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A husband and wife, each with a motive for murder. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
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Robin's mom's calling me. Asked if I'd seen Robin. Six hours later, pick up the phone.
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All I say is, did you find her? She said, they found her body. I saw three girls running towards me, hollering, she's dead, she's dead.
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Something horrible has happened here. It's a homicide. Did you have any plans to meet Robin Monday evening?
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No plans. How do you explain these text messages? We knew he was lying to us. Is my husband cheating on me with her?
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I will tell you this right now. They were around meeting last night. Once she suspected something, Katie's claws came out.
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She certainly had the memes and she certainly had the motive. We find the Facebook photo of her shooting this pink pistol.
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If that gun killed Robin, only two people could have done it. I'm using a lot of things, and I'm not murder.
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You and I both know there's something going on. You're protecting yourself, you're protecting somebody else.
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I want Robin back. I want to be happy. I want what will never be. Here's Josh Mankiewicz with The Pink Gun Mystery.
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It began with a letter. mailed from a sun-scorched stack of cement blocks and steel wire
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on the dusty plains outside Amarillo, Texas. Randall County Jail. We often hear from inmates, but this letter seemed a little different.
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Within the neat lines, the author dangled a promise. I will give you one hell of a story.
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Now that was the truth. The tempestuous tale that unfolded was about two family-oriented women, Robin and Katie,
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friends from church who fell hard for the same guy, and then somehow turned on one another
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with a vengeance. Once she suspected something, Katie's claws came out. The dizzying spiral of betrayal and bad blood between the women exploded into violence,
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ending in a merciless nighttime murder and years of lies and suspicions. Don't be alone with her.
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She's the kind of crazy that'll kill you. Keep this in mind. The letter made one thing very clear.
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Nothing was quite as it seemed. Even as a teenager growing up in suburban Amarillo,
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Robin Bledsoe had a clear sense of her destiny. She wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.
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Robin's mom Jackie and her dad Steve, who'd been married to the military and each other for 40 years,
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were about as apple pie as it gets, and Robin craved her own slice. It's like she wanted a relationship like we had, but she couldn't find it.
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The boys Robin chose weren't exactly the clean-cut type. She liked the bad boy image of being the girlfriend of a bad boy.
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And every time she'd find a guy that was like her dad, she'd freak out and go and run away and go find a bad one again.
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What Robin feared most, said her mom, was having no boy at all. She never wanted to be alone. She hated to be alone. That was why she went from boy to boy to boy.
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With her warm personality, Robin became a hostess at a local restaurant. Bubbly, outgoing, friendly, just loved everybody.
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Erin House waitressed at the same restaurant and was a magnet for nice guys. Erin was hoping some of her luck might rub off on Robin.
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She always imagined having the perfect family. White picket fence, you know, 2.0 kids, dog, the whole nine yards.
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The path to that domestic tranquility was rocky and hard to follow. Robin and Erin were fellow travelers on it.
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We loved to go dancing. We were both under 21, so we weren't drinking. We were just enjoying being young.
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Best friends? Yeah. And then one evening in 2003, Robin met a cool guy. His name was Jeremy David Spielbauer, and he went by J.D.
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They danced all night long, and she said they had a blast. He was genuine, he was caring, and he showed her a lot of attention.
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The perfect guy. Yeah. Polite? Very polite. Says yes sir and no sir? Yes, and would be the type to take his hat off when he met you.
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J.D.'s good conduct came as perhaps no surprise. Just 21, a big part of J.D.'s life story,
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was his service in the Marine Corps and combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. He would tell people all the time that certain things would cause him, like PTSD,
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and he couldn't be in loud places, and he didn't want to be in crowded bars. Because he had been a Marine and fought overseas.
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Yeah. In civilian life, J.D. was a mechanic, a gearhead. Aaron wasn't sure about J.D., but it was Robin who was so taken with him.
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And Aaron wanted her best friend to live her dreams. She wanted the happy ending that she, no matter what, would make it work.
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You think she settled? I do. I think she loved him, but failure was not an option for her.
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You know, she wanted to make it happen. Two months later, it happened. Sooner than planned Robin became pregnant She broke the news to her mom and dad who were only just then hearing about their daughter new man She was like okay so I moving out and moving in with
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him and his grandmother. And we were like, um, wait a minute. Okay, you're growing up.
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Robin was just 22. And after she gave birth to a baby daughter, she and JD decided to get married.
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It wasn't long before Robin and JD had a second daughter. Money was tight, and they struggled, financially and otherwise.
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The couple was on again, off again. They also began attending a local church, which came as a surprise to Aaron.
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They'd never been to church before. And all of a sudden they start going. Yeah, like three times a week.
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At church, someone new came into their lives, a single mother of two. Her name was Katie.
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Katie's family was a part of that church, and they all started hanging out. Katie and Robin soon became friends, but Aaron grew suspicious of JD's newfound religious zeal.
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You think this was less the desire to worship in that church than it was JD's desire to be around Katie?
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Aaron, never shy, warned her friend. Robin was having none of it. even as JD's interest in Katie was breaking up her marriage.
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She really waited till it was extremely obvious before she said, they're together.
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But she finally did admit it to herself. Yes, after they moved in with each other.
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So my husband is hooking up with this woman who was my close friend and I've now rationalized that too.
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Yep. And do you say to her, this is crazy? Yep, pretty much those exact words. After nearly eight years of marriage,
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Robin divorced JD and eventually moved back in with her parents. It wasn't long before Robin had more news to share about JD and Katie.
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She called me and said he married her. For a lot of couples, that kind of betrayal might be the last time
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they acknowledged either their ex or the other woman. But not Robin. It was pretty clear she was still stuck on J.D., who was now helping Katie raise her two kids.
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Over time, Robin found a new man named Jared, who worked several jobs. She was giggly. She was like a young person in love or in that infatuation stage.
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Mom, I really like this guy. You know, I've got a crush on him kind of deal. After all the growing pains, it seemed that a white picket fence was maybe, at last, in Robin's future.
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She was becoming the Robin I had met back in 2001 that was friendly and happy and outgoing again.
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That must have felt great. It was like a light had come back on. And then just as quickly.
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It was turned off. One April night in 2014, Robin went out in her black Tahoe. And she never came home again.
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What had happened to Robin? When we return... All I say is, did you find her? And I don't remember the rest of the conversation.
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When the second police officer pulled up is when it was scary. What's your gut telling you at that point?
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Something horrible has happened here. The sun has been punishing Amarillo, Texas, since long before this was part of the United States.
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But the sunrise on April 8, 2014, was of particular interest to Robin Spielbauer's mom, Jackie.
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Robin had gone out the night before, and at sunup, there was still no sign of her.
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I'm like, okay, wait a minute, Robin's not here. I've got to be at work at 8. How are we going to get the girls to school?
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What's going on? As the hours passed, Jackie and her husband Steve nervously conjured up scenarios as to where their daughter Robin might be.
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Maybe with her new boyfriend, Jared, or her best friend, Aaron. Okay, well she fell asleep at Aaron's house, or she fell asleep at this house.
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She wasn't at any of those places. Meanwhile, around high noon, local businessman Denny Hargrove was driving through farmland outside Amarillo
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and swung his pickup onto a curved strip of dirt called Helium Road. As soon as I turned, I saw three girls running towards me,
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saying, hollering, she's dead, she's dead. And my first response was, who's dead?
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I freaked. Ahead, he saw a black Chevy Tahoe. And something, make that someone, was slumped near a rear wheel.
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The girl was not moving, not breathing, lots of dried blood on her forehead. We called 911, and immediately the officer showed up and took over.
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So we do a real brief examination of the body. Sergeant Alan Mongold, a 30-year veteran of the Randall County Sheriff's Department,
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took the lead in the investigation. We find this large crush injury, blunt force trauma, the upper left portion of the head.
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Could you tell how long the body had been there? It had been several hours. And it appears she'd been killed by the blood of the head.
