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Tonight on Dateline. Sheriff's my one husband's been shot. Okay, who shot him? I don't know.
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I immediately had a mental picture of guys with guns right down the front door. Did it jump out at you as anything in particular?
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He's not your average victim. I can't imagine who would have ever been mad at Buddy enough to do that.
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Could this be a suicide? He's been everything. We were going to go all together.
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Home invasion, they're not likely to shoot you when you're sleeping. Something was not quite right.
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Agents had come and served the summons on them requesting tax records. The walls were closing in.
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First murder trial. Yes, sir. A dead doctor, deceit and doubt. We didn't have DNA. We didn't have it on video.
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A lot of people do bad things and get away with it. Then they read the verdict. somebody's life is about to change.
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I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison with The Day the Music Died.
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Oh how he loved it here. Chose it after all. Few places lovelier. And none with a past like the past that delighted him here.
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The history that still echoed in the green hills all around. But most of all, he simply loved the music.
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The music rooted in these Blue Ridge Mountains. The mountains that roll and rise and dip into one of America's loved little cities.
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Asheville, North Carolina. The adopted home of Dr. Frank McCutcheon. the man everybody here knew as simply Buddy.
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The doctor part was Buddy's day job, plastic surgery his specialty. But in his heart, he was a true musician,
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prominent and popular enough to appear on local TV. In a way, Buddy was a preservationist
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of the music that made America. banjo, bagpipes, more common instruments. He knew them all.
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And he knew all about the people behind that famous line, the day the music died.
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Which, in Buddy's case, was a Friday night in July 2016. Sticky. Hot. Tourists brought by the summer and the town
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filled the music clubs, crowded into the brew pubs? Well, a few miles away, in a fine house on an uncroated road
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in a suburb just outside of town, Buddy McCutcheon and his wife Brenda settled down in the air-conditioned quiet
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and went to bed. Was it sealed by then, the fate that awaited them? Someone waiting out there in the dark?
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Silence reigned. 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m. And then... Sheriff 911, what is the address of your emergency?
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My husband's been shot. Okay, who shot him? He's worried. I don't know. What is your husband's name?
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Frank McCutcheon. And what is your name? Brenda McCutcheon. Brenda was a nurse, but he's partner in life and work.
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Okay, where was your husband shot at? On the couch in our TV room. Is he still alive? Is he still breathing?
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No. Brenda could barely talk, but did manage to get out that she had gone to sleep upstairs
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while Buddy had dozed off downstairs in front of the TV. And then she awoke to a sound like a sharp thunderclap and the dog barked.
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So she rushed downstairs and there he was. Do you know where on his body he was hit?
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Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. Okay. Dawn was still hours away when sheriff's deputies headed to the house.
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Their body cams were rolling as they encountered Brenda in the pitch black darkness.
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What's going on? Where's he at? We're going on in the residence. He's supposed to be in here, unknown if there's anybody else in there.
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Sheriff's office! Inside, it was dark, except for the glow of the TV screen. Sheriff's office, if you're in the home, come out with your hands up.
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Barely visible, sprawled on the couch, was the body of 64-year-old Buddy McCutcheon.
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There's a shotgun here in the corner. I'm going to go check the backyard. This door was unsecured when we came in, Steve.
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Detective John Ledford roused from sleep, drove through the early morning light to the McCutcheon house,
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and tried to prepare for whatever he might find. You're nervous. You're bracing yourself.
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We knew that going into this, this was probably going to be very complex in nature,
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and I don't think anything prepared us for what we would encounter. Ledford went inside.
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He was lying on the couch facing the rear of the couch Was it obvious what kind of injury he had received It was obvious there was a gunshot wound There was no exit wound but it was fairly apparent it was an injury wound to the top of the head
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Bedford wasn't sure what to make of it. Violent crime like this was uncommon in Asheville
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and rarely involved a victim like Dr. Buddy McCutcheon. You've got a doctor, a plastic surgeon,
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in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, deceased in his living room. That in and of itself is somewhat unusual.
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Letford's partner, Detective Walt Thrower, arrived next, armed with a warrant to search the house.
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There was some early speculation, could this be a suicide? I hadn't seen one. Or something more sinister.
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Soon, the horrible news traveled at the speed of phone calls 800 miles west of Buddy's hometown, Fayetteville, Arkansas.
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where Brenda reached Buddy's brother, Clutch, and his fiancée, Becca. She just had stated that there had been a home invasion
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and some kind of struggle, and Buddy had been shot and killed. What was it like to hear that?
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It was horrible. Terrible. Almost physiologically, that must do something to you, right?
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Oh, I did. I dropped down on the floor. I dropped the phone and I told Becca, I said, come get the phone.
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And I just dropped down on my knee. I was just saying, no, no, no. Clutch was once a Marine fighter pilot and tough.
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But this? Now he had the grim task of calling his two other brothers. First John, followed by Mark.
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And then John called Melissa, the youngest member of the family. What he said to me was, some home invaders broke into Buddy's house.
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and he's dead. Do you remember what it was like to hear about your brother's death? It didn't make
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sense. I couldn't have been more confused if I'd gotten a phone call saying, Buddy got attacked by
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a shark in his living room and he's dead. And so I said, what happened? And he was crying, I don't
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know. And then I started crying and then that was the end of inquiring at that moment.
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For the detectives, of course, the inquiry was just beginning. The autopsy should tell them something.
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Did Buddy McCutcheon take his own life? Sheriff's office. Did home invaders shoot him dead?
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Or was it something else altogether? The first question would be easy. The second two, not easy at all.
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When we come back, the mysterious death of a man who loved life. Buddy got them involved in different social groups.
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He got them involved in the Civil War reenactments. He decided to take up sailing, decided to learn to fly a plane.
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So what had happened in that house? I immediately had a mental picture of guys with guns break down the front door, come in, be violent.
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Buddy McCutcheon's whole family was in a state of shock. Buddy had been something of a patriarch among the siblings.
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And this? It was almost too much to take in. I immediately had a mental picture of guys with guns, break down the front door, come in, be violent.
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So my next question was, is Brenda okay? Brenda was physically okay, but in one awful second, her husband of over 30 years was taken, and life as she had known it was over.
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When she met him, he was, to say the least, an eligible young man. They were both working at the same hospital.
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She was a nurse, and he was a young doctor, single, good-looking, with those dimples he had, that jet-black hair.
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Before too long, they were living together, and after a few years, they were married.
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A traditional Scottish wedding, in fact. Gilts and bagpipes? Buddy's idea, naturally.
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Did it seem from the beginning like, okay, this is a match made in heaven? I thought it was more like a case of opposites that must have attracted. Buddy was more of a reserved person. He wouldn't use a lot of words when a few words would do.
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I'll be. But Brenda was very chatty and solicitous and what can I do for you? They seemed to compliment each other and seemed to get along great. They love each other, happy together.
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Brenda was a true Southern belle, born in Memphis and grew up in Tennessee. My brothers loved her. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say they loved her. They even adored her.
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She was very caring and a very, so sweet. She was a wonderful wife. And loyal. When Buddy wanted to move or try something new, she was game.
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Buddy got them involved in different social groups. He got them involved in the Civil War reenactments,
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and she kind of tagged along with that. He decided to take up sailing, and he was the one that decided to learn to fly a plane.
