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Summer Tatum: Tragic Murder of Expecting Mother | Killers Caught On Camera

May 22, 2025 / 46:42

This episode of Killers Caught on Camera covers two tragic cases: the shooting of Summer Tatum in Alabama and the disappearance of Andre McDonald in Texas. Key discussions include the chaotic events leading to Summer's death, Hunter Tatum's arrest, and the investigation into Andre McDonald's murder.

In Alabama, Hunter Tatum calls 911 after shooting his pregnant wife, Summer. The episode details the chaotic scene, including Hunter's claims of self-defense and the investigation that follows. Despite his assertions, evidence suggests a different narrative, leading to his arrest for murder.

In Texas, Andre McDonald goes missing, prompting concern from family and friends. Investigators find signs of violence in her home and suspicious behavior from her husband, Andre. The episode reveals the chilling details of the investigation, including Andre's purchase of items typically associated with body disposal.

As the investigations unfold, both cases reveal deeper issues of domestic violence and betrayal. The episode culminates in the courtroom, where Hunter Tatum is convicted of murder, while Andre McDonald is found guilty of manslaughter.

Through interviews and evidence, the episode highlights the tragic outcomes of both cases, emphasizing the impact on the victims' families and the communities involved.

TLDR

Two tragic murder cases: Summer Tatum shot by her husband, Andre McDonald goes missing and is later found murdered.

Episode

46:42
00:00:08
This time on Killers Caught on camera in Alabama, a desperate call from a distraught husband. My wife, she pulled
00:00:17
a gun on me and said, "I remember walking into the bedroom and it looked like chaos."
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And in Texas, the alarm is raised when the boss fails to arrive for work. Why would you buy a shovel, buy an axe,
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buy gasoline? This is not normal behavior for somebody who's worried about their missing wife.
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It just sounds like something bad is happening to her. We know what happened because the video tells us what
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happened. I heard some gunshots. Drop it. Whatever it is, drop it. That does not prove that I killed my wife. The
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camera doesn't lie. In the heart of Alabama is the city of Prattville. Proud is located in Atoga County, which
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is a kind of a residential county right outside of the state capital, Montgomery.
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It's I would say small town. It's a very tight-knit community. Prattville was also home to Summer
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Tatum. Summer was good-hearted from day one. She was bubbly, strong willed. She loved to make people laugh and she just
00:01:42
had a big heart. We were three years apart, so we felt like cats and dogs. But as we grew
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older, she's my rock. I mean, I talked to her every day. Any issue I had, you
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know, she she just had the answer for it. She was wonderful. But Summer faced many challenges in her
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life. She had this cerebopal paly and we found that out when she was about 7 months old
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but she never let it slow her down. She always made good grades, always straight
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A's. She knew from the beginning what she wanted to do. I mean she never mentioned anything other than getting
00:02:32
into radiology school. While Summer was in college, she met the love of her life, Hunter Tatum.
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She actually met Hunter on Tinder. He was a miss. He was at um USA, the University of South Alabama.
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He was felon. And Summer took him in and she kind of got his life together for him. They connected and they never spent
00:03:04
another day away from each other. He He was a real sweet guy. I mean, constantly writing her love notes,
00:03:12
bringing flowers to her. Hunter was wonderful. He treated my sister like there was no one else on
00:03:22
this earth. In July 2019, the couple tied the knot. She was really happy to be marrying her
00:03:32
best friend. I could just see the the love that she had in her heart for Hunter.
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Then in May 2021, Summer received lifechanging news. She was so happy. She was so happy to be
00:03:49
having a healthy baby boy growing in her. And we couldn't wait for his arrival.
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[Music] Talking 911. Say your location. Oh my god. Okay. What's going on there, sir?