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It really didn't appear to be a self-inflicted injury. They searched the body and the vehicle, but couldn't find an ID.
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Her cell phone and her wallet were missing. Suggesting robbery, maybe? Yeah. That's something we looked at.
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Was it an unexpected encounter with a robbery? What's your gut telling you at that point?
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That it's a homicide. Something horrible has happened here. It took only a few minutes to run the plate and turn up the victim's name.
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It was Robin Spielbauer Robin family still hadn heard any news about their daughter and by now their minds were going to dark places At some point it stops being irritating and frustrating and starts being scary
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When the second police officer pulled up in front of the house is when it was scary.
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Right then, one of Jackie's friends called to say a black Chevy Tahoe had been found.
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And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not, this is not happening.
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It's not her car. and then everybody was contacting me. It's Robin's car, it's Robin's car.
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I'm just like, no, we're not going to go there. It's not. And then Detective Longold showed up and told us.
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We tell them it's a suspicious death, of course, and they ask the question, yeah, we think at this point it's a homicide.
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Jackie broke the news to Robin's young daughters. Their mom was not coming home.
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So they broke and cried. Then she called Robin's former husband, J.D. And told him that they'd found Robin's body, and he was like, what are you talking about?
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I'm like, the police are here. They said they found Robin's body. You need to get here now.
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J.D. dashed over. Was there at the house within five minutes and burst into tears.
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Jackie then called Robin's best friend, Aaron. All I say is, did you find her? And she said, they found her body.
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And I don't remember the rest of the conversation. Back at Helium Road, investigator Mongold and his team continued to process what was now a crime scene.
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One of the first things they noticed was unusual damage to one of the Tahoe's windows.
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There's some nicks in the glass, and there's also a hot pink paint polymer transfer to the glass.
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Somebody hit the glass with something that was pink, something that was plastic and pink.
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That's what it looked like, yes, sir. At the time, the investigator had no way to know how significant that pink plastic on the window might be.
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And by now, he was trying to figure out who might have wanted to kill Robin Spielbauer.
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He went to see Robin's new boyfriend, Jared, who worked at a bar. His story was basically that he goes to the bar, he's there until about 9, 9.30,
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goes home, plays Xbox until 11 o'clock midnight, and then goes to sleep. Not the perfect alibi.
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No. The investigator also questioned J.D. at his home. And what does J.D. say? He has a story where he came home, had a couple of beers, passed out.
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And he wasn't anywhere near Helium Road. That's what he says. That's when J.D. told Mongold about another man in Robin's life,
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a name the investigator hadn't heard before, Chris. Who's Chris? Well, he tells us a story.
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They used to date, and I think he's into drugs, and I think there was some violence.
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I think he's kind of a bad guy. You're hearing this from J.D.? From J.D. And J.D.'s new wife, Katie, backed up her husband's story.
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Tells the same story, names the same guy. So off you go to Chris. Yeah, off we go to Chris.
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Same questions. When's the last time you saw Robin? What's y'all's relationship?
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Who doesn't like her? The same questions. I was here. Mom's in the house. I live with my mom.
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Talked to her. He had an alibi. He had an alibi. So Chris is off the list. Nobody gets off the list that early.
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But yeah, he's at the bottom. Jared soon moved to the bottom, too. But J.D. was about to move up the investigators' list.
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because his story was about to change. Coming up, an ex-husband caught in a lie.
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Did you have any plans to meet Robin Monday evening? No plans. How do you explain these text messages?
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Let me read these to you in case your memory is failing you. When Dateline continues.
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When investigators first spoke with Robin's ex-husband J.D. Spielbauer, he said he didn't know anything about the night she was killed,
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not where Robin was going or who she was with. Then they got hold of J.D.'s phone records,
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including the texts he'd sent that night. and those told a different story. So Sergeant Mongold hauled in J.D. for further questioning.
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It's stressful trying to figure out everything. It's everything all at once. On the night of Robin's death, J.D. said he was at home drinking beer
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and watching TV with his uncle Ty. He said his new wife of just five months, Katie,
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Robin's one-time friend turned romantic rival, was at a friend's house with her son Diego.
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J.D. said that after his uncle left, he fell asleep on the couch, then woke up shortly before 10 p.m.
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Maybe 940-ish, 950, if that's right. I started sending text messages and calling.
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I sent one to my wife. She said, we're good. Everything's okay. I was like, okay.
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J.D. said he then called his uncle Ty. He said, I don't know. I just have an uneasy feeling.
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It seems to be about as cool. I'm fine. I'll come back over. An uneasy feeling. That was interesting.
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So was what J.D. did next. At 10.18 p.m., he sent this text to Robin. Is everyone okay?
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I didn't get a text or anything from her. I was like, okay. Try calling her. Got a voicemail.
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I was like, all right. She's busy sleeping. I don't know. Ain't no big deal. Just a few minutes after JD tried to reach Robin, Katie showed up at the house.
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JD's uncle, who'd come back to check on JD, pulled up right behind her and confirmed Katie arrived around 10.20 p.m.
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Me and my mom talked for a little bit. Just like, how would you tell you? Like, I don't know.
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I just have an eerie feeling. I just can put my finger on it That eerie feeling again J seemed to be dropping hints and Mongold had solid evidence he knew a lot more than he was telling
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Did you have any plans to meet Robin Monday evening? No plans. How do you explain these text messages?
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Let me read these to you in case your memory is failing you. According to J.D.'s own texts,
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on the night she was murdered, Robin had plans. With him. Are we still on for tonight, or do we need to reschedule again?
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Then this text exchange at 9.20 p.m. You about ready? Yep. Which, as it happened, was the last text ever sent from Robin's phone.
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So presumably that's setting up the meeting. Yeah. So we knew he was lying to us.
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Not good for J.D. You're the last person on this earth to have contact with her,
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and that contact was arranging a meeting that she made. Yes, sir. And that makes me number one suspect, no matter what.
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You leave me wondering what happened. Leaves me wondering too, sir. J.D. now said he had planned to meet Robin at his house to talk about their kids.
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He said that's the reason he wanted his uncle there, to be a witness just in case Katie showed up.
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Approximate time. Y'all were supposed to meet 9.30 Monday evening, yes? Approximate time, yes, sir.
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How come you didn't? Because my Uncle Todd was over, we were just drinking beer, decided to play pool.
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How did you communicate that to her? She's under the impression you ought to meet me at 9.30.
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Honestly, sir, it skipped my mind. It was clear to Sergeant Mongold, J.D.'s story was not adding up.
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You and I both know there's something going on here, and you're b****** why. You're protecting yourself or you're protecting somebody else?
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I'm not protecting anybody. Did you kill Robin? No, sir. And in truth, J.D. didn't seem to have much of a motive to kill Robin,
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which got investigators thinking about who might. Let me write a scenario by you.
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Katie's not stupid. She's pretty sharp. She finds out y'all are having a meeting that night.
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That's why she's pissed. That's why she's not at the house. You set the meeting up and something really bad happened.
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So you're basically are the same. I did something personally or physically to my wife.
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Or I know something. You know something. With my very soul, I believe you know what's going on here.
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The best I can do, giving you the benefit of every doubt I can possibly give you,
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is that you have some real deep frickin' suspicions that you don't want to discuss with me.
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Sir, I do have a lot of suspicions. I do a lot. Whatever those suspicions were, J.D. wasn't saying.
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Investigators had suspicions of their own. And next in the box, J.D.'s wife, Katie Spielbauer.
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Coming up, the warning Robin's friend gave her about Katie. Don't be alone with her. She's the kind of crazy that'll kill you.
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And why Katie may have been so angry at Robin. Is my husband cheating on me with her?
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I don't have proof of that. I will tell you this right now. They were going to meet last night.
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You take a minute. Like I said, there's some stuff you don't want to hear. When investigators questioned J.D. Spielbauer about the murder of his ex-wife Robin,
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it seemed pretty clear he was hiding something. As they poked around in J.D.'s private life, they soon found out what it might be.