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So Brenda went along with him while he flew a plane. Brenda went along, too, when Buddy later opened his own medical practice
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called Cosmetic Surgery of Asheville. Instead of continuing her nursing career full Brenda eventually became the office manager freeing Buddy up to focus on doing the surgeries Buddy was meticulous
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And I guess you need that in a plastic surgeon. Did he live well? Did he live an expensive lifestyle?
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You know, appearances weren't important to Buddy, but he would be more likely to pull up in his Toyota
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and get out of the Toyota wearing blue jeans. They never had kids. but they had each other and their dog and a fine house close enough to nature
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that bears sometimes wandered into their yard. Yeah, tear that bird feeder up. That's what it's for.
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So life in Asheville was good. We must have been doing something right. He was excellent. He was a great doctor.
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Scott Lunsford was Buddy's best friend growing up. He had a great mind, really sharp, really quick.
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I heard his brother say he made straight A's all the time. Did he talk about why he wanted to be a plastic surgeon?
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I know that he worked on people that had become disfigured by crashes, and so I think that tugged at his empathy gene.
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And I think he liked making things beautiful. But he also liked, loved making music.
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That was his true passion. He started playing guitar when he was probably seven or eight.
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He taught himself. By the time he was in high school, he'd been in a band. With Scott Lunsford, beginning with a very successful local Arkansas-based band called the Viscounts.
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We did all the local gigs, dedication of the opening of Montgomery Ward or spaghetti dinner dances, even in the basement of churches.
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We loved playing. Would have made you the coolest guys in the room, right? We were popular, I can say that, yeah.
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Buddy, with his long rock star hair and 60s threads, played the guitar and was the unquestioned leader of the group.
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Buddy had an ear. He could pick out any melody, any chord. He could score the chord changes for us all.
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Could he have been a professional musician if he wanted to? Oh, yeah. There's no question.
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And he had said that he was using his medical career to pay for his music career.
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And eventually had set up a studio. But now Buddy's studio was silent. he'd make music no more.
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You can't really grasp that he's gone. It's a great loss. It was a great loss. As the afternoon heat began to set in,
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investigators completed their initial search of Buddy and Brenda's place. But the clues that might tell them what happened
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remained hidden in plain sight. Coming up. He's been everything to me. We were going to go old together.
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Brenda has a theory about what happened and who might have killed Buddy. Nobody that has ever come into our house was going to kill my husband.
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I mean, you know, maybe it was, I don't know, a judge who wants something, I don't know.
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When Dateline continues. Don't see anything behind you. See nothing in the carpet.
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In the dim light cast by Buddy McCutcheon's TV, nothing was obvious. Not right away.
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First responders simply saw a man lying on his side facing the back of his living room couch.
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There was a single gunshot wound to his head. And around him, nothing seemed disturbed.
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So, suicide? Sadly, it happens, even among the outwardly successful. And then, a closer look and listen to what they're saying,
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picked up by their body cams. The projectiles had to go somewhere. The guns had to go somewhere.
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The gun had to go somewhere. If Buddy had shot himself, wouldn't the gun still be in or close to his hand?
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It had to be somewhere. It just wasn't here. Besides, the entry wound was in the top rear of Buddy's skull
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Hard for a man to reach while lying on the couch So, option number two Homicide Which is what Brenda McCutcheon thought it must be
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An intruder must have shot Buddy She said that somebody had came in, is what she told me
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3-6-1042. She was a little bit frantic originally. Wasn't sure if there was somebody inside the residence.
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Deputy went inside and began clearing the residence to ensure that nobody else was inside there.
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Brenda, meanwhile, stayed outside, waiting to talk to detectives. The thing I distinctly remember about her, she was barefoot.
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She had left the residence barefooted. Was still wearing her nightclothes. I think we ought to do a GSR on her if she's willing to do one.
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GSR, gunshot residue, something that can be detected. So Brenda willingly cooperated as they swabbed her hands.
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That's just a normal, a routine thing to do, right? Yes. Then it's packaged up and that will go to the crime lab to be analyzed.
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Meanwhile the detectives had to know what if anything Brenda knew about what happened She was clearly upset but readily agreed to go to the sheriff department to answer questions whatever questions she could
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I appreciate you agreeing to come down here with us and talk with us and see if we can bring some resolution.
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What's your full name? Brenda K. K-A-Y. Brenda K. McCutcheon, M. C. C. Brenda recounted what happened in the final hours of Buddy's life.
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I guess about 7.30 I went to a subway sandwich and got us a sub sandwich Came back home
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Came back home, ate, watched a little TV Buddy got on the computer for a while, I don't know what he was doing
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Facebook or something He's been posting, we had a bear in our backyard a couple of nights ago
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Then a little after 9pm, said Brenda she went upstairs to bed while Buddy lay down on the couch
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You normally think of a husband and wife sleeping together in the same room, or perhaps, you know, they had difficulty sleeping together.
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Which was certainly true of Buddy and Brenda. He'd taken to sleeping on the couch during his days as an on-call medical resident.
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They just got used to it. I know that sounds really weird, but the reason for it is he can't sleep with the SUV and I can't sleep with the TV.
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Anyway, they tucked into their respective places. Brenda, upstairs in the bedroom.
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fell asleep. And then suddenly, a few hours before dawn, something woke me up really loud.
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You stayed asleep and you were awakened by loud noise? Yeah. And I thought, I truly thought
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it was thunder, that we'd been having some really bad thunderstorms. But it wasn't raining.
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So Brenda said she went downstairs to see what happened. Maybe a picture fell off the wall or something?
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But that wasn't it. It was her nose that told her first. I could smell that smell.
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I know what gunpowder smells like from Civil War reenacting. So I went over to him and said his name.
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I didn't touch him, though. And I looked at him and he wasn't ready. But Brenda knew there was no point in trying to revive him.
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She knew very well what death looked like. I've been a nurse since 1975, and I lost it.
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I flew out the front door, which was locked. It was locked. And went to my neighbor.
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Neighbor didn't answer. So Brenda ran back into the house and grabbed the phone and rushed out and called 911 from the street.
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My husband's been shot. Okay, who shot him? I don't know. Now a few hours later, sitting in that police interview room,
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Brenda finally had a chance to reflect on what happened and who could have killed Buddy.
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Why would anybody, nobody that has ever come into our house would want to kill my husband?
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I mean, you know, maybe it was, I don't know, a junkie wanting something, I don't know.
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A junkie? An intruder? Perhaps someone who actually knew the McCutcheons? But Buddy had no known enemies.
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Uncle Buddy? You know yourself. What they say. He was admired. People liked him.
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Loved him. Most especially Brenda. He said everything to me. We were going to go old together.
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We were going to retire. We were going to sit on a front porch in a rocket chair.
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But that would never happen now. In one split second, that life was yanked away.
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As Brenda and the detective struggled to understand, a message came in from the McCutcheon house.
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A clue had turned up. Weird, ambiguous, and maybe important. Coming up. Didn't touch a gun, didn't fire a gun.
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Didn't fire a gun. Didn't shoot your husband. No. Questions that have to be asked, leaving Brenda demanding answers.
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I'm telling you the truth that happened to me. I'm hoping you can find the truth that happened to him and get me some closure.
