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this is the story of a classic love triangle husband wife and lover one of these three died
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in what was described as an accident a forensic computer analysis uncovered photographs and emails so revealing
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they even embarrassed a local judge [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] detroit michigan nicknamed the motor
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city for its history is one of the world's largest automotive manufacturing hubs
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just west of detroit is michigan state university with almost 40 000 students in 1990 michael mick fletcher was an
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undergraduate student there with hopes of one day becoming a lawyer at a campus social event mick
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fletcher met leanne meisner who wasn't a student but worked as a telemarketer
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nearby for both it was love at first sight and they were inseparable three years later in september of 1993
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mick and leanne married that was great he was going to be a lawyer so he'd make a lot of money be
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able to buy her a nice house and she wanted to stay home and have a lot of babies
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that's all she wanted in life i saw since she was a little girl all she wanted to do
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was to get married and have children the newlyweds settled in hazel park a working-class suburb just north of
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detroit they bought this house on hazelwood avenue and mick started law school leanne worked to support them and not
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long afterwards the couple had a daughter hannah was her joy she just she was just crazy about hannah
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[Music] the fletcher household appeared to be a happy one i mean she just got a thrill out of
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everything that hannah did oh my gosh she dressed her so cute too all the cute little outfits it was like
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her little doll by 1999 mick was an up-and-coming criminal defense attorney working hard
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to build his practice on august 12 1999 the couple had more good news leanne learned she was pregnant with
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their second child [Music] mick was delighted with the news and sent her a note leanne i might not always tell you but
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you mean the world to me i love you so much sweetheart and girl or boy so long as they are part of you our children
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will all be beautiful i love you mick that's sunday night the couple celebrated their good fortune with
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leanne's parents mick asked his in-laws if they would watch their granddaughter hannah the
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next day and he said i wonder if you'd babysit for about one hour and i said for one hour and he said yeah
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he said we want to go to the firing range mick believed in having a gun in the house for protection and he wanted
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leanne to learn how to use after visiting the firing range mick and leanne decided to return home and to
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spend some quiet time together before picking up their daughter just a few minutes after they arrived
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home mick made a frantic call to police [Music] hazel park police found leanne dead on
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the bedroom floor naked from the waist down a bullet hole through her right ear [Music]
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mick told police he and leanne were sitting on the bed together reloading the 45 caliber smith and wesson they
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just used at the firing range he had trouble loading the second clip so he gave it to leanne to help him
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he put the gun down in the gun box at the foot of the bed got up went to the bathroom to wash his hands and that's
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when he heard the gun go off he came running out of the bathroom and saw his wife laying on the floor
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oh my god man the last thing i ever wanted in my life was to bury one of my kids
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and then to have to bury one so young so young so beautiful not fair at first glance it appeared to be an
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accident but police decided to take a second look and then a third [Music] as part of the investigation into leanne
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fletcher's death police first needed to eliminate the possibility of suicide
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perhaps leanne's pregnancy had caused some depression [Music] she was so excited there is no way
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on earth that liam would ever consider suicide let alone go through with it not in a
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million years mick fletcher told police his wife accidentally shot herself in their
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bedroom shortly after a trip to the firing range as she tried to reload their pistol
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leanne's mother suspected that an accidental shooting in the head was a little too convenient this was a
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terrible accident she would have been shot in her hand her arm her foot in the wall i said it wouldn't be in her
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head in the couple's bedroom police noticed blood stains on the carpet under leanne's body as well as
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under the gun and clip and there was blood spatter on the computer stand by the bed
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there was more blood spatter on the edge of the bed spread the medical examiner dr lubissa dragovic
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performed leanne's autopsy there was no gunpowder residue in the bullet wound
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but there were some tiny dots of gunpowder called stippling embedded in the skin around the wound
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gap other stippling is a phenomenon that occurs when partly burnt or unburnt gum powder particles land on the surface
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of the skin the density of this stippling pattern indicated that the muzzle of the firearm
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was 12 to 18 inches away from leanne's head when the gun went off and the trajectory of the bullet was
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almost horizontal an unusual path for a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head
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in order to accomplish that your arm has to be about four foot long this lady had only 23 inches
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or 23 and a half inches long right arm when police searched the couple's home