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Bad blood between Katie and Robin? We had bad blood between Katie and Robin. There's a song titled All My Exes Live in Texas.
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And that was definitely true for J.D. Spielbauer. Married to Robin. He had an affair with Katie, then married Katie.
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After which, J.D. appeared to be having another affair, this time with Robin. It was the Texas two-step of stepping out.
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Robin lived just a few houses away from J.D. and Katie on Manhattan Street. J.D. said they stayed friendly for the benefit of their kids.
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But according to Robin's friend Aaron, Katie had figured out there was something else going on.
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Katie and JD would get in a fight, and honestly, Robin found it a little bit funny.
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She found Katie's anger funny. Yeah. JD had cheated with Katie when he was married to Robin.
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Now, Aaron said, Robin seemed to relish the idea of making Katie jealous. So now the shoe's on the other foot.
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Two women were locked in a battle over a man they both believed was a cheater. What made J.D. a prize worth fighting for remained a bit of a mystery.
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I don't think women like being lied to. I don't think anybody likes being lied to.
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And yet, so many people seem to sort of let that go. Robin certainly did. Katie seems to have.
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Katie didn't let it go like Robin did. And once she suspected something, Katie's claws came out.
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Erin said Robin told her about an incident in 2013. Robin had gone to Katie and J.D.'s house to pick up her daughters.
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She goes walking up the stairs. Katie grabs her and pulls her off the stairs and gets on top of her and starts hitting her.
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And Robin kicks her off and slams her into the fireplace. When Erin heard what happened, she warned her friend about Katie.
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Don't be alone with her. She's the kind of crazy that'll kill you. Five months after that fight, Robin was dead.
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Sergeant Mongold met with JD and Katie outside their home on that first day and says,
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J.D. was so stunned he was having difficulty speaking. J.D. finally found his voice and he starts trying to talk to us and she looks over and says,
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J.D., shut up and get in the house. I'm talking to the police. And J.D. puts his head down, turns around and walks into the house.
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So she's in charge, very much so. Now Mongold had Katie in the little room with the camera.
00:24:21
And Katie had a question for him. I'm going to ask you a question. Can you be honest with me?
00:24:27
Yeah, I will be. Is my husband cheating on me with her? I don't have proof of that.
00:24:32
I will tell you this right now. They were going to meet last night. There were multiple text messages between them,
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and he deleted those text messages where they were supposed to meet at 9.30. Now here's the problem we get into.
00:24:46
Some tissues right there. You take a minute. Like I said, there's some stuff you don't want to hear.
00:24:56
I'm stupid. Was there any question in your mind that Katie already knew the answer to that question when she asked you?
00:25:01
No, so why ask me that question if she already knew the answer? You didn't have suspicions?
00:25:05
I had suspicions. That's why I hated her so much, because I thought she was trying to sabotage my marriage.
00:25:11
Maybe so. You sabotaged hers. Turned about fair play. Talk about f***ing karma, huh?
00:25:17
Karma is something homicide detectives know all about. Who's rubbing dead and why?
00:25:23
I don't know. You know, you've got a motive for her. You don't like her. Not much of a motive, but it's a motive.
00:25:28
So that's why you get looked at. You all have had conflicts in the past. Have you ever threatened to kill her?
00:25:33
No, I haven't. Because a couple of folks have said you had. No, I have not threatened to kill Robin.
00:25:39
Investigators had evidence that Katie was lying. It was the same kind of evidence that tripped up J.D.
00:25:45
Her text messages. She is very, very upset with J.D. and very upset with Robin. James Farron was Randall County's district attorney for more than 20 years.
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She's just hammering J.D. with messages about, I know you're lying, I know you're having an affair with Robin.
00:26:05
And not just one or two texts. Prosecutor Farron found that in just four days leading up to the murder,
00:26:12
Katie sent J.D. 336 texts. Messages like this one. If Robin breaks any of my shit, when you bring her home, I'll break her nasty face.
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And this one, a day later. I'll hurt every single one of you on my way out. On the day Robin was killed, Katie unleashed a text storm, directed at JD.
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I caught the last amount of disrespect from you and your bitch ex-wife. If I find out you were with Robin, so help me God.
00:26:45
It culminated with this one, less than an hour before the murder. My dreams of a happy family are gone.
00:26:53
I will not make you carry this burden any longer. You started this whether you want to believe it or not.
00:26:59
I will finish it. It was the kind of statement that turns a jealous wife into a murder suspect.
00:27:06
Did you kill Robin? No, I did not kill Robin. You can spar with anybody to kill Robin?
00:27:11
No, I did not. Spar with anybody to kill Robin. You know, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I liked her because I didn't, but my father died when I was two.
00:27:22
I buried my mother when I was 18 years old. I know what it feels like to grow up without a parent.
00:27:27
I would never do that to anybody. I'm not a murderer. I may be a lot of things, but I'm not a murderer.
00:27:34
And maybe she wasn't. Although Katie seemed to be oozing with motive, she had an alibi.
00:27:40
She and her son were at her best friend Savannah's house the night of the murder.
00:27:45
I'll up there about 10 o'clock. Drove straight to the house? Straight to the house.
00:27:48
Stay there the rest of the night. Stay there the rest of the night. Didn't leave till.
00:27:51
If that was true, Katie would not have had enough time to drive to Helium Road, kill Robin, and then make it home by 10.20 when J.D. and his uncle saw her there.
00:28:01
And besides, no evidence placed her at the murder scene. Not yet, anyway. Coming up, a pink smoking gun.
00:28:11
We find a Facebook photo of her shooting this pink pistol. That makes you sit up and take notice.
00:28:16
When Dateline continues. Katie Spielbauer had strong suspicions her husband, J.D., was cheating on her with his ex-wife, Robin.
00:28:36
Suspicions that spilled out in hundreds of angry and threatening text messages in the days leading up to Robin's murder.
00:28:44
Katie had the motive. Angry at Robin for sleeping with her husband? Absolutely. Kill that woman.
00:28:50
The same day investigators questioned Katie, the medical examiner performed Robin's autopsy.
00:28:58
Remember, at the crime scene, her only apparent injury was a blow to the head. But the autopsy found something else.
00:29:05
At that point, we knew there was a .22 caliber wound at the back of Robin's skull that was fatal.
00:29:09
A gunshot wound, something investigators at the scene had missed. Sheriff's investigators went looking for the gun.
00:29:17
April 9th, we're at the Spielberg residence on Manhattan running a search warrant.
00:29:21
Robin's parents, living just three houses down, watched as police went into their ex-son-in-law's home.
00:29:28
You saw that search happening? Yes. So you know one of those two people's under suspicion?
00:29:33
Yes. Investigators recovered several firearms from Katie and JD's house. Not exactly an unusual find in the Lone Star State.
00:29:44
But one small gun turned out to be a very big deal. A Sig Sauer pistol with a distinctive pink frame.
00:29:53
It was a It was indeed The same caliber as the bullet that killed Robin What more Gun broken It got broken pieces on it which are pretty odd So investigators went back to the crime scene
00:30:05
and sifted through the soil around where the Tahoe had been. And they found a .22 caliber shell casing and two tiny fragments.
00:30:17
No question those two little chips found on the ground fit that gun. Fracture matching, they match.
00:30:22
Like a jigsaw puzzle. Just fits right in there. And just as the pieces of the pistol fit together,
00:30:29
so too did a clearer picture of what happened that night. Like those inexplicable marks and pink residue on Robin's window.
00:30:38
You envision a scenario where somebody's beating on the glass with a gun. Why would somebody bang on a window with a gun?
00:30:43
Anger. It looked as if the pink gun could be the murder weapon. Which was very interesting.
00:30:49
Because right after the murder, before they even found the gun, Investigators had examined Katie's Facebook page and...
00:30:57
We found the Facebook photo of her shooting this pink pistol. In that moment, they didn't realize the significance of the photo.