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because I'm starting to get really mad. As the hours passed on that first terrible day,
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Brenda McCutcheon worked with detectives downtown and tried to process sudden widowhood.
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and she reflected on those first moments after discovering Buddy was dead. At that point, I was also scared.
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I didn't know if somebody was in the house. Investigators searched inside and outside the McCutcheon house and found no one.
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But they did uncover a few possible clues. A back gate was open. An exterior door near Buddy's couch was ajar.
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So, intruder? No, there was no sign of a robbery. At that point, they checked with Brenda.
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Did you see that as if something had been taken, like something like, you know, they had rummaged through anything?
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I didn't notice. I truly didn't notice anything. Brenda did say Buddy kept guns, some loaded, around the house.
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One of them is silver-colored throes. .38 caliber pistol. Officers found the guns.
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Plenty of ammo, too. Found them all, except the pistol. One of the last times she had seen the firearm,
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she thought it was in a kitchen drawer. One of the things that was kind of odd about it
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was the drawer was so full of household items, it didn't appear like the gun would fit in there.
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Anyway, it was missing. Or maybe Buddy had moved it? The interview stretched well into the morning, question after question.
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I do not truly believe anyone would want to hurt him. He was facing the back of the couch.
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I'm trying to think if I saw anything. He was shot right here. As Brenda kept talking, news came from an investigator at the house.
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They found the gun. And where they found it was, well, it was curious. It was found along a little small path, a break in some ivy that went in between her residence and her neighbor's residence where she ran.
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And soon after, cops of the house found a receipt that matched the gun confirming it belonged to Buddy.
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Detectives couldn't wait to tell Brenda the news. What we've located is one of the guns that you've described.
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Okay, good. Who had it? Not with anybody who's found outside the residence. It's found on the curtail to the residence, but not in the house.
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Okay. And that's what I'm asking. I want you to walk me through in your mind how that might have gotten there.
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You're the detective. I am. You know, if somebody shot him and ran out of the house and threw him away, I don't know.
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Go ahead and take it off. I'm traveling. Thing was, the detectives were aware of cases where a family member trying to protect reputations hides the suicide gun.
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We asked Ms. Percussion if there was any possibility that Dr. Percussion might have committed suicide and she moved the weapon.
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But she was adamant. She was adamant. She did not move the weapon. He never would have killed himself.
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I didn't move a weapon. I didn't move a gun. I didn't pick any gun. Didn't touch a gun.
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Didn't fire a gun. Didn't fire a gun. Didn't shoot your husband. No. No. No. No.
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He did everything to me. It has been for almost adult life. It was a standard question.
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Though it always sounds like an accusation, and loved ones sometimes don't take it so well.
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I'm telling you the truth that happened to me. Okay. I do not know the truth that happened to him.
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I'm hoping you can find the truth that happened to him and get me some closure. Because I'm starting to get really mad.
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Don't get upset, Brenda. Let me ask you this. I can't help it. They took a break, and after...
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Hey, Brenda. How are you? I'm good. Another cop continued the interview. So, you and Buddy's relationship is good.
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If anybody said otherwise, they'd be lying. I would be. Nobody's ever seen you in spas, argue, or anything like that?
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We have our disagreements, but we talk about it. We don't spit and spat at each other.
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We've been together 35 years, so of course we're going to have some disagreements once in a while,
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but it's a good relationship. Apparently devoted to each other. Everything was fine between the two.
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They were still intimate with one another. And together, 24-7. They worked together every day at the clinic, so maybe she knew about this.
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While we were there at her house, I think there were some documents there and some information that had come to light that there, is it the IRS?
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No, the state. The state? Department of Revenue. The North Carolina Department of Revenue was seeking financial statements
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from Buddy and Brenda's medical practice. Oh, yes, she said she knew about that.
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They said, you didn't get these documents, here's the date they need to be there.
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It was W-2s, 1099s, check stubs, withholding, filing. Wasn't a big deal, they were sorting it out.
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So, after that long, grueling interview, detectives were done. Except for a few routine procedures.
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There are photographs taken of her body to make sure there's no injuries or anything that's visible.
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DNA swabs taken and the clothes were actually submitted to the crime lab and tested for gunshot residue.
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Brenda was taken home and decided to stay at the neighbor's for the night, afraid of that big empty house.
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It had been a whirlwind 15 hours for both Brenda and the detectives. they were just getting started.
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Coming up, is Brenda in the clear? She didn't have gunshot residue on her hands.
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We arranged to polygraph her on the question of whether she had shot her husband.
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When Dateline continues. We just decided, I guess we just decided we were going to do something for fun.
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Buddy McCutcheon never liked being the center of attention. Quiet, humble, understated.
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But now, in death, he was suddenly big news all over town. Dr. Buddy McCutcheon, who was shot in the head...
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Dr Buddy McCutcheon Jr was found gunned down at his hall near Asheville North Carolina Buddy McCutcheon death remains a mystery From the beginning detectives had to consider all the possibilities Accident suicide or murder
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When the autopsy was complete, there could no longer be any doubt. Buddy did not take his own life.
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There was no way this was accidental. And according to the autopsy, it could not have been self-inflicted.
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murdered in his own home with his very own gun. And more than that, whoever killed him made absolutely sure of it.
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The doctor was shot on the top of his head. Somebody wanted Buddy McCutcheon dead in the worst possible way.
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There was no ambiguity about it. It was a homicide and ruled a homicide. Word that Buddy had actually been executed
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traveled fast to Fayetteville where Buddy's family and friends already reeling now had to absorb this.
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It was brutal. Cold-blooded. I can't imagine who would have ever been mad at Buddy enough to do that.
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I couldn't imagine what he could have done that would have threatened someone to that level that they felt like they needed to get rid of Buddy to be safe.
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It just didn't equate to me. And bad enough, he's dead, but to hear that he was murdered violently.
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Yeah, I knew that it was a gunshot to the head. What a waste. What a horrible loss.
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So now a killer really was on the loose in Asheville. And Buddy's family didn't think Brenda should be living in that big empty house
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all by herself. Were you worried about her, too, like if this is a home invasion?
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I was. I told her she should come here. And she said, no, I'm going to stay. So, after that long night when her husband was killed
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and the exhausting round of interviews that followed, Brenda got what rest she could, and then,
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well, there were issues to deal with at work. A staff to inform, an office to close,
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a plastic surgery business to shut down. She returned to work, had to. And, knowing there'd be more questions about Buddy's death,
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she had asked his and her attorney, Sean Devereaux, to represent her. Because, isn't the spouse always a person of interest?
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Attorney Devereaux, to quickly dispel any doubt about her innocence, had an idea.
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We arranged for a retired Federal Bureau of Investigation polygraph examiner to polygraph her on the question of whether she had shot her husband.
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She passed. The needle never flickered on the machine. If that wasn't enough, those gunshot residue tests also had a lot to say.
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Remember, Brenda's hands were swabbed right after Buddy died. And? She didn't have gunshot residue on her hands.
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meaning no evidence she fired a gun. At least, no evidence on her hands. As for her clothes...
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There was a trace amount of gunshot residue on the clothing. Which really didn't mean much.
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Lots of ways that little bit could get on the clothes of a woman bending over a husband who'd just been shot to death.