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My god, sir. Oh my god. Sir, my my wife. It's my fault. She did what? My wife. She found
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a She pulled a gun on me and then Okay. She pulled a gun on you and then what? And then I got it from her. She
00:04:34
was wrestling before I just shot her. [Music] Patrol officers responded. They knew
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there had been a shooting. A gentleman named Hunter Tatum told dispatchers that he had just shot
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his wife. When officers arrived, he was still on the phone with 911 dispatchers.
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Hunter. Oh my god. Hunter, stay with me. There's officers there. I need you to
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walk to the door. Okay, walk to the door for me, Hunter. Unit on scene. Be advised still has the phone in his hand.
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Get on the ground. Get on the ground. Get on the ground right now. Put your hands on your head. They
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took him into custody and then they go try to find the victim. Right there. Go up there. Stay here.
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They found Summer in the bedroom. Ma'am, where you shot? Ma'am, Officer Campbell with the Proud
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Bill Police Department. She was laying on the bedroom floor on her back. She was still alive. She still had vital
00:05:43
signs, but they knew that it was very serious. Okay, she's a lady alert for the blood. She You hear? She's still
00:05:51
alive. She's been in here. He said, "Looks like you see the head." There was
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a lot of blood. She had a traumatic injury to her head. The prognosis of something like that usually is not good.
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Shot in the head. Medics did all they could for Summer. She's pregnant, bro.
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[Music] Yes. any medical assistance and everything that was done for Summer was solely for
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the baby. There was nothing that could be done for Summer at that [Music] time. She was taken to the nearest
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hospital in critical condition. In a desperate attempt to save the baby, doctors performed an emergency cesarian
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section. I got a call. It was the police. And he said, "Ma'am, are you sitting down?" on.
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And I said, I said, "No." And he said, "Well, you need to sit down." He said,
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"Your daughter's been shot." Just my soul left my body. I'm like, "This is a dream. Is
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this a nightmare? What is going on?" Back at the crime scene, Detective Wesley Clark began to painstakingly
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search the property. I remember walking into the bedroom and it looked like chaos. There was evidence everywhere
00:07:36
from the firearm that was used. There was clothing. There was a bag that was sitting on the bed.
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CJ Robinson was the chief deputy district attorney for Ataga County. Right now, we don't know. Was this
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accidental? Was this intentional? Has there been evidence that has been tried to be disposed of? All these things we
00:08:01
don't know. One of the weird things that I saw was an Xbox in the sink. Obviously, in my mind, that's odd.
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Go ahead and get him off and talk. Stay up there. What's up? I remember thinking I I really need to
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talk to him because I've got to figure out more than just the 911 call and the
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scene that I'm looking at. All right, go ahead and step on me. What did you do?
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Hunter was driven to Prattville Police Department where he was interviewed. Got the seat right here.
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I'm going to uh shoes. I remember walking into the room and seeing him obviously sitting across from
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[Music] me and he was very wideeyed, pale. I think it was probably kind of starting to set in for him what had just
00:09:02
happened. How long y'all been buried? Two years. When you get the first six, I've always
00:09:09
joked and said that there's always three sides to a story. Hers, his, and the
00:09:14
truth. Uh, but in this case, I knew I was only going to get one side of the story. What happened this evening? She's
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been praying for 6 months. And there was just some disconnect or something. And probably about 5 months ago, I
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started talking to just talking to this to this other woman. and she's from overseas, you know, never
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met her, seen her, done anything with her, but that all came out yesterday. Essentially, he went to sleep
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one night. Summer went through his phone sensing something was off. She found explicit messages back and forth, very
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sexual in nature, uh, which started leading to to marital strife. Clearly, she was just saying, you know, like
00:10:04
there's just there's nothing left kind of deal and it's my fault. One of the things that's so interesting
00:10:18
about deception is that it is often so caught up in reality. It's potentially
00:10:24
easier for him to just go with what's true than to craft an entirely different
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emotional response to the situation. So I think the saying it's my fault is just
00:10:35
him working as close as possible to the truth which frankly is a good strategy if you're going to lie is you want to
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keep close to the facts right and distort as little as possible. I'm in her sleep on the couch and I hear
00:10:48
her throwing up people she's freaking pregnant and I go there and check on her
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and she just starts talking out of her head and you know she's going to get back at me and you know I'm like that's
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okay. Like I get it. It's like, well, I'm trying to process what he's telling
00:11:04
me, but I'm still trying to paint that picture of what actually happened. And and then she just
00:11:13
started going for her thing and said she was going to kill me and cuz we both have pistols in our nightstand. She got
00:11:21
hers up and started, you know, pointed at me and whatever and kind of pushing all over the place.