00:31:04
And by the time they figured it out... She takes it off her Facebook account. That makes you sit up and take notice.
00:31:09
It seemed Katie didn't want them to know about the gun. So investigators looked more closely at where Katie herself was the night of the murder.
00:31:19
Remember, she had an alibi. She and her son spent the evening with Katie's best friend, Savannah.
00:31:25
Katie told investigators they didn't leave Savannah's house until 10 p.m. And J.D.'s uncle said Katie arrived at her own house around 10.20.
00:31:35
That was not enough time to commit the murder. And so Katie seemed to be in the clear.
00:31:42
Katie sat there and had a couple of beers with us. When investigators questioned Savannah, they noticed a discrepancy.
00:31:49
Then she left my house probably about 9.50 or so. Those extra 10 minutes, D.A. James Farron believed, were significant.
00:32:03
From Savannah's house to the spot where the murder occurred on Helium Road, it takes about three and a half to five minutes to drive to that location.
00:32:14
Savannah believed she left her house about 10 minutes till 10. If she arrives at Helium Road in three and a half to five minutes, she has time to kill Robin and then drive back to Manhattan Street and arrive about 1020.
00:32:32
That 10-minute gap casts doubt on Katie's alibi. So it's really Katie's best friend that's sort of putting the news around her neck.
00:32:40
Absolutely. Something else was hurting Katie, too. If you watch Dateline regularly, you know cell phone data can either make or break a case.
00:32:50
And that was certainly true in this one. At 1013, Katie pinged off an antenna at the Lockney Tower.
00:32:58
Which was close to Savannah's house. And also to the crime scene. And when she checked her voicemail, it pinged off that tower.
00:33:07
So that ping from Katie's phone, that's actually consistent with your theory that she had committed the murder and was heading home.
00:33:14
Fit our theory. That's right. Motive, means, and opportunity. Randall County Sheriff's investigators believed they had everything they needed.
00:33:24
On April 11, 2014, only four days after their daughter's murder, an investigator gave Robin's parents the news.
00:33:33
He says, well, we just arrested Katie. Wow, it was like done, done, done, and she was done.
00:33:40
And we were like, okay, so this is awesome. Case closed? Not quite. Coming up, Katie offers up a new suspect.
00:33:55
Who do you think did it? I don't know. I'm starting to think maybe J.D. did it. And J.D. has a new story.
00:34:01
Please forgive me for him. Ended up missing J.D. 85. There is a pain that only the families and friends of murder victims know.
00:34:25
It's a feeling Robin Spielbauer's best friend Erin says she felt the day of Robin's viewing.
00:34:31
That was my life laying on the table. that was 13 years taken away from me. And it was not fair.
00:34:50
And it hurts every day. Perhaps the only relief for Robin's family was knowing that the person responsible for her murder,
00:35:01
Katie Spielbauer, was behind bars. Katie's family was feeling something else, disbelief.
00:35:08
I never could get my heart or my mind around the idea of her actually doing that.
00:35:14
Katie's sister-in-law, Rhonda Phipps. I hit the floor and I cried. And I asked God, is it possible?
00:35:23
Could she really have done that? Of all things, that Katie? And then there were Katie's children.
00:35:31
Her daughter Harley was 10 years old at the time, living in Florida with her father.
00:35:35
She remembers horsing around with her friends one day at school. Oh, my mom is so cool. I bet she's smarter than yours because I was being a little kid.
00:35:43
So I looked up on my science teacher's laptops my mom's name, and it said, arrested.
00:35:50
And I was like, no, no, that's not true. It's false. Oh but it was true All of it This was Katie the day she was arrested back in that little room with Sergeant Mongold I did not do this That not true I don know
00:36:07
Who do you think did it? I don't know. I'm starting to think maybe J.D. did it. This was certainly not the first time investigators heard a suspect in a murder case point the finger at someone else.
00:36:18
Their reaction wasn't new either. I know you know. You're not here by accident. Stop yanking my chain.
00:36:25
Stop wasting my time. Tell me the truth or let's go. I did not kill Robert. Who did?
00:36:31
And don't give me this. I do not know. Katie, listen to me. At this point, at this point right now, everything points at you.
00:36:41
No, sir. I didn't do it. It can't point at me. Katie sat in jail, unable to make bail,
00:36:48
while Sheriff's investigators and District Attorney James Ferrin continued to build their case against her.
00:36:55
And soon, they had some help from the man in the middle. I've had conflict of interest.
00:37:02
What's that? My ex-wife and my wife. J.D. Spielbauer cheated on Robin with Katie,
00:37:09
divorced Robin, married Katie, then cheated on Katie with Robin. So when he said he had some information to share,
00:37:16
investigators were eager to hear it. J.D. began by telling them what he had before, about hanging out with his Uncle Ty and sending
00:37:25
Robin that text about meeting up. Except, this time he provided some additional details.
00:37:32
J.D. now said Katie came home a little after 9 p.m. in a bad mood. J.D. said he woke up a while later to find Katie gone.
00:37:55
She had apparently taken his truck. That's when he said he started texting Katie and Ty and Robin, who never responded.
00:38:03
Obviously, Mongold wanted to know why J.D. changed his story. Because the thought of everything that my wife could have possibly did something was freaking me the hell out.
00:38:14
Was that really why J.D. was coming clean? This time around, he not only admitted he had plans to meet Robin that night, but also told them where.
00:38:23
And it was not at his house, as he had first said. So you and Robin are going to be at 34 in England?
00:38:29
Yes. But J.D. maintained he never left his house. Well, that doesn't work for me, J.D., and it doesn't work for the phone records that we have.
00:38:37
Mongold already knew a king from J.D.'s cell phone was telling a different story than J.D. was telling.
00:38:44
So at 923, how the hell is your phone at I-40 and Bill Westbound headed towards the crime scene?
00:38:50
J.D. said he could explain that. Somebody took it there. Who? The only other person that was at the house.
00:38:57
Which was? That would be Katie. Okay. Why would she take your phone? Apparently she probably saw a text message on it.
00:39:04
Might she have taken the phone after that in your truck? That's a good possibility.
00:39:10
Mongold thought J.D. was still holding back. he believed J.D. was at Helium Road with Robin
00:39:16
and laid out a scenario of how it all might have happened. You two are in the backseat.
00:39:22
Katie shows up, she starts beating on that back glass because we have chips out of the window and paint transfer from that gun.
00:39:28
It happens in a flash right there in front of you and you can't do anything about it, sir.
00:39:31
Robin, you're crazy. It's not your fault. It happened in five seconds' time. No, sir.
00:39:39
You're throwing all kinds of accusations and crap at me right now And that is not true, sir.
00:39:44
But eight days later, J.D. said he was ready to come clean. And the story he then told matched investigators' suspicions.
00:39:54
J.D. now admitted he had gone to Helium Road that night to meet Robin. Got in Zach's seat with her and we was talking about the girls, the STARS test coming up.
00:40:06
That's when J.D. said he noticed headlights shining through the back window. A few moments later, I hear a tapping on the glass.
00:40:16
Something harder than a fist. Something like a pink gun? I end up opening the door and I see Katie there.
00:40:25
Which took me by surprise. They're bickering back at each other. I'm trying to stop the bickering.
00:40:34
I just put my foot down and say this isn't what it looks like. We're talking about the girls.
00:40:38
That's it. she said something along the line so yeah, f*** it, I don't give a s***. I'll turn to Katie, I'll tell her
00:40:46
it's getting a car and it's going on foot down, this is done I'll shut her door and I'll go walking back
00:40:53
to my truck. J.D. said he thought Katie would follow him in her car, but when he got home, no
00:40:59
Katie. Which is why J.D. said he sent Katie and Robin those texts asking if everybody was okay
00:41:05
Remember, Katie said yes. Robin never responded. J.D. seemed aware of how his shifting stories must have looked.