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They could be secondary transfers. She could have touched something or particles in the air when she entered the room.
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So there are a lot of different explanations on how the gunshot residue might have arrived on her clothing.
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So with no real evidence connecting Brenda to the crime, detectives moved on, kept digging,
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checking every lead while looking for a pattern or profile of that possible intruder who may have murdered Buddy.
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We followed up with the reported crimes within the community in the area, breaking and enterings or any other type of crime in close vicinity of the residence.
00:34:02
Those people were sought out and interviewed. It's a process of elimination. You checked, I'm sure, to see if he had any other enemies.
00:34:09
Anybody. No, sir. No. Murder makes a terrible wound in a family. And in Buddy's family, along with the pain,
00:34:19
a great yawning absence of any information at all. We've all been left bewildered and trying to make sense of something
00:34:27
that you can't make sense out of. It's like a bad Kafka short story. I began to feel dismayed.
00:34:34
I began to think this was going to be one of those cases that they never get an answer for.
00:34:39
Mind you, things were happening. Whether they made sense or not was another question.
00:34:48
Coming up, a sudden sale at the doctor's office. They were selling everything down to gauze bandages.
00:34:57
All the equipment was all being liquidated. A few days after Buddy McCutcheon was murdered,
00:35:16
the investigation shifted from his house to his office as detectives Walt Thrower and John Ledford
00:35:22
showed up to talk to the staff, see if they knew anything, or anyone who could have killed their boss,
00:35:30
perhaps a disgruntled patient. They wanted to look at the paperwork, too, for any possible clues,
00:35:38
all normal parts of a homicide investigation. Brenda had stepped out, but soon arrived to finish something she had started,
00:35:48
something that, to the detectives at least, did not seem normal. She was actually disposing of records Some were being thrown in a dumpster there in the parking lot of the complex Just a couple of days after his death Yeah they were selling everything down to like gauze bandages
00:36:05
All the equipment was all being liquidated. Brenda was polite to the cops as she facilitated the liquidation sale and disposed of patient records.
00:36:15
Did you ask her about these things? We were there to search the business. We inquired about speaking with her further.
00:36:23
She consulted an attorney. She wanted the attorney present, and the attorney asked us to delay our interview with her.
00:36:31
That, you'll recall, was attorney Sean Devereaux. She called me because they wanted some documents or whatever it was,
00:36:38
and she was perfectly happy to cooperate with them, but she wasn't clear exactly why they were asking the questions they were asking.
00:36:46
They seemed to be suspicious, said attorney Devereaux, about the abrupt office sale and the disposal of records
00:36:54
and closing up shops quickly after the murder. But Deborah pointed out that Brenda had very good reasons for all that.
00:37:01
She had a $13,000 a month nut between his medical practice that was shut down and their mortgage and bills that they had to pay.
00:37:09
She had to deal with all that. Thing was, Buddy and Brenda's business was not exactly robust.
00:37:16
He shared with me that since the recession, that hit in 2008, 2009, 2010, half of his business, the purely cosmetic side that people pay cash for because insurance won't cover,
00:37:29
had dried up because of the recession. Even in 2016, the year Buddy was killed, finances were tenuous.
00:37:39
There were debts. Were the McCutcheon's money problems somehow related to his murder?
00:37:46
The man was not flush. He wasn't bringing in a lot of income. It was very, very modest for a plastic surgeon.
00:37:54
So I think his passion was being a musician and that he did the other just to pay the bills.
00:38:01
And remember, Brenda's specialty was nursing, not being a business manager. But it did seem a little strange to detectives
00:38:09
that Brenda was also tossing out what appeared to be Buddy's personal stuff. his medical certificates from his graduation from medical school and different things like that
00:38:18
that might have been on the wall of his office. All that was disposed of. So we were actually
00:38:22
retrieving files out of the dumpster and seized computers. She'd already thrown away. She'd already
00:38:28
thrown away. But that wasn't all. There were files in an off-site storage unit too. Work records,
00:38:37
patients' files, a lot of different information. Yes, this is Brenda McCutcheon and you guys are
00:38:43
scheduled to do some shredding for me this coming. In fact, Brenda had been calling around to hire a
00:38:49
shredding company. She was very determined to liquidate herself of anything surrounding the
00:38:55
business or Mr. Percussion. It's just unusual behavior. I was going to see if I could add a
00:39:02
second facility onto that shredding as well. If you could give me a call back. We prepared a search
00:39:09
warrant to recover all those files and take them in as evidence. Again, said Attorney Devereaux,
00:39:15
there were good reasons for Brenda pulling all those files out of the office. She was besieged at that moment. He was a solo practitioner, and she was the de facto
00:39:26
office manager in addition to being a practicing nurse herself. So what she needed to do
00:39:34
was to get patient charts to other doctors or to patients. The detectives shut down the sale,
00:39:43
and then they spoke to Brenda and Buddy's office staff, who were there watching it all.
00:39:48
The murder had hit them hard, and seeing what Brenda was going through, they felt for her.
00:39:54
The office workers were cooperative with us, passed information to the investigation.
00:40:00
Information about Buddy and Brenda, and how they ran their business. They describe Ms. McCutcheon as almost obsessive
00:40:08
about anyone coming into the office with any type of financial record. They can only speak with her.
00:40:16
Then you start to talk to the accountant and you find out that all the interactions as far as the preparation of tax information,
00:40:23
he dealt with Ms. McCutcheon. And you start to see a pattern evolve that, in fact, she took care of all the finances.
00:40:29
Did Buddy have anything to do with it? Did he even know about what was going on?
00:40:33
There was no indication that Dr. McCutcheon was involved in the financial business of the office.
00:40:38
He did the surgeries, and she was the office manager. But that wasn't the only story about money.
00:40:46
There was another one, too. Rather more serious. In fact, it was criminal. There's nothing flashy or glamorous about the North Carolina Department of Revenue office in Asheville.
00:41:14
Just a nondescript red brick building. And their mission statement, which reads in part,
00:41:20
Collect the taxes due, is even more mundane. But, a few days after the murder, Detectives Thrower and Ledford discovered that D.O.R. had been having a little problem
00:41:32
collecting taxes due from Buddy McCutcheon's medical practice. Agents had come and visited Dr. McCutcheon and Ms. McCutcheon at their place of business
00:41:42
and served the summons on them requesting some tax records related to the business.
00:41:47
What did you think about that when you saw that material? That was concerning. The more the detectives learned about the meeting between the McCutcheons and the Department of Revenue the more concerned they became We were able to speak with one of their agents and that when they kind of laid the foundation that this is not something that just came up
00:42:06
We've been involved with Ms. McCutcheon almost since the business has been open.
00:42:11
It turned out, cosmetic surgery of Asheville was a few years behind in filing corporate tax returns.
00:42:19
But according to the Department of Revenue, there was evidence of something even worse.
00:42:24
It seemed the business had deducted payroll taxes from its employees' paychecks,
00:42:29
but did not send that money on to the state. They had accountants who were preparing tax information to be turned into the Department of Revenue,
00:42:39
but there was no indication any payments were ever being made. That's why the DOR issued this summons,
00:42:45
ordering Buddy to explain why his practice didn't pay the state employee withholding tax.