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they found a brown folder in mix office containing numerous romantic greeting cards
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[Music] inside were pictures of susan shernowski a local district court judge investigators also discovered that mick
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had earned seventeen thousand dollars in legal fees from cases assigned by and presided over by judge susan shernowski
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if the two were romantically involved this was a gross violation of legal ethics
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investigators seized the fletcher's home computer and susan chernowski's office
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computer for examination by a forensic computer expert for years and years we've always been
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willing to look in a file cabinet for some type of an incriminating document well people aren't using file cabinets
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anymore they're using computers sergeant duke copied the hard drives from the confiscated computers onto a
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forensic examination computer which is equipped with special software that can access password protected files
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and reconstruct documents which have been deleted sergeant duke found nude photographs of judge chernowski and
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hundreds of emails between her and mick they read as love letters they appeared to be intimate they
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appeared to be lovers they talked about being together they talked about wanting to be together
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in the future mick had been corresponding with the judge for 17 months police also learned
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that before she died leanne had suspected her husband was having an affair and the couple
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separated [Music] but three months later they reconciled and moved back in together
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police no longer believed that leanne's death was an accident and we're beginning to suspect that mick
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fletcher and the judge might be involved [Music] when investigators discovered that
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attorney mick fletcher was having an affair with a sitting judge at the time of his wife's death
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both were considered suspects he had his should i call her his [ __ ] because that's as far as i'm concerned
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that's what she is judge susan shernowski denied she had anything to do with leanne's death but
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she was able to provide some useful information so i asked the judge when was the last time they had sexual
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relations and she stated the night before the homicide this meant that after having dinner with
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leanne's parents mick dropped his wife and daughter off at home and made some excuse so that he
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could secretly meet with his lover she believed there was no sexual relationship between himself and leanne
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and she told us that if there was a sexual relationship between michael and leanne that their
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relationship would be over and all of a sudden now at the time of her death she was three weeks four weeks
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pregnant that we believe that that was indeed the motive for for her death mick insisted that leanne's death was an
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accident he claimed leanne was reloading their gun and that he heard the gunshot when he
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was in the bathroom but the evidence told a different story the gun and extra clip were found on the
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floor and not in leanne's hand in a lot of cases where people shoot themselves the gun is still in their
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hand because of anatomy that i can't explain the body grabs a gun there was also blood on leanne's palm
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if the gun had been in her hand when the shot was fired the gun would have prevented the blood from striking the
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palm of her hand and there was blood on the carpet underneath the gun and extra clip
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well it should have been on top of those items there's blood underneath the items
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if she had to shot herself the blood would have fallen on top of the gun in the top of the cliff
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and by the dresser there was a shell casing standing on end and everything looked like it was placed
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we swapped leanne's hands and sent it to a lab to determine whether or not there was any type of
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gunpowder residue that may have been left that came back negative forensic serologist and blood spatter
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expert dave woodford examined the shirt mick fletcher wore the day of the shooting
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a phenol phthalene chemical test found blood on the right cuff using a stereo microscope
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woodford saw high velocity impact blood spatter on the right cuff a fine mist of tiny blood particles had
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been driven deep into the fibers to me it was critical because it pretty much took his story
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and didn't give it any credibility at all there was no way that he could have been in the bathroom
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at the time of the shooting high velocity impact blood spatter is created when a gunshot wound hits an
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area with blood and the fine mist of blood blows back toward the gun he had to be in close proximity
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to leanne when she was shot had leanne shot herself investigators say there would have been high velocity
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impact blood spatter on her hand and there was none it doesn't make any difference
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if there are additional drops of blood that occur later or contaminate on top of it with some
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some smudging occurs there will still be areas that allow for this pattern to be
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recognized and that was not there to find out where leanne was when she was shot
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investigators analyzed the angle of the blood spatter on the computer stand next
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to leanne's body the size and shape of the blood spatter told investigators that the blood hit
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the computer stand at a 10 to 20 degree angle strings which were connected to each
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drop of blood spatter revealed the exact location of leanne's head when the shot