00:41:16
Please forgive me for it. I ended up misleading anybody. I was hoping this wasn't true. Seriously.
00:41:26
I still love Katie with everything I got. But now J.D. was done. He filed for divorce and never
00:41:34
once went to see Katie in jail, which was a place it seemed she would be for a long time.
00:41:40
Unless there was something to prove she was innocent. Did you kill Robin? No, I didn't kill Robin.
00:41:50
Katie wanted a lie detector test, so they gave her one, and then another. She failed the polygraph miserably It wasn even close I hoped that Katie would say all right I give it up Instead Katie said I have no idea why I failed the polygraph because I did not kill Robin
00:42:09
It was a position Katie firmly maintained from behind the cement walls of the Randall County Jail,
00:42:15
awaiting trial, which is when we first learned about her case and received the first of those letters.
00:42:25
Coming up, Katie's story, a long and winding road. Amarillo is a plague. Come on vacation, leave on probation.
00:42:35
When Dateline continues. When Dateline continues. Here at Dateline, when we heard the tale of Katie Spielbauer in Amarillo, Texas,
00:42:53
The case, at first glance, seemed open and shut. 28-year-old Katie Spielbauer is accused of killing Robin Spielbauer.
00:43:00
Katie was locked up on charges she'd murdered Robin Spielbauer with a bullet to the head.
00:43:06
A bullet investigators thought came from Katie's very own Pink 22. Katie's alibi looked shaky, and she'd failed two polygraphs.
00:43:16
Add to that how Robin also happened to be the ex-wife of Katie's husband, J.D. and that Robin's romantic relationship with J.D.
00:43:25
somehow seemed to survive the end of their marriage. There was a river of bad blood between the two women,
00:43:33
a bunch of blinking signs that said Katie did it. We started digging a bit, and we wondered if there was more to the story.
00:43:40
So in February 2015, one of our producers sent a letter to Katie at the Randall County Jail.
00:43:48
Dear Ms. Spielbauer, I've been following your case for the past several months and felt it was time I reached out to you directly.
00:43:58
A week later, we received a response from inmate number 80059, Housing Unit 2, Pod B, Cell 22.
00:44:08
It was the kind of letter that makes an impression. I appreciate your interest in my story and your desire to want to know what is really going on in this pathetic excuse of an investigation.
00:44:20
She clearly knew her audience. As long as you respect me and mine, I will give you one hell of a story.
00:44:28
Because she said she had information we would want to hear about her ex-husband, J.D., the man she said was the real killer.
00:44:36
There is a very dangerous man walking the streets of this town. I know the truth.
00:44:42
I won't stop screaming until someone listens. Listen we did. Those letters kept on coming.
00:44:49
And soon Katie and our producer Karen Israel were chatting by phone. Hi Katie. Hi Mrs. Israel.
00:44:56
Yes, I'm glad we were finally able to connect. I'm just coming at this trying to learn as much as I can.
00:45:04
and want to hear what you have to say about the whole situation. Well, it's a pretty rotten situation.
00:45:12
I found myself fighting for my life. My ex-husband did some pretty wicked things, and I'm caught in the middle of it.
00:45:20
Anyone who knows me would know that I'm not capable of doing what they're accusing me of.
00:45:27
I would never do that to anybody. Keep in mind, we hear this a lot. I didn't do it.
00:45:33
Couldn't have done it. The other guy did it. But the more we talked, the more we realized there was something about Katie we couldn't ignore.
00:45:43
She was smart, strong, insistent. Could she possibly be telling the truth? Our correspondence continued for six months.
00:45:54
Good day. I hope you had a wonderful vacation and are well-enrested. So I thought I would have a letter waiting for you to catch you up on what's been going on here in Randall County, Texas.
00:46:05
A relationship like none other. This careful dance, unique to journalist and inmate.
00:46:12
I will not quit fighting for Robin and her family, even though they have been led to hate me.
00:46:17
I cannot wait to meet you. When we met face to face, it was in Amarillo, where you'll find something called the Cadillac Ranch.
00:46:27
It's a chunk of the recent past buried in plain sight. And that is a pretty good metaphor for Katie Spielbauer,
00:46:34
who wore her own past like a crown of thorns. You head pretty far from the perfect childhood.
00:46:41
It was a pretty rough childhood. My father passed away just a month before my second birthday,
00:46:48
and my mother could not cope with that very well. and she ended up addicted to heroin, crack.
00:46:57
She was an alcoholic. We never had a stable home. She was in and out of jail most of my childhood, in and out of rehab.
00:47:05
No structure, no rules. Katie was a self-described wild child. In eighth grade, I ended up dropping out of school.
00:47:13
In eighth grade? In eighth grade. I was homeless. I was doing drugs. I don't know how I'm still alive.
00:47:18
and I ended up pregnant at 15 with my son and that was the moment that everything changed.
00:47:26
She credits that baby, her son Diego, with saving her life. The number one goal in my life is I am
00:47:31
not going to be anything like my mother and I knew that I had to stand up and be better than what
00:47:40
everybody else thought I was capable of. She says she got off drugs and moved out of Amarillo with
00:47:46
Diego's father. He showed me what it was to live well in a decent place with a decent car with
00:47:52
clothes and food and not having to go hungry and not fight for everything that you have.
00:47:56
When Diego was a year old, Katie broke up with father and she moved back to Amarillo where she met another guy. This one not so special.
00:48:06
And I got pregnant with my daughter at 17. When I was six months pregnant, her father left me
00:48:10
for a stripper. Okay. Well, sorry. I mean, life is what it is. While she was pregnant,
00:48:18
a friend introduced her to his brother who lived in Florida. Katie moved there and gave birth to
00:48:23
her second child, Harley. Katie's new boyfriend helped raise Harley and Katie earned her GED.
00:48:30
Then I realized that, oh, people like me, if they really do work hard enough, they can
00:48:35
get to where they want to be. An American success story. Getting closer to it. Out of hell.
00:48:42
Beauty from ashes. It was hell. After five years in Florida, another relationship went south for Katie.
00:48:50
She broke up with her boyfriend, and her brother back in Amarillo said he could use her help
00:48:55
caring for his child. Was there a voice in your head that said, don't move back to Amarillo?
00:49:01
Yes. Amarillo is a plague. There's just something about this town that can destroy lives.
00:49:08
I don't think the Chamber of Commerce has that on the city seal. They don't. Come on vacation, leave on probation.
00:49:15
But you ignored that voice. I did. I did. I wish I hadn't of. Back to Amarillo she went and straight into the arms of J.D. Spielbauer.
00:49:27
Coming up, the courtship was perfect. The marriage? It went from everything's going to be great to, oh crap, what have I done?
00:49:37
Even Katie's daughter knew this marriage was in the red zone. I would always kind of stay awake in case something bad went wrong.
00:49:57
Katie may not have been happy to come home to Amarillo, but she told us she did get a big Texas welcome.
00:50:04
A family member had thrown a welcome home party for me and invited everybody, and he was one of the people that showed up.
00:50:14
He was J.D. Spielbauer. Katie had known him as a kid. And through that, you met Robin.
00:50:19
I met Robin. Robin, J.D.'s wife. The women became friends. Katie told us Robin even turned to her for counsel when J.D. treated her poorly.
00:50:30
I would go have drinks with Robin and basically just listen to her cry. Katie said Robin described J.D. as angry and violent.
00:50:39
Eventually, she couldn't take it any longer. In August of 2012, Robin filed for divorce.
00:50:45
But by then, J.D. had started coming around to see Katie. You'd had a front row seat to what kind of husband he was with Robin.
00:50:56
You think at all, like, maybe I don't want to sign up for that? The thought crossed through my mind, but at the same time, I also had watched him purposely try to make changes in his life to better himself and his situation.
00:51:12
According to Katie, it was a big Texas-style courtship. We would go and watch all the rodeos. We're country. We wear boots. We drive trucks.