00:42:51
Total about $39,000. Not a huge sum, but if true, a serious crime. So this was fraud on a fairly significant scale.
00:43:01
It had to be fairly significant to get to the criminal division, Department of Revenue.
00:43:05
They were actually criminal investigators. Criminal investigators from the Department of Revenue.
00:43:13
That's who showed up unannounced at the medical office. Staff members told the detectives the visit seemed to catch Buddy off guard.
00:43:22
This would have come as a big surprise to him, as a shock. It seemed to be. Maybe not so much to Miss McCutcheon.
00:43:29
Not so much to Brenda, maybe, because as detectives learned, she did all the bookkeeping, often by hand,
00:43:36
and provided all the financials to the accountant for filing their taxes. Miss McCutcheon had been delinquent in paying state withholdings on employees' taxes for many years.
00:43:49
This was an ongoing problem, and all of a sudden, Dr. McCutcheon becomes aware of it.
00:43:54
And soon after, Buddy put the brakes on that meeting. And he's completely surprised, stops the interview, and requests to be able to consult an attorney.
00:44:06
That's how attorney Sean Devereaux got involved. Buddy and Brenda knew him socially, so Buddy called him right after he met with those agents from the revenue department.
00:44:16
So he was worried about it. He didn't know what to do. You get a subpoena from the Department of Revenue in a tax investigation,
00:44:23
most people are probably going to talk to a professional. But Attorney Debra told us, contrary to what the police heard,
00:44:32
Buddy was not surprised by the tax issues. For years and years, there had been problems with taxes.
00:44:39
I mean, Buddy clearly knew what was going on with the taxes. There were lots of confirmed communications to Dr. McCutcheon
00:44:46
about the problems. In fact, the very same day after the DOR visit, Buddy sent Attorney Devereux an email
00:44:55
saying they were dealing with it. Brenda has gotten the documents from our tax guy
00:45:00
and has made copies. She and I will go through them this weekend and make sure things are in order.
00:45:07
That distinction, whether Buddy knew or didn't know about the tax issues, turned out to be a very big deal.
00:45:13
because what really caught detectives' attention wasn't just the taxes. It was the timing of the Department of Revenue's visit.
00:45:23
Was it your assumption that this might have had something to do with what occurred?
00:45:27
It did because the Department of Revenue agents came and visited him on the 11th.
00:45:32
It was a Monday. It was a Monday and then he was killed on a Saturday morning. The very same weekend Buddy said they'd be going through the tax records.
00:45:42
Coincidence? Quite possibly. Or possibly not. No way to prove it either way. And Brenda?
00:45:51
She was leaving Asheville in her rearview mirror. Coming up, an unexpected visit may hold a clue.
00:46:01
When I heard her say, we always leave the back door open and unlocked, I'm going, oh, wow.
00:46:07
That's not true. No, that wasn't true. Autumn 2016, the loveliest time of the year in Asheville.
00:46:32
But 800 miles away in Arkansas, Buddy McCutcheon's brother Clutch was in a deep depression.
00:46:40
What did Buddy's death do to you? How devastating was it? How did you handle the grief?
00:46:46
You wake up and the first thing you do is think about that loss. I think it was like almost six weeks.
00:46:53
It was just home and in your room and you didn't really come out of it. Yeah, it was the way that he left this birth.
00:47:06
It wasn't his time. While Clutch was grieving, he was also thinking about Brenda.
00:47:13
Clutch adored Brenda. They'd been close for years. But something one of the investigators said about Buddy's murder kept floating around in his tortured mind,
00:47:23
and it seemed to conflict with Brenda's account. I was under the impression from her description that there had been a home invasion.
00:47:34
And I remember asking the deputy, was it one guy, two, three? I mean, how bad was it?
00:47:39
And that's when he said, well, your brother was asleep. home invasion, they're not likely to shoot you when you're sleeping.
00:47:46
Oh, that got me thinking that something wasn't not quite right. I didn't look at the front door enough when I come by.
00:47:54
If the murder wasn't part of a home invasion, why would Brenda say it was? That's when his grieving mind began to go to an even darker place.
00:48:05
And before long, he was making his views known around the family. Clutch was definitely the first one to suspect her.
00:48:13
What did you think when you heard about that? I didn't know if Brenda did it or didn't do it.
00:48:18
I just felt we needed facts in front of us before we just accused her. But Missy and her siblings did find it suspicious that
00:48:25
Brenda didn't respond to Missy's texts and voicemails about organizing Buddy's funeral.
00:48:31
Eventually, they took on the planning themselves. Okay, where was your husband shot at?
00:48:37
Um, on the couch in our TV room. Is he still alive? Is he still breathing? No. But then what if Clutch's daughters discovered online
00:48:50
the recording of Brenda's 911 call? Take a deep breath. She listened and then urged him to do the same.
00:48:56
It took a few days of convincing, but then Clutch finally hit the play button. What is your husband's name?
00:49:04
Frank McCutcheon. And what is your name? Brenda McCutcheon. Clutch listened closely, and then heard Brenda say something that made his head snap.
00:49:19
He never liked the back door, and the back door was open. Five little words, the back door was open.
00:49:29
And with that, Clutch flashed back to a trip he and Becca had taken to Asheville,
00:49:34
visiting Buddy and Brenda at their home just a few days before the murder. It was just Providence that we were there that weekend.
00:49:43
Buddy lived in a nice neighborhood, but everybody had an acre or two of land, you know.
00:49:48
But there were a lot of bears. and he made a point in the evenings whenever I'd go out back and he'd say lock the door because we
00:49:57
have bears that come up here we always keep it locked and he was that way every night
00:50:01
but he even showed them that home video of the bears in the backyard the bears the back door
00:50:12
Brenda's 911 call, her clutch, suddenly it all clicked. When I heard her say, we always leave the back door open and unlocked,
00:50:23
I'm going, oh, wow. That's not true. No, that wasn't true. Melissa listened, too.
00:50:33
She hadn't been quite sure what to think about Brenda's possible role in Buddy's killing.
00:50:37
But when she heard that 911 call, At that point, I believed she did it. What was it about the 911 call that made you think that?
00:50:48
It sounded like she was a junior high girl reading a script from the play that she tried to memorize the lines for.
00:50:55
Putting that aside, if I found my husband, God forbid, murdered in our home in the middle of the night,
00:51:02
and I called 911, I would be a blithering idiot. I would be freaking out. Oh, my God. Whereas she was expounding upon the theory of how the intruder must have gotten in.
00:51:16
And when I heard this, my thought was, she's making her alibi. She's using the 911 call to make her alibi.
00:51:28
Except, detectives Thrower and Ledford could find no physical evidence that Brenda killed Buddy.
00:51:35
Their case was stuck. All they really had was this. This was a case of, if not Ms. McCutcheon, then who would it have been?
00:51:50
By now, Brenda was long gone from Asheville. Gone back to Tennessee, where she'd grown up, still had family.
00:51:57
And because of Buddy's sudden death, the tax investigation had stalled. One less thing for Brenda to worry about.
00:52:04
But Buddy's siblings were all on the same page now. They believed Brenda killed their brother.
00:52:10
To them, her every move seemed suspicious. She sold the home he lived in, went home to every day.