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and I got it from her and then she starts screaming trying to not kill her or shoot her and I'm telling her I'm
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not. Essentially his version was that she was out of her mind that she was crazy. She was irrational. She was
00:11:43
scaring him she was dangerous and that she went and got a gun. They both kept guns in their bedside
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table which is not uncommon especially in the Southeast. He said that she basically grabbed a gun and a struggle
00:12:00
for the gun ensued. You know, I'm like holding the gun back from her and then
00:12:04
she keeps reaching for it and pulling on my shirt and stuff. This is where his version of what happened
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really doesn't make sense. I just knew that if it wasn't that she was going to go get down with her. I
00:12:20
mean, I've got to go save her. Just don't want to die. Hunter claims that he took the gun away
00:12:30
from Summer. Like she's reaching for it and she falls down and then she's getting back up. But
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I just knew that if I didn't do something that it was going to be something else that she would go get.
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And and that's where I just I know I shot her. I just don't know where where he'll be.
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It's hard for us this early in the investigation to know is it true or not. But then the decision to shoot her once
00:13:04
you've taken a gun away when she doesn't have a gun, something's something's not
00:13:09
right. It does feel like he is talking about himself a lot and how he's feeling and
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whether or not he is thinking about her. Obviously, we don't know, but certainly
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he's not expressing anything that suggests he is really concerned about their
00:13:28
[Music] well-being. At the hospital, staff were still doing everything they could for
00:13:35
Summer. The doctor came in and she said, "I'm not going to paint you a pretty
00:13:40
picture." She said, um, Summer has been shot twice in the back of the head. The first shot I thought, you
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know, yeah, it's possibility, but the second shot I figured, no, she's not
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going to make it. I held her hand and I kissed her. And I let her know how much I love
00:14:08
her. But I told her it's okay to go. It's okay. Not too long after that, she
00:14:24
passed away. I remember calling the charge nurse at the hospital that day, and that's when I was first informed that
00:14:35
they had delivered the baby and the baby was in the NICU. And it was a short time later that I
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called back and was informed unfortunately that not only the baby passed but so had
00:14:47
[Music] summer. That's a complete game changer in the mind of a detective or an
00:14:54
investigator at that point in time. This is no longer just a domestic incident. This is a double murder.
00:15:06
Hunter was now interviewed for a second time. Sorry to wake you up, man. Go ahead.
00:15:13
I felt that fire of I wanted to be the one to tell him that. Not only his child, but his wife
00:15:19
were gone. I wanted to get I want his reaction. I wanted to gauge it, not just for me personally, but as an
00:15:24
investigator. I wanted to see what that's like. That to me, that's evidence. I want to be able to speak on
00:15:29
that. Well, you just let you know. Uh, I'll give you an update. Okay. I'm just
00:15:34
tell you like it is. Okay. Um the baby passed this morning at 9:30. Okay. Um so your wife and the baby unfortunately did
00:15:42
pass. Okay. Um they had the baby in the NICU and were doing their their best to um to do
00:15:52
what they can. I remember kind of looking at him differently and I think my probably my
00:15:58
demeanor and I'm sure he could tell that too in that room. It was one of those
00:16:03
I'm no longer your friend. I'm not here to help you through this process. Like
00:16:07
now I'm an advocate for Summer and the Baby. Um that being said, the warrant
00:16:13
that I had issued for you yesterday for the domestic violence assault first has now been upgraded. Okay? You do have two
00:16:19
charges of murder. Okay? So I'm just letting you know you've been informed
00:16:24
that you got one count of murder for your wife and one count of murder for the baby. Okay?