00:51:22
You know, we listen to country music. We go out two-step, and you know, that's our life.
00:51:27
And we marry people whose other marriages haven't always worked out. That's right.
00:51:32
They married in 2013 on November 10th, the anniversary of JD's beloved Marine Corps.
00:51:39
It's changed so fast. It went from everything's going to be great to, oh crap, what have I done?
00:51:46
The Marine motto is Semper Fi, meaning always faithful. Apparently that meant more to the Marines than to J.D.
00:51:55
Katie's daughter Harley remembers her mom and J.D. fighting all the time. When she put us to bed and they thought we were asleep, they'd start going at it again, yelling.
00:52:05
A lot of those fights, Katie said, were about Robin. As you know by now, there was no love lost between the two women.
00:52:13
Katie suspected J.D. was cheating on her with Robin, which probably shouldn't have been surprising.
00:52:19
I gotta ask you, J.D. ever cheat on Robin with you? Yes. After their separation.
00:52:26
Before their divorce. Yep, I did that too. So, yeah, I'm not any better than either of them.
00:52:36
Remember that fight when Robin pushed Katie into the fireplace? Katie told us that did happen. She also admitted to sending her husband hundreds of furious texts in the days before Robin's murder. Those text messages make you sound pretty angry.
00:52:52
Would you be happy if you even thought that your wife was cheating on you and lying to you?
00:52:57
I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say it was all rainbows and butterflies. No, I was hurt.
00:53:03
I mean, it hurt me. I'm human. I have feelings, too. We asked her to explain one troubling text that she sent to J.D. about an hour before the murder.
00:53:15
My dreams of a happy family are gone. I will not make you carry this burden any longer.
00:53:21
You started this whether you want to believe it or not. I will finish it. The conversation that was going on at that point was a divorce.
00:53:28
And he was denying everything. And finally I was like, you know what? I'll handle it.
00:53:32
I'll go down. I'll file the divorce. I already had the paperwork. I just needed the money.
00:53:37
I'll take care of myself. I'll get a divorce. I'll get a divorce. Not I'll eliminate Robin, the woman that has come between us.
00:53:43
Not that at all. Just as she told investigators over and over again, Katie told us she was never on Helium
00:53:49
Road that night. So, where was she? Katie told us she picked up her friend Savannah son at school at 3 p her own son Diego at 3 and then they spent the rest of the evening at Savannah house She said the only time she left the house was a trip with the kids to McDonald
00:54:07
And you were gone how long? Maybe 20 minutes. Kids were with you the entire time?
00:54:11
Kids were with me. After McDonald's, she said, they returned to the house. And you were at Savannah's until?
00:54:18
Until approximately 10 to 10.15 that night. I mean... And then you went home? And I went home. My clock said 1018 when I pulled into the driveway.
00:54:28
And during that time, you were always in someone else's company. Right. Yes, I was.
00:54:34
There were three adults and two kids. You were never alone. I was never alone. Would you ever leave your son?
00:54:41
No. My son stays with me. Katie insisted she did not kill Robin, and she stuck to that story,
00:54:48
even in the face of new evidence that investigators believed would prove Katie was lying.
00:54:57
Coming up... He said these phone records was the last thing that I needed. Was it all over for Katie?
00:55:05
When Dateline continues... When investigators first looked into Robbins' murder, the case seemed open and shut.
00:55:22
It took just four days to arrest Katie. They quickly tied her to the murder weapon.
00:55:28
Her weapon. That pink gun. According to J.D. and the timeline, she had the opportunity.
00:55:34
She certainly had the means. and she certainly had the motive. Though witnesses placed Katie and her son at her best friend's house that night,
00:55:43
the friend said Katie left at 9.50 p.m. J.D.'s uncle said she didn't get home until around 10.20.
00:55:50
That's 30 minutes Katie could not account for, and J.D. had filled in the blank when he told investigators he was on Helium Road with Robin
00:55:59
when Katie suddenly showed up, spoiling for a fight. They're bickering back at each other. I'm trying to stop the bickering.
00:56:09
District Attorney James Farron took J.D.'s statement to use as a lever to move Katie off her story.
00:56:16
We believed that if we explained that to Katie, hey, he's throwing you under the bus.
00:56:23
But she didn't change her story, and she certainly didn't confess. No matter how they came at her, Katie's answer was the same.
00:56:33
I did not do this. I am telling you the truth. I was not at Helium Road. Okay, but I was not at Helium Road.
00:56:40
She stuck to her story even if that story wasn't getting her anywhere. Why would I confess to something that I didn't do?
00:56:48
A month goes by. Nothing happens. Two months. Nothing. Six months. Keeps going. James Farron had been putting criminals away for longer than Katie had been alive.
00:56:58
He knew his evidence against Katie was not definitive. Cell phone pings the night Robin was killed showed Katie was in range of a cell tower
00:57:07
that would have been on her rude home from Helium Road. But from Katie's best friend's house, the location of her alibi,
00:57:15
Katie would also have been in that cell tower's range. And then, serendipitously, came a break.
00:57:22
Katie had been in jail more than a year when, strangely enough, One of my investigators overheard one of the secretaries up front talking about the fact that if you have an Android phone, that this tracking event occurs.
00:57:42
And she had seen some program on television about it. Funny the things you learn on TV.
00:57:48
Turns out some smartphones leave a digital footprint whenever they connect to a Wi-Fi network.
00:57:54
Katie's phone had the Wi-Fi turned off, but her son Diego's phone had it on. That meant investigators could use Wi-Fi data to map Diego's every move that night.
00:58:06
And based on witnesses, prosecutors were convinced Katie and Diego were always together.
00:58:13
So if you can track Diego's phone, you can track where Katie was. As I said to our investigator, get that data.
00:58:20
Because wherever Diego was, Katie was. If Diego was on Helium Road that night, then Katie was on Helium Road that night.
00:58:28
I couldn't wait to get that data. Farron knew it in his gut. That data would finally put Katie at the crime scene.
00:58:37
It took months to get. And when it finally came in, the DA arranged a meeting with Katie.
00:58:44
Katie's been in jail for how long? 467 days. The facts, he told her, could no longer be denied.
00:58:52
He was right about that. And he sits back and he says, over the weekend, I got your phone.
00:58:57
yours and your son's phone records from an expert, and I have determined that you were
00:59:04
never at the scene of the crime. It was a stunning admission, not from the suspect,
00:59:11
but from the prosecutor. He said these phone records was the last thing that I needed,
00:59:16
and I thought that it was going to be what was going to put you in prison for the rest of your
00:59:20
life, but today it is what's going to let you go home to your kids. When I told her her case was
00:59:26
being dismissed and why she broke down and cried. Several hours after that conversation, Katie was a free woman.
00:59:36
We spoke with her days after her release. I never thought that I was ever going to see grass again or clouds again or little things
00:59:45
that so many people take for granted. Sunshine, just sunshine on your face. It's a gift.
00:59:52
By then she dropped the last name Spielbauer went back to her maiden name Katie Phipps Her first trip out of jail was a surprise visit to see her daughter Harley who been living in Florida with Harley dad
01:00:06
I was sitting on the arm of the couch. They opened the door and the sun was right in my face.
01:00:19
My mom and my brother walked in. the tears went and they were just there. And my mom was like, oh, my little baby, I'm home.
01:00:32
Happy ending? Not yet. Because if Katie didn't do it, that meant someone was getting away with murder.
01:00:43
Coming up, would Katie be the next victim? It was scary. I saw him drive by my house
01:00:50
and I told my lawyers, he said, well, honey, you're bulletproof. And I remember telling him, as long as I'm not within rifle range.
01:01:11
Thank you so much for standing by me. After more than a year in jail, Katie Phipps was suddenly back in the arms of family and friends.
01:01:22
She was free, no longer accused of murdering Robin Spielbauer. Not everyone in Amarillo was sharing in the love, including Robin's parents, Jackie and Steve Bledsoe.