00:52:17
She sold the business he drove to every day. She sold anything of value he had. So maybe it was no surprise the McCutcheons rarely heard from Brenda anymore.
00:52:31
Meanwhile, the detectives remained relentless. They search for anything that might definitively connect Brenda or someone else to the murder.
00:52:41
Then, as Halloween approached, they found something buried deep in a computer. A long-held secret and a possible new suspect.
00:52:55
Coming up, a closer look at Buddy's past leads detectives to someone new. We interviewed her and we were going to also have to interview her husband.
00:53:08
When Dateline continues. Buddy McCutcheon had been dead for almost three months when they found it,
00:53:26
thanks to this search warrant. It had been hidden all along, inside one of Buddy's computers.
00:53:34
We were able to find emails going back and forth between Dr. McCutcheon and this particular staff member.
00:53:42
Did it seem to rise to the level of something that needed to be included in the investigation?
00:53:46
Definitely. The emails told a story which stretched over a few years. An office romance.
00:53:55
Buddy had an affair with a member of his staff a married woman That was something that we needed to nail down When did the affair take place How long ago Could the husband have found out about that
00:54:05
And potentially he had something to do with that. Question being, did an angry husband have a motive for murder?
00:54:14
So what do you do about a thing like that? We interviewed her, and then we were going to also have to interview her husband.
00:54:21
Did he know about this? No, he didn't. We had hoped that she was going to share that with him so that we would not have to be the individuals to tell him what had taken place between his wife and Dr. McCutcheon.
00:54:33
But you were. We were. That's correct. What was that like? Uncomfortable. Still, both the office worker and her husband insisted they had nothing to do with Buddy's murder.
00:54:47
We were able then to go through phone records. we could pretty well tell at the time of Dr. McCutcheon's death
00:54:53
he was not involved. Both he and his wife were at home when this took place. And one more thing about the affair
00:55:01
it was over long ago. It had happened several years ago and nobody seemed to know that it had taken place.
00:55:10
So now detectives refocused on the only person of interest they still couldn't eliminate
00:55:15
Brenda McCutcheon. There was still one test pending that might provide some answers.
00:55:22
Remember the murder weapon found in the ivy near the house? It had been swabbed for DNA.
00:55:30
Now, months after the murder, the results were finally in. Which indicated three contributors, one of whom was Buddy.
00:55:40
The second one did not match Brenda. And the third sample was inconclusive. I don't think there was sufficient enough information to build a full profile.
00:55:52
So it was unable to determine who that could have belonged to. Remember, there was no gunshot residue on Brenda's hands.
00:56:02
Only a speck on her clothes could have got there from just being in the house that night.
00:56:07
And now no DNA connection to the gun that killed her husband. The investigation cooled.
00:56:16
As the first anniversary of Buddy's death approached, the McCutcheon family began to lose hope that Buddy's murder would ever be solved.
00:56:27
We just pretty much gave up. There came a point, after a certain amount of time, you had to move on.
00:56:35
I felt like she was never going to be charged with anything. Got away with it. I thought she was going to get away with it.
00:56:43
Yeah. But detectives weren't about to let the case go I think you just try to follow the evidence where it leads
00:56:51
Each time we received information that could have taken the investigation any number of directions
00:56:56
We tried to follow those leads and everything always came back to Brenda During their investigation detectives had presented the case to the DA, Todd Williams
00:57:09
He'd been following it. He was eager to get justice for the McCutcheon family. But Williams needed something more, something to persuade a jury it actually was Brenda who killed Buddy.
00:57:21
This was a case characterized by an abundance of caution. We didn't have the DNA.
00:57:28
We didn't have it on video. We didn't have those things that, you know, juries are expecting.
00:57:34
They want that stuff. Ironclad evidence, right? Like ironclad evidence. Didn't seem ironclad or jury-proof to the DA.
00:57:46
So Detective Thrower compiled an exhaustive PowerPoint presentation, laying out the entire case clue by clue.
00:57:53
What were the key points of this circumstantial case against her? Where the gun was found, who the gun belonged to.
00:57:59
The gun happened to be in the same proximity in which she supposedly ran to to knock on her neighbor's door.
00:58:07
And there was something else about that gun. Ms. McCutcheon stated that one of the last times she had seen the firearm,
00:58:15
she thought it was in a kitchen drawer. Somebody would have had to know where that handgun was.
00:58:20
Yep, that's not a normal place you would keep a firearm. What's more, Brenda's story that Buddy left the back door open
00:58:27
didn't add up because of those bears in his backyard. Sun bears. Sun bears, yeah.
00:58:34
And she was a nurse. shouldn't she have tried to help him before calling 911? And finally...
00:58:41
The behavior of her in days follows. Desperate to get the business closed, to get it liquidated,
00:58:49
to get the house sold so she could move away. The DA took a long, hard look at Detective Thrower's PowerPoint.
00:58:57
He did a really good job of putting all the pieces together that basically said that if this were a whodunit,
00:59:03
there's only one person who could have done it. Brought it into focus, were you?
00:59:07
He brought it into very clear focus. This is a case with no other suspect than Brenda McCutcheon.
00:59:15
But Williams wanted to be sure, and he called a meeting of his assistant DAs to get their opinions.
00:59:21
One of them was Megan Locke. To me, it was obvious from the beginning that it was going to be a difficult case.
00:59:30
Do you recall what you felt like as you read through that material? did you have an opinion about it yourself? There was no doubt in my mind that Brenda was the one
00:59:40
who had murdered Buddy. Canvassing your office staff is one thing. Going to trial with 12 unknown
00:59:47
jurors, that's quite another. So now DA Todd Williams had to make a big decision about whether
00:59:54
to take this highly circumstantial case to trial We do take risks in the DA office We don just try the slam dunks There a lot of complexity to this case but the case needed to be tried
01:00:05
It needed to be presented to a jury. Coming up, the arrest. She knew it was coming.
01:00:12
The prosecutor. First murder trial. Yes, sir. And a furious family. She doesn't get to kill my brother
01:00:20
and then use the money she inherits from killing him. to get herself out of jail for killing him.
01:00:27
Hell no! It didn't take long. After reviewing all that circumstantial evidence, DA Todd Williams referred the Buddy McCutcheon case to a grand jury
01:00:50
seeking to indict Brenda for murder. and in less than a day. The grand jury found a true bill.
01:00:59
Which meant Brenda McCutcheon would be charged with first-degree murder and could face life in prison.
01:01:06
It's a murder that rocked a North Carolina town. Now investigators want to arrest the wife of a plastic surgeon.
01:01:13
Brenda had been living quietly outside of Memphis. She was in Tennessee because both of the sisters lived fairly close by.
01:01:22
She spent a lot of time with her nieces and her sisters. But now, almost a year and a half after Buddy's murder, she was officially accused of killing her husband.
01:01:33
The arrest warrant for first-degree murder from North Carolina lists this address for Brenda McCutcheon,
01:01:40
wanted in the death of her plastic surgeon husband. I don't think she saw the indictment as inevitable or she was surprised by it,
01:01:49
but it was like just one more bad hand that she'd been dealt that she was going to deal with.
01:01:54
And she did. She got in her little Honda and she drove all the way across Tennessee to western North Carolina
01:01:58
and turned herself in. To the Buncombe County Jail, where she was greeted by Detective Walt Thrower.