00:16:32
This is the moment where he is confronted with presumably his worst fear, which is not only are his unborn
00:16:38
child and wife dead, but also that the police are actually charging him for their murder. It's a lot to process,
00:16:44
man. What do I do from here? I'd be having to spend the rest of my days in jail.
00:16:54
I I don't know if I had the best answer for that, man. I I mean, this is a kind
00:16:58
of a unique This question of what's going to happen to me, I think is a a normal one. It's
00:17:07
feels a bit callous because he's immediately moving on from the fact that they are dead, but it's also presumably
00:17:14
something a moment he has played in his head over and over and over again for the last 24 hours.
00:17:20
Then, Detective Clark received a crucial piece of video evidence. We had a neighbor come forward. He
00:17:28
basically told me that he had security footage from his home. From a visuals perspective, you
00:17:35
don't see much. It was bugs flying in the backyard in the nighttime, but the
00:17:40
audio on that footage really is what got the ball rolling with this. You can hear the screaming from
00:17:54
the bedroom and then you hear two gunshots. Oh wow. I mean, I just it was just unreal. At this point, if this video is
00:18:12
all you look at, you still don't know what she was saying, what he was saying.
00:18:16
It sounded like you could faintly hear him yell as well. But it it was helpful, but it was not the the answers we were
00:18:25
looking for in having surveillance [Laughter] [Music] video. We actually got the autopsy
00:18:35
result back for Summer herself and that's when we got the information that it didn't match exactly what he had
00:18:42
said. She was shot in the head twice. How does she not die immediately? Well, the first
00:18:49
shot is what we would commonly call like rat shot and so it's a lot of little
00:18:54
small tiny pellets. There's not a lot of penetrating power. That's one reason why I think
00:19:01
there were two gunshot wounds is because the first one did not cause a massive amount of damage, which is what led to
00:19:08
the second shot, which ultimately would end her life. The autopsy revealed another disturbing
00:19:16
aspect to the shooting. It appeared that Summer to get a bullet in that particular direction would have
00:19:24
had to been on her knees and not facing him. There was more video evidence to come.
00:19:34
We knew that the Tatums had a home security system and it turned out there was a camera uh on the back
00:19:44
porch. Even though the blinds were open but partially open, doesn't mean you can
00:19:48
see everything, but it's going to give us a much better picture into what happened that night.
00:19:53
The recording began earlier in the evening. This is the back patio. And so in this
00:20:05
area, you have the master bedroom. So you're 6 to 10 ft away from the camera
00:20:10
lens from the window of where she was actually shot. So it's it's pretty good
00:20:15
in terms of hearing what actually happened. And you can hear her crying. You can hear her sobbing right now. Uh
00:20:21
at this point in time, you don't hear Hunter, but you hear her in the bedroom.
00:20:26
Over an hour and a half after Summer went to bed, she could be heard vomiting. The bathroom light, then
00:20:36
switched on, and Summer left the room. Shortly after, Hunter could be heard entering the bedroom from the
00:20:45
living room where he'd been sleeping. You can't exactly hear what the conversation is, but they're very low
00:20:51
tone, which tells me they're conversing back and forth. And then it goes from
00:20:55
zero to 100 really quick. [Music] You hear her multiple times. Stop. Don't hurt me.
00:21:25
He said, "Nope." Probably five or six times in response to her, "I'll stay.
00:21:30
I'll do whatever you want." Nope. Nope. And then you had the two gunshots. That is essentially her being
00:21:43
executed by the person that she trusted the most. It's It's very chilling and
00:21:48
it's very disturbing. The home security video clearly contradicted Hunter Tatum's version of
00:21:56
events. He said that she basically grabbed a gun and a struggle for the gun ensued, but
00:22:04
his version of what happened doesn't pan out. You can hear her screaming, "Don't kill me."