01:01:38
When we got the call, it was like, what? You're releasing her? Why? What was your reaction?
01:01:43
Disbelief. At first. And anger? Quite a bit. I wasn't happy by any means. Robin's friend Aaron had a very different reaction.
01:01:55
Not so much rage as resolve. At that moment, I completely shifted and I knew we had to get J.D.
01:02:04
I knew that if she was innocent, he was 100% guilty. DA James Farron admitted publicly he'd made an unthinkable mistake.
01:02:18
You had the wrong person in jail for 15 months. Yeah, 467 days. That's not how this is supposed to work.
01:02:27
No. Did you think maybe you'd arrested Katie too quickly? No, no. You didn't rush to judgment here?
01:02:32
No. In fact, it was the very opposite of a rush to judgment, because we continued to work on this case almost every day, all the time she was sitting in jail.
01:02:46
Ultimately, Farron had come to a humiliating conclusion. He'd been played by J.D. Spielbauer.
01:02:53
What went wrong was that we had an individual who had decided to frame his wife for the murder of his ex-wife.
01:03:05
And he was pretty good at it. And he was a lot better at it than I thought at first.
01:03:10
I didn't see J.D. as a particularly bright, clever person early in this investigation.
01:03:17
I now believe he's much more clever than I thought he was. There were several guns found in J.D. and Katie's home.
01:03:26
The D.A. believed J.D. had set up his wife by intentionally choosing the pink gun to shoot Robin.
01:03:33
He had multiple firearms at his disposal. He chose a Sig Sauer 22 pistol that had a history of jamming after the first shot was fired.
01:03:46
But he uses that gun anyway because it's hers. He picks that gun because it's hers.
01:03:52
After J.D. shot Robin, Farron's theory now went, he took the pink gun back home, where he left it for police to find.
01:04:00
If that's true, then J.D. was out to get rid of both Robin and Katie. And Katie was worried.
01:04:08
Maybe he was still out to get her. It was scary. I saw him drive by my house, and I told my lawyer,
01:04:15
he said, well, honey, you're bulletproof. And I remember telling him, as long as I'm not within rifle range.
01:04:24
Katie well knew J.D. wasn't her only enemy in Amarillo. I still had people approaching me, calling me ugly names and saying,
01:04:33
no, you deserve to rot in prison for the rest of your life. For D.A. Farron, the investigation had to start all over again, now with J.D. as the focus.
01:04:43
Farron concentrated on J.D.'s lies. Remember, J.D. first told investigators he was never at the crime scene on Helium Road.
01:04:52
Later, he said, yeah, he'd been there, but so was Katie. Investigators found security video of a pickup truck that looked like J.D.'s near the crime scene, close to the time of the murder.
01:05:03
Can't read the plate, can't see inside the vehicle. We're confident that it's his vehicle, but we can't prove that.
01:05:08
What about Katie? We never saw any vehicle come through that security view that looked anything like the car Katie was driving that night.
01:05:19
Tantalizing, but not definitive, which seemed to be true of a lot of the evidence against J.D.
01:05:25
It had taken just four days to file murder charges against Katie, but Farron, burned once,
01:05:32
was reluctant to charge J.D. without more proof. And so nine months went by, and then the D.A. got a call from Robin's mother, Jackie,
01:05:42
that forced him to act. J.D. had apparently asked his mother-in-law for a big favor.
01:05:49
Had me buy him a ticket to go to New York for the weekend. That trip to New York felt phony to you Oh yeah And it did to Farron as well It not that far from there to the Canadian border And after talking about it and thinking about it I said let go ahead and make the arrest
01:06:09
Your daughter had been married to this guy. Yes. And now he's accused of her murder.
01:06:15
It was like, I just can't believe it. And for Katie, there was relief to be sure, but much more than that.
01:06:25
When I got the call that he was in fact in custody, I laid there in bed and I was just crying.
01:06:32
I want Robin back. I want those kids happy. I want to be happy. I want what will never be.
01:06:40
Now remember, J.D. was only arrested, not convicted. And as we saw with Katie, any case can fall apart.
01:06:48
And that's when the DA made another head-snapping move. He invited the suspect he'd once charged with Robin's murder, Katie,
01:06:58
to help him develop the case against J.D. We were invited to one of their meetings in May 2017, three years after the murder.
01:07:08
I'm confident that Robin, at some point shortly before the murder, confronted him with two issues.
01:07:16
Number one, J.D., I've met somebody else, and I'm through with you. We're not hooking up anymore.
01:07:22
And number two, I want my child support, and I want all of it. To Farron, J.D.'s thinking was clear.
01:07:29
I kill Robin and get rid of her. I frame Katie and get rid of her. Get rid of them both, and less than a month later, you've got a new, younger girlfriend in the future.
01:07:38
That's right. It solves all my problems. If I'm J.D., this solves my problems. So, with some help from Katie, the DA prepared for trial and also prepared to gamble
01:07:49
that the biggest mistake of his career would also become his best argument in court.
01:07:56
Are you confident you're going to be able to convict J.D.? Yes. If that gun killed Robin, only two people could have done it, either Katie or J.D.,
01:08:05
and I can prove it wasn't Katie. But, not according to J.D. Spielbauer. You don't think there's evidence against you?
01:08:15
No, sir. Coming up, there are some things you just shouldn't lie about. What kind of person, in your view, does that?
01:08:25
A liar, a fraud, charlatan. When Dateline continues. When auto mechanic and local Lothario J.D. Spielbauer went on trial for his ex-wife's murder,
01:08:50
the jury heard a lot about cell tower pings and Wi-Fi connections. But according to D.A. James Farron, the trial's most damning witness was J.D. himself and all of his changing stories.
01:09:03
There is J.D.'s four versions of what happened, four different versions of what happened.
01:09:10
The jury watched the video of him lying to investigators about whether he met with Robin on Helium Road the night of the murder.
01:09:17
Did you have any plans to meet Robin Monday evening? No plans. Then jurors were shown another recording taken a few weeks later
01:09:25
when J.D.'s story changed dramatically, and he admitted he did meet with Robin that night.
01:09:31
And he said so did Katie, who J.D. claimed followed him out to Helium Road. which took me by surprise and everything.
01:09:41
That was not the biggest lie J.D. was accused of telling. Even bigger was this one, giant even by Texas standards.
01:09:50
It wasn't about the night of the murder. It was about J.D.'s past. A record search by investigators had yielded this.
01:09:59
J.D., the gearhead, was no jarhead. He'd never served a day in the Marines or any other branch of the military.
01:10:08
All of it seemed to be something he made up to impress women like Robin, whose parents both had military careers.
01:10:16
Is that kind of thing offensive to you? Yes. What kind of person, in your view, does that?
01:10:22
A liar, a fraud, charlatan. For the record, J.D. now denies telling anyone he was in the Marines.
01:10:31
The most dramatic moment of his trial was yet to come, when his ex-wife Katie, also the ex-suspect, took the stand to testify against him.
01:10:44
Katie knew the public perception of her guilt or innocence was riding on the credibility of her testimony.
01:10:52
I knew I was going to be on trial as well. Because you're like sort of the alternate defendant.
01:10:57
Right. To establish Katie's credibility as a witness, D.A. Farron had to admit to the jury he'd wrongly charged her with Robin's murder years earlier.
01:11:08
Once we identified the Sig Sauer pistol as the weapon that killed Robin, now the suspect pool becomes pretty small.
01:11:17
By telling the jury that Katie could not be the killer, Farron hoped to reduce that suspect pool to just one, J.D.
01:11:26
As author Cannon Doyle said through the lips of Sherlock Holmes, when you've eliminated every other possibility,
01:11:33
whatever's left's the truth, the only person left is J.D. The defense's case, though, rested on two basic facts that were not in dispute.
01:11:42
First, Robin was struck in the head hard. Blunt force trauma, the medical examiner called it.
01:11:49
Second, Robin had also been shot once in the head with that pink-trimmed 22-caliber pistol.