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was fired say for instance the angle you got was 52 degrees so then you take the string
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from the blood droplet and you measure up 52 degrees and you bring that out into space somewhere and you do that
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with each blood droplet where the strings intersect is the spot where the blood originated
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woodford concluded that leanne was on the floor when she was shot she was not sitting on the bed while she
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was shot that she was on her hands and her knees while she was shot investigators also discovered fresh
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sperm in the vaginal swab from leanne's autopsy an indication that the couple
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had sexual relations shortly before the shooting it's my opinion that sexual
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relationships occurred pretty close to the time of her death police repeatedly test fired the gun in
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order to recreate the same stippling patterns found on leanne's head they fired at close range
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and gradually moved back at six inch intervals the tests confirmed dr dragovic's
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earlier observation the gun was 12 to 18 inches away from leanne's head when the shot was fired
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too far away for leanne to have held the gun herself which in essence takes out the possibility of this
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this wound being self-inflicted leanne's family never believed mcstorey that the shooting was accidental
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judge chernowski said she was out of town on the day of leanne's death which
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checked out and investigators did not believe she knew about mick's plans police arrested mick fletcher and
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charged him with the premeditated murder of his wife [Music] prosecutors believe that the murder of
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leanne fletcher was premeditated and that her husband mick killed her in order to protect his romantic
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relationship with judge susan shernowski [Music] judge chernowski testified that mick had
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lied to her about his relationship with leanne mick told her he no longer was having
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sexual relations with his wife and so susan chernowski believed that the two had a future together
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but when leanne became pregnant mick realized that the judge would discover he had been lying
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i really do think if she wouldn't have gotten pregnant she'd still be alive
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i think that panicked him when she got pregnant you know prosecutors believe the couple's trip to
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the firing range was probably a setup a way to explain why the pistol was out of
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its case in the bedroom they had to pick up their daughter but before they picked up their daughter they
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wanted to come home and have what he quoted as a quickie when they returned from the firing range
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and leanne went into the bathroom mick placed the gun near the gun case at the foot of their bed
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medical evidence shows that the couple had sex on the floor [Music] we have to go
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as leanne was getting up mick grabbed the gun and pulled the trigger the mistakes mick made were numerous
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blowback blood spatter landed on the cuff of mick's shirt and he placed the weapon and clip on top of
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a blood stain next to leanne's bloody hand which clearly showed she hadn't been holding the gun
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mick then went into the bathroom and rinsed off leanne's blood blood that was later found in the sink
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trap then he called police you have the evidence of the night before where he is professing his love
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to another woman not his wife you had the blood in the trap of the sink which would indicate that he washed his
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hands prior to making a 911 call you have the high velocity blood mist on the cuff of his shirt you have the stippling
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patterns that are on the right side of leanne's face so it's a combination of all all this
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evidence that just just pointed towards him as the person that committed this crime
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mick didn't want to be with lann anymore but the thought of her being with somebody
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else he just couldn't handle it guilty of the lesser offense of second-degree murder
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but the jury did not believe mick fletcher planned leanne's murder so he was convicted of second-degree murder
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we were grateful that it was second degree but it should have been first degree it
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should have i mean it was clearly clearly premeditated and anybody that knew him
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knew that the trial judge sentenced fletcher to the maximum penalty allowed life in prison
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in this exclusive phone interview from prison mick fletcher tells the producers of
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this program that he is not a murderer i didn't kill my wife am i an innocent man i had an affair
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i did something that i shouldn't have done i did something that was immoral all i can tell you is that i didn't kill
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my wife unfortunately for him all the evidence points the other direction and points to
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the fact that indeed he did commit this murder and he did commit this crime it's hard when you have two people in
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the house and only one left to tell the story and so you have to have the forensic
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evidence and that basically will tell the story for you and i'm so glad you have to look at the scene and what
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does the scene tell you forensically and that's exactly what happened in this
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case that the story by the defendant then oh my god my wife accidentally shot herself
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was seen through i hope they find him in the same humiliating way that he left my
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daughter half naked in the prison somewhere dead and i hope he rots in him [Music]
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[Music] so [Music] you