00:22:12
It's distressing to hear her begging for her life and trying to plead with him to
00:22:17
not kill her. On top of that, we know that she's 6 months pregnant. We know that she has cerebral pausy and so she
00:22:24
has weakness on one side of her body. And him saying that he's acting in self-defense when he shoots her, even if
00:22:30
there is a fight and she did lunge for him, for example, is totally implausible that he couldn't have just overpowered
00:22:36
her. Like the idea that she would have overpowered him and he had to shoot her to save his own life is at this point
00:22:43
completely implausible. [Music] For Detective Clark, the video footage combined with the forensic evidence from
00:22:56
the autopsy pointed to only one conclusion. [Music] In my mind, there was zero doubt. She's
00:23:05
not shot. Point blank, she's shot in the back of the head. And I realized this
00:23:09
this is an execution. This is an absolute murder. When looking for a motive, prosecutors
00:23:17
returned to the first moments after police arrived at the Tatum home. Ma'am,
00:23:24
so here we're in the master bedroom, and as the video is kind of showing the
00:23:29
condition of the bedroom, one thing that's very prevalent is the bag here. And that bag uh had clothes in it. It
00:23:36
was being packed in addition to like a suitcase on the floor to where it appeared that Summer was packing her
00:23:41
things to leave. Clearly from her standpoint, the marriage appears to be over. Now, if he
00:23:48
had just let her go, she would still be alive. The baby would still be alive. The case went to trial in June
00:23:59
2023. Tatum initially plead not guilty. I was there every day. I was there every
00:24:07
day through it. Most of my time was out in the hallway cuz I couldn't listen to
00:24:13
the the videos. How How could you have done something so horrible? The video evidence in this case, it was
00:24:23
a game changer. It filled in all those blanks that we suspected but wasn't sure of. And we
00:24:32
didn't just find out the answers. It put an exclamation point on the case. Hunter Tatum was found guilty of
00:24:41
capital murder and sentenced to 99 years for the death of both Summer and their baby son, a total of 198 years.
00:24:52
Hunter Tatum 100% deserved to be executed. He had every chance in the world to not pull that trigger, but he
00:25:00
chose to. When you hear somebody in real time beg for their life, I mean there who can do
00:25:05
that to somebody else, especially someone that they love. I I don't I I to this day I don't understand
00:25:11
[Music] that. It was horrible. It's just uh even to this day, it still doesn't
00:25:21
seem real. I mean, 3 years later, it just uh sometimes it's hard to comprehend how
00:25:29
something like that could have happened to her. [Music] Every single day of my life, every single day of my life, I
00:25:46
think about my sister and she would have been a great mother. That baby would have been so
00:25:55
blessed to have her as a mother and she was denied that. But I do always want to remember
00:26:09
her. It's just a bright light. She's just a joy to everyone around her. Hunter Tatum attempted to spin a lie
00:26:34
that was close to the truth. I don't want to die. with a lie of distortion where you're
00:26:43
tweaking little bits of reality. In some ways, that's much easier to try and get
00:26:48
away with and much easier to keep to because most of what you're saying is the truth than a lie where you're
00:26:52
saying, "I had absolutely nothing to do with this." Because then you're
00:26:56
searching for an alibi. You're searching for other things that you did to fill
00:27:00
that time and you are trying to erase the fact that you have all this guilty knowledge. You know exactly what
00:27:05
happened. So, both lives are very different in terms of how they feel to the person who's lying. And they're
00:27:10
basically just very different strategies. But in Texas, a murderer took their lies to another
00:27:25
level. In the south of Texas, San Antonio. San Antonio is a vibrant, bustling, joyful place.