01:02:08
It's a matter of putting a set of handcuffs on her. She'd be processed. How did she hold up?
01:02:12
She was fine. Cool. Didn't seem terribly upset, in other words. It was kind of like vanilla the whole time.
01:02:18
didn't appear to be upset. She knew it was coming. But Buddy's family didn't see it coming,
01:02:25
especially after waiting so long for an arrest. I felt good. The prosecutors must think they have a
01:02:32
case or an arrest wouldn't be happening. And that gave me hope that she wasn't going to get away with
01:02:38
it. 67-year-old Brenda sat in jail, unable to make bail, set at $750,000. She wanted to
01:02:48
access money from Buddy's IRA, which had enough cash to cover the bail bond fee. But because of
01:02:54
the pending murder charges, Brenda was not allowed to access the account. After she'd been in jail
01:03:00
about a year awaiting trial, Brenda's attorney had requested a hearing and was going to ask the judge
01:03:07
if Brenda could tap into those frozen assets to make bail and get out. That's kind of a conundrum,
01:03:15
doesn't it? The judge wanted to know Buddy's siblings opinions. My opinion was hell no.
01:03:23
She doesn't get to kill my brother and then use the money she inherits from killing him to get
01:03:30
herself out of jail for killing him. Hell no. So no bail, at least from Buddy's estate.
01:03:39
Another year passed, but through her attorney, Brenda got a surety company to help cover
01:03:45
the bail. And then she returned to Tennessee to await her day in court. We were able to get her
01:03:52
on a kind of a home detention. She had to call in. I think she wore a GPS tracking monitor for a
01:03:59
little while. Meanwhile, back in Asheville, D.A. Todd Williams had another decision to make,
01:04:08
picking his prosecutors, one of whom was in that meeting when he first evaluated the case,
01:04:13
Megan Locke. Mr. Williams came to me one day and just said would I like to be a part of that case
01:04:21
and help prosecute it and I said absolutely I would love to. First murder trial. Yes sir.
01:04:28
And what does it do to the pit of your stomach? Does it give you a kind of holy cow this is it? It was nerve-wracking. There was certainly a lot of internal pressure. I mean
01:04:38
You have the pressure of wanting to be successful for the family and to get justice for the victim.
01:04:45
So taking a difficult case as the first one, that was hard. Hard also because Locke would be squaring off against two savvy, experienced defense attorneys, Steve Cash and Sean Devereaux,
01:05:01
who were emphatic there was no case against Brenda. There was just absolutely no evidence, regardless of motive, that she had pulled the trigger that killed her husband.
01:05:10
In fact, there was evidence that absolutely contradicted that. All of this would be hashed out at trial.
01:05:16
While the attorneys on each side were preparing, the McCutcheon family kept asking Brenda to give them Buddy's personal items,
01:05:23
which they had been seeking ever since his murder. At this point, it's been three and a half years since he was murdered.
01:05:32
My brothers had been begging Brenda, could they please have some of Buddy's mementos?
01:05:41
But Brenda kept them and rarely talked to Buddy's family until one day when Brenda was out on bail.
01:05:51
Brenda phones my brother John and says yes it all in a storage unit And I made arrangements You can show up and get whatever you want out of that storage unit But when Buddy brother John got there
01:06:06
He calls me crying because not only did he find Buddy's cherished, prized possessions ruined by vermin.
01:06:19
Rodents had peed and pooped and chewed up, the things that meant the most to Buddy.
01:06:23
but Brenda had tossed Buddy's remains in that storage room. Buddy's ashes from his cremation
01:06:30
three years earlier in a box like this one had never been interred. Just left it there. Yeah
01:06:36
three and a half years after he's gone who puts their spouse's remains in a rented storage unit?
01:06:44
It was horrible and can you imagine what it was like for him? I'm sorry I'm just
01:06:49
My brother John driving down the highway at night with his murdered brother's remains in a seat beside him, crying.
01:07:05
We asked Brenda's attorneys about this. She had ashes in her apartment. She had kept the ashes, and because of the fallout between her and the McCutcheon family,
01:07:15
she went and left those ashes in the storage unit for them to pick up, and it was only in there a very brief period of time, I mean, hours.
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But when Prosecutor Megan Locke heard about all this, well... I don't really know how you respectfully put your dead husband in a storage unit for any period of time.
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The ashes incident set the stage. The trial would be contentious. And one of the key witnesses would be Brenda McCutcheon.
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Coming up. She would tell us, I want to have a moment when I can stand up in public and tell people what really happened.
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Brenda tells her story to the jury. Will they buy it? Who breaks into a house, decides to just shoot somebody while they're sleeping, and then doesn't take anything?
01:08:05
when Dateline continues. The Asheville Courthouse is a stately old place built nearly a century ago.
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Here in January 2020, Brenda McCutcheon went on trial. She was almost 70. Did she look like a different person to you?
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Well, I'll be honest with you, I didn't pay much attention to her. I couldn't. I just didn't.
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Didn't or couldn't? I couldn't. I didn't. I both. I just didn't. I chose not to.
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So, emotionally, what was it like to be in there? It was not good. Cameras were not allowed, and the prosecutors began presenting their case,
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which featured all that circumstantial evidence they said pointed only to Brenda.
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She was given every benefit of the doubt at every turn of the corner until there was nowhere left to turn.
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Hey, what's going on? My husband's been shot. They played Brenda's 911 call, insisting it wasn't true.
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He never locked the back door and the back door was open. Brenda's entire police interview was also shown.
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Why would anybody, nobody that had ever come into our house was going to kill my husband?
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where she claimed an intruder entered the house and killed Buddy. A pretty unbelievable possibility.
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Why do you say it's unbelievable? Who breaks into a house to rob somebody, digs around, finds a gun,
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decides to just shoot somebody while they're sleeping, and then that entire process doesn't take anything?
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Then Megan Locke detailed what the prosecution believed was Brenda's motive for murder.
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Contending, it unfolded after she and Buddy learned they were under investigation by the Department of Revenue.
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It was a criminal investigation. There were real consequences at play at this point in time.
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Serious consequences. Possible prison time. The tax agent testified Buddy was surprised and had no clue about the withholding tax issues.
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It was all Brenda's doing. She was concerned she would not only be in trouble, but she would be the only one in trouble.
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So why would she kill him then? Because she was able to pin it all on him. She was able to, it fixed all her problems.
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If she killed him. She didn't have to stay in Asheville. She didn't have to keep cosmetic surgery afloat.
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She didn't have to worry about anything to do with the Department of Revenue. Once he was dead, it could be Buddy that did it.
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Isn't that really just speculation? The evidence in the Department of Revenue file was going to point to Brenda McCutcheon as being the one that embezzled.
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That's a motive. In fact, the IRS found over $385,000 in federal taxes were never paid.
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But when the defense's turn came up, it argued the so-called motive was bogus, no substance at all.
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The state was fishing for a theory, and ultimately, everything that was brought in by this huge net that the state tried to employ fell out of the net.
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Fell out for one simple reason, said the defense. An utter lack of physical evidence tying Brenda to the murder.
