away or say anything to anybody,
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he would kill me and he would kill my family. So eight years into kim williams 40 sentence we traveled to texas and met with her in prison
01:14:55
for her first ever tv interview why why sit down now because i think it's probably time to go ahead
01:15:02
I didn't tell my side of the story. Kim is now divorced from Eric. And though she confessed and testified about her involvement in the murders,
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she now says she was forced to participate out of fear. She blames health issues for her dependence on Eric.
01:15:18
I was broken. I had no confidence. I felt like I needed to stay with him to take care of me.
01:15:25
And a lot of that was his mind manipulation. You know, you're sick. You're always going to be on this medication.
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You need me. Kim says she was on strong narcotics to help with an autoimmune disease, and it affected her judgment.
01:15:39
What has that done for you being off of all those drugs? It's made me more clear-headed.
01:15:45
My mind was very cloudy back then, and I couldn't think straight, and I was pretty much a zombie.
01:15:51
Some people felt that your testimony, even after the drugs had worn off, that your testimony was cold, that you showed little remorse for what had happened.
01:16:00
The prosecution, the attorneys told me not to cry, but I did cry. I did cry. The prosecutors told us they said no such thing, and Kim was not seen crying on the witness stand.
01:16:12
When Eric first started talking about killing Mark Hasse and Mike McClelland, did you think he was serious?
01:16:19
No, I didn't. To me, it was just talking blowing off steam, you know. I didn't take it seriously. Why would I?
01:16:26
So when did it start to go from, okay, he's just blowing off steam to this is real?
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When he started purchasing cars, when he started pulling out weapons. Did you not feel like maybe you should go talk to someone and say, I'm really scared here that my husband...
01:16:44
I was really scared and I wanted to talk to someone, but I was afraid. And he was following me everywhere.
01:16:51
Every time I would leave the house, he would follow me or go with me. Did he threaten you?
01:16:55
Yes, he did. He said that if I did anything or tried to move away or say anything to anybody, he would kill me and he would kill my family.
01:17:04
According to prosecutors, Kim never told law enforcement that she participated out of fear.
01:17:09
And what about all those damning things Kim said on the stand under oath, like what she and Eric did following the McClelland murders?
01:17:17
Are you all celebrating with steaks? That's correct. That was something taken out of context My family and I always grill steaks on Easter weekend That was planned weeks ahead before this So you saying the steaks were not part of a
01:17:32
celebration of the murders. How could you even celebrate Easter after that weekend? I was so sick,
01:17:38
but he did. And my family had no, you know, they had no idea what was going on. You said you were a willing participant in these murders. You helped scout out the murder locations.
01:17:49
You rode in the getaway car. Yeah, I went with him because I was afraid that if I didn't, he would hurt me or my family.
01:17:57
But at the same time, you said you were both excited, happy after these murders took place.
01:18:04
Well, I wasn't, but he was. But you said that. I know. You testified to that. I know what I said, and that was a mistake.
01:18:09
And that's not true because I live with it every day. Would you say, though, now maybe that this is sort of revisionist history that you're now that your head is clear and, you know, you're you're sort of changing what happened back then?
01:18:23
No, I'm not changing anything. I'm not changing anything. Back then, the adrenaline and the excitement was more him and it wasn't me, but I was afraid.
01:18:34
What do you say to anyone who says she is evil, she participated in this, she could have told someone, she could have saved these people's lives?
01:18:44
What can you say? I can't change people's opinions like that. I'm not a fighter.
01:18:49
And, you know, people are going to see me that way because I was with him. And that's what I'm trying to change.
01:18:56
We wanted to ask Eric about his ex-wife's claims, but he denied our request for an interview.
01:19:02
In 2019, he talked to NBC's Stephanie Gosk for the oxygen series Killer Motive. And at that time, he maintained he had nothing to do with the three murders and seemed to suggest Kim was the killer.
01:19:14
Let's talk about the hit list. All right. You know who had a hit list? Who? Kim. She testified about it. I never had one.
01:19:25
So how would she be in a position to be aware of, for instance, where the murder weapon was and where that mask was?
01:19:35
Oh, I have no idea. That's something you'll have to ask her. It sounds like you're telling me, Eric, that your wife, now ex-wife, murdered Mark Cassie and Mike and Cynthia McClellan.
01:19:46
I wasn't there. I don't know that. But you suspect that that's the case. I know she had a lot more to do with it than she has told anyone.
01:19:52
Kim acknowledges that she had what she called Kim's kick-ass list, but says it wasn't a hit list.
01:19:59
She says it was a list of names from an online Facebook game As for the other claims Eric made in his interview I mean given the evidence that we have it does seem pretty far But it his story His story is that you did this
01:20:14
Yeah, well, he's delusional because I didn't work with these people. I didn't have the feud with
01:20:19
them. I'm not a shooter. I'm not even a good shot. He's trying to get off of death row,
01:20:25
you know, so he's going to say anything. He just needs to take the responsibility of what he did.
01:20:29
What would you say to the Hassie and McClellan families? I'm so sorry that I didn't fight it.
01:20:35
I am so sorry that I didn't fight him to stop him. I am so sorry. Cynthia McClellan's daughter Christina has little sympathy for Kim.
01:20:46
She didn't pull the trigger, but if you help your husband pick out outfits to wear to murder people and to drive the cars,
01:20:54
that's pretty egregious in itself, the fact that you are being complicit in this kind of role.
01:21:04
I'll never forget Mike and Cynthia or Mark. Will you ever be over this? No, I'm not over it.
01:21:09
I know I never will be. I don't think any of us will be, ever. But as tragic as this all was, believe it or not,
01:21:19
something good came out of it. During the long ordeal, Christina and that officer from Dallas, C.J. Tomlinson, fell in love.
01:21:28
Their families had been great friends for a long time. Cynthia McClelland had always tried to play matchmaker.
01:21:35
Cynthia pretty much told me that that was going to happen. And she was right. She got me.
01:21:43
I can only imagine how happy your mom would be if she's looking down that you two are together.
01:21:48
I can't even imagine she would be just doing some sort of weird dance that I told you so.
01:21:55
And I'm sure she's thrilled. And, you know, we got married on her birthday, so that would have made her ecstatic.
01:22:04
Christina and CJ are now parents to two daughters who sadly will never get a chance to meet their grandparents.
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But the loving memories of Cynthia and Mike McClelland are still very much alive in their family.
01:22:16
I hope to pass on what I have taken from them to my children. That's all for this edition of Dateline.
01:22:28
I hope you'll join me and my colleagues Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb as we shine a light on some of the people who inspire us most on our Inspiring America special tomorrow at 8, 7 central.
01:22:40
I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night. you