01:11:56
Katie's pistol. Based on that, JD Attorney Joe Mar Wilson summed up his defense in just three words.
01:12:05
Katie did it. The gunshot might have killed her, but the pathologist testified the blunt force trauma would have killed her.
01:12:11
And that says anger to you? That says anger. That says everything Katie was doing.
01:12:15
And as far as J.D. framing Katie? Couldn't have happened, said Wilson, for one simple reason.
01:12:21
His client, J.D., just isn't smart enough. J.D.'s a mechanic, working guy, grew up in a broken home.
01:12:30
If you were going out there to set Katie up, you would do it a lot better. And Wilson felt there was one other flaw in the prosecution's setup theory.
01:12:44
How do you set Katie up if you're not sure exactly where she's at? You would have done it when you knew where Katie was or knew that she couldn't alibi herself.
01:12:54
In other words, J.D. didn't have control over Katie's movements that night. So how could he be sure she wasn't with witnesses who could provide an alibi?
01:13:05
If he's trying to set her up, he's either the worst set-up artist in the world, or he is the most sophisticated criminal there ever was.
01:13:16
J.D. did not testify at his trial. He did talk to me from jail. Did you kill Robin?
01:13:22
No, sir. J.D. said he and Robin were just hanging out at their rendezvous site on Helium Road
01:13:29
when Katie emerged from the darkness. Were you and Robin just talking when this happened or something more than that?
01:13:37
No, we were just talking. But all of a sudden Katie shows up? Yes, sir. And she's furious?
01:13:43
A little past furious. And then you leave? Yes, sir. How is it that you had two women literally fighting over you?
01:13:54
That I'm still trying to figure out. I'm not even a decent-looking gentleman. I really don't know, to be honest.
01:14:02
If you're not involved in this, why not tell police the truth from the beginning?
01:14:07
Why tell police more than one story? Because I still did not want to believe that Katie would or could be able to do anything like this.
01:14:16
So if you're avoiding telling police that story, you're doing that to protect Katie and not yourself?
01:14:22
Yes, sir. I mean, look, there's another way to look at this, which is you planned this whole thing.
01:14:31
You kill Robin. You put the gun back in the house to frame Katie Katie arrested Robin gone You a free man again No sir That wouldn have happened if Katie had been prosecuted
01:14:46
I mean, you would have been all alone. There would have been no type of benefits out of any of this.
01:14:52
I would have lost a woman I love, my children lost their mother, I just lost my second wife.
01:15:00
What makes you not guilty here? What points away from you? Oh, plain and simple.
01:15:08
Katie was the last one to see Robin a lot. The best thing for us was that the state had indicted Katie Spielbauer and held her in jail for over a year
01:15:17
because we can say, well, if they thought she did it, how can you not have reasonable doubt?
01:15:24
What and who would the jury believe? Coming up, J.D. wasn't the only one whose future was at stake.
01:15:34
Were you worried that if the verdict comes back not guilty, that that's like the jury saying Katie is guilty?
01:15:41
That's exactly what I was going to think. jury deliberations are a tense time for any defendant but in this case it wasn't just jd
01:16:02
spielbauer sweating out the verdict that was the scariest few minutes of my life were you worried
01:16:10
that if the verdict comes back not guilty, that that's like the jury saying Katie is guilty?
01:16:16
That's exactly what I was going to think. Although Katie also realized no matter what the verdict,
01:16:22
some in Amarillo will always wonder about whether she played some role in Robin's murder.
01:16:28
One of them is the man who arrested her. Two things a cop can do that are horrible. One is
01:16:32
kill an innocent person. The second one is taking an innocent person's freedom away.
01:16:37
So you don't think you did either one of those things? No. You didn't take an innocent person's freedom away?
01:16:43
No. Mongold told us he believed J.D. was guilty of Robin's murder. But the question is, was anybody else involved and how much?
01:16:52
You have doubts as to whether or not Katie was involved. I do. I have some unanswered questions.
01:16:59
But the D.A. who let her out says he has no doubt. The cell phone data proves she wasn't there when Robin was killed.
01:17:08
Katie played no role in this whatsoever. Didn't know about it. Didn't do anything to facilitate it.
01:17:13
No. Had no idea Because you know there are people involved in this who still think Katie got away with murder I got up in front of the world and admitted I charged the wrong person But some people can
01:17:25
bring themselves to admit that. When we first talked, which was a couple of years ago, I asked
01:17:29
you if this was a rush to judgment, and you said it was not. Well, I didn't feel like it was a rush
01:17:35
to judgment. Later, after we had put everything together, it clearly was a rush to judgment. It
01:17:42
It was a, if you're ever going to write a textbook about tunnel vision, confirmation bias, and a rush to judgment, this is the case you'd use to write the textbook.
01:17:53
I love to hate him and hate to love him. I respect Mr. Farron. Don't necessarily think that he would ever be somebody that I would call on a weekly basis to check in, but I respect him.
01:18:07
He is good at what he does. He is a very smart man. And he admitted his mistake, which a lot of prosecutors really don't like to do.
01:18:15
They don't. Katie had waited 467 days to be freed from the lockup. The wait for a verdict wasn't nearly as long.
01:18:26
It took the jury only about three hours to find J.D. Spielbauer guilty of Robin's murder.
01:18:33
His sentence? Life in prison. Justice finally for Robin. But for her parents, nothing could take away the pain of knowing their daughter's greatest fear had been realized
01:18:46
when J.D. left her out there on Helium Road. She never wanted to be alone. She hated to be alone.
01:18:54
And to be left out there was just not anything I could deal with. Erin still struggles with her own sense of loneliness.
01:19:05
I lost my best friend. I can't call her anymore. Her number's still in your phone?
01:19:15
Yeah. Because? If I delete it, I delete her. And as for Katie, you feel better now?
01:19:32
Yes and no. I'm happy it's over, but it's still sad and heartbreaking. It's a tragedy.
01:19:40
It doesn't go away. It doesn't fix anything. It doesn't bring Robin back. Robin's mom gave you a hug after trial.
01:19:48
She did. I love Robin's mom. And for her to reach out to me like that actions speak louder than words And there wasn a single thing that she could have said to me that was more powerful than the hug that she gave me
01:20:04
You hugged Katie at the end of the trial? She hugged first. And it's, I'm a hugger, so yes, I hugged back.
01:20:19
Would Katie be wrong to see that as a sign of forgiveness? I don't know how to answer that because I don't know if I have forgiven either one of them yet.
01:20:34
I mean, one of the theories is that they were in it together. Either of you believe that? I mean, either of you believe that Katie's getting away with murder right now?
01:20:43
I don't know what to believe. All I know is I believe the person that actually hurt our baby is where he needs to be.
01:20:53
And that's what I have to believe because that's what they proved. That's what makes sense.
01:21:02
One question is proving difficult to answer. What made J.D. somebody women want to fight over?
01:21:08
It was easy for him to turn himself into somebody that he wasn't. We saw something different than what everybody else saw.
01:21:19
But what we didn't know at the time was that we weren't his wives. We were his property.
01:21:27
And he was going to control and dominate that property any way that he saw fit. Katie promised us one hell of a story.
01:21:36
She certainly delivered. And she says she's not done yet. She graduated from college, the first in her family to do so, with a degree in legal studies.
01:21:46
She now works as a paralegal in a law firm. On top of that, the founder of a nonprofit organization happened to see Katie on Dateline,
01:21:54
inspiring a program called Ignite You First. It's dedicated to breaking intergenerational cycles of trauma.
01:22:03
I never had a male role model in my life, so I was never taught what kind of man I should be looking for.
01:22:10
I was never taught what kind of humans and people and friends I needed in my life.
01:22:16
Katie's hope is that by being part of that program, she can help teens and adults make better choices.
01:22:22
Something like this happens, it gives you purpose. And life has no meaning without purpose.
01:22:30
That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.