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They didn't come in and say, aha, Brenda, your DNA is on this weapon. They didn't say, aha, Brenda, your fingerprint is on this gun.
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They didn't say, aha, Brenda, you have blood splatter all over your blouse. They didn't say, aha, Brenda, you're covered in gunshot residue.
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None of that was reality. What we suggested to the jury is the police, the DA's office,
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detectives, Department of Revenue, they haven't brought you enough evidence here
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to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she did that. Back in Arkansas, Buddy's sister Melissa was getting daily updates on the trial.
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The lawyer herself, she knew juries were unpredictable. So to ease her anxiety during the trial, she painted.
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Art is my therapy. She painted pictures of her feelings, including this one done during the trial.
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It's called waiting, and it's a person waiting. What does it feel like, to be that person waiting?
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You painted it, but can you describe it with words? I really couldn't describe it with words.
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The painting is my best expression of what it felt like, to be honest. Everyone in the courtroom also waited and wondered, would she testify?
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Would Brenda McCutcheon take the stand and tell the jury her story? Brenda insisted on testifying.
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From the very beginning, she would tell us that I want to have a moment when I can stand up in public and tell people what really happened.
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Putting any defendant on the stand is risky, but Brenda's attorneys first did a little test run.
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they had her take another polygraph test before the trial. And once again, she passed, said Attorney Deverell.
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Absolutely, no question at all. Not even, it wasn't a gray area. Polygraph exams are not admissible at trial,
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but it was an assured Brenda who took the stand, reciting much of the same story she told detectives after Buddy was murdered.
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Didn't shoot your husband? No, no, no. He did everything to me. It has been for almost adult life.
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We always think about whether or not to put on a defendant to testify. But we were confident that she was going to say the same thing she always did, and she did.
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I thought she did fine, and I think she did make a good witness. But as Prosecutor Locke listened to Brenda tell her story of her life with Buddy,
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it suddenly came to her. motive. Maybe she'd only got it half right. It wasn't just the alleged tax fraud. It went deeper
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than that, much deeper. Megan Locke felt sure of it. It was just very clear that everything she had
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ever done was for Buddy, built around what Buddy wanted, built around what Buddy's dreams were.
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And so he sticks her in this office having to do this paperwork not even utilizing her as a nurse in that office even though that what she truly was and she very much I believe resented him for that Which gave the prosecutors an idea
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The night before they began their cross-examination. We decided we need to make her mad.
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They need to see that she is capable of this, that nice people can do bad things.
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Getting her mad was an intentional thing on your part. Yes. Prosecutor Locke thought she knew just how to push Brenda's buttons.
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I referred to her as a secretary, and she got very upset about it and snapped back,
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I'm not a secretary. And you could see in her demeanor and hear in her tone this resentment about leaving her career.
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So why would that tax issue have led to that shooting that night? I think it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
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Suddenly this business that she never wanted, that she had put her whole life into, that she had been made to figure out how to operate, was in trouble.
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And she was about to be solely responsible for what had happened. Fueling even more resentment, the prosecutors argued, adding to what already had been brewing for decades.
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And that last night? I think she laid down in that bed that night and thought about everything that had been making her mad.
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And I think that she snapped and she went downstairs and shot him in the head while he slept.
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It was only a theory, of course. There was no proof. And then the case went to the jury, a largely female jury.
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they would decide if Brenda was going home or to prison. Twelve people were about to decide the fate of Brenda McCutcheon.
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When you sent it off to the jury, how confident were you? As confident as I've ever been.
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Same for me. I've never been as confident sending a case back as I was that day.
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And prosecutor Megan Locke? I was cautiously optimistic at that point. Yes, because when it comes down to giving it to a jury, you just really never know, right?
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You cannot predict juries. So we talked to a few of the jurors. When you realize your decision is sending someone to prison for life or letting someone off, you have to make sure that justice is served.
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And that is a huge responsibility It was one of the most difficult things I done in my life And I found myself waking up at night thinking about this thing and having nightmares about it
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When they got to the jury room, they took a preliminary vote. It was four not guilty and eight guilty.
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So they kept talking about the circumstantial evidence, about the possible motive,
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about Brenda's story that an intruder must have killed Buddy. It was a difficult process.
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There were many moving pieces. There was a lot of witnesses, and there was a lot of evidence that was brought out for us to review.
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They voted again and still couldn't agree. We still need to talk about this because this woman's life is on the line.
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Buddy deserves justice. And then we had to drag in more evidence. They kept reviewing it.
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And then by day two, Valentine's Day, they voted one more time. The moment they walked back into the room, the nerves hit.
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I was very nervous. Your heart's pounding in your chest. That's about as nerve-wracking as it gets.
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I remember looking at the family. I remember looking to the other side of the courtroom and seeing Miss McCutcheon's sisters there.
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And there was a heaviness in the air. Somebody's life is about to change. And then they read the verdict.
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And to breaking news, the jury in the Brenda McCutcheon murder trial finds her guilty.
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Finally, justice for the McCutcheon family. but there was no celebration we had left the day before the verdict i didn't want to be there
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why it really didn't matter i mean it mattered but in the big scheme of things it didn't bring
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buddy back i wasn't gleeful or joyous that she got convicted but i would have been outraged
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had she walked off scot-free and gotten away with it. Her defense attorneys watched devastated.
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It was a gut-wrenching moment in my life to hear them say guilty. I believed entirely and continue to believe in the innocence of Brendan McCutcheon.
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I wish I could look back and think of the decision that we made that lost the case
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or the piece of evidence that convinced the jury that she was a murderer. So we asked the jurors who were very clear about how and why they convicted Brenda Sheriff office An intruder wouldn come running in the house go to that drawer grab the gun and shoot Buddy and then run out and throw the gun in the yard
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There's no one else that could have come in and shot Buddy. It had to be Brenda.
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This woman did not act normal to me. She should have been an emotional rollercoaster
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when they started showing all this evidence. She didn't show no emotion at all. I am certain that we got it right. No regrets. No regrets. No second thoughts.
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Would you bet your life on it? And I thought, well, yes, I really would. And I am betting Brenda's life on it. I have no doubt in my mind.
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Brenda was stoic as she was sentenced to life without parole. As she was walking out, Buddy's cousin and his wife stepped out of the audience.
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Buddy's cousin hugged her. And what she said to them was, I didn't kill Buddy. That happened in the courtroom
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as she's being led away to life in prison with handcuffs on. The verdict won't bring Buddy back, of course.
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And among his siblings, the pain lingers. It's tough. It'll always be hard. The tears dry up a little bit,
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but if we think about it very often, And, you know, it still breaks your heart. Buddy's sister, Melissa, couldn't quite find the words for what she feels.
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So she painted it. This one's called Erasure. There's a cold blue hand holding a gun shooting.
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And there's a figure falling back. And then there's a giant pencil with an eraser already erasing part of that person.
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because I felt like that's what she did to Buddy. Bright morning stars are rising.
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Bright morning stars are rising. But the McCutcheon family does take solace in finally having a place to honor Buddy.
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They brought his ashes here to his hometown, Fayetteville, Arkansas. The final resting spot of Buddy McCutcheon, medical doctor, musician, Renaissance man.
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No erasing him or his voice, which will live on in digital perpetuity forever. That's all for now.
01:23:28
I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us. you