00:27:37
It's just alive with activity. There's also a large Air Force base there. It was home to 29-year-old Andrin
00:27:51
Macdonald. Andre was raised in Portland, Jamaica. She was fivacious. She has a huge smile, very smart from a very young
00:27:59
age. She showed this high IQ and ambition. Andreine was 19 when she first met 30-year-old Andre
00:28:11
Macdonald. Andre was an officer in the Air Force. He began as an engineer officer in the active duty service, but
00:28:18
began to switch from um engineering into more cyber warfare and in 2016 he was promoted from captain to major.
00:28:29
They married and by 2019 the couple were settled in San Antonio with one child. Can mommy get a kiss?
00:28:40
Love you. Andreine ran a highly successful chain of assisted living communities which the
00:28:47
couple co-owned. They had everything going for them at that point. The business was valued at a
00:28:54
million dollars. Her and her family lived in a pretty nice home. She looked great. She was very into
00:29:01
fitness and health. She was always posting videos of herself lifting weights, working out, and encouraging
00:29:07
others. I did come in before he did. Right. And did defeat me, and she is so excited.
00:29:17
But on Friday, March 1st, 2019, Andre failed to turn up for work. She came to work every single day at
00:29:28
8:00. And on that day, she didn't she didn't come at 8. And that was so striking. She was absolutely a woman of
00:29:36
habit that she went to the gym at 5:30 a.m. every day and then to work at 8. Her employees called the gym and the gym
00:29:44
said she hadn't shown up and they couldn't reach her on her phone. They started trying to reach her family
00:29:49
because something had to be wrong. Sergeant Anthony Rodriguez is a criminal investigator with the Bayer County
00:29:57
District Attorney's Office. When she did not show up to work, friends and family went to Andre's
00:30:07
house. They did a very, very simple search of the home. They found Andrin's purse and keys on
00:30:15
the counter and her car was still in the garage. It wasn't until they entered the master
00:30:24
bedroom that they saw signs of violence. They saw blood on the light switch. They saw blood on a door. They
00:30:34
saw blood on the floor. Sheriff's deputies were soon on the scene. They immediately took over the
00:30:42
search of the house. Upon initial entry to the home, everything seemed in place. Everything
00:30:49
seemed very orderly and clean, but they did find some signs of blood. And then in the backyard of the
00:30:57
residents, they found evidence that something had been burned. This is a very affluent
00:31:05
neighborhood, very clean neighborhood, certainly regular trash collection. There's really no reason to be burning
00:31:11
rubbish in the backyard. We started to get the feeling that something bad had happened.
00:31:17
Something was a miss. At this point, Andre McDonald arrived home. Andre told the deputies, "She's in the
00:31:28
hospital. I know. I just checked." He said that the night before they got into an argument and Andre left
00:31:38
the house. Andre said he didn't know where she went. That he went checked on
00:31:43
his daughter and he went to bed. The following morning, he assumed she was in the house and he went to work.
00:31:51
Suspicious, investigators decided to check out the story. Yes, there is a McDonald in the hospital, but it's not
00:31:59
our dream. Then they pulled the CCTV footage. We see him entering the hospital. We see
00:32:07
him approaching the reception desk. He asked the receptionist whether a woman named Andre McDonald was admitted
00:32:17
into that hospital. And it just so happens that there happens to be a person that was admitted with the last
00:32:24
name McDonald. He looks down to find out exactly where this patient is at. And when he looks back up, Andre just turns
00:32:32
around and walks away. And so we watch this video. We can actually see this odd behavior play out. This is a man who's
00:32:40
allegedly worried about his wife being missing and he's at a hospital where there happens to be a person with her
00:32:46
name and he doesn't even care. He walks out. Andre's behavior combined with the
00:32:53
presence of blood in the house was enough to now make him a person of interest. We didn't have enough probable
00:33:00
cause to put handcuffs on Andre and take him away, but we made the decision first
00:33:04
thing in the morning, we're going to put some covert assets on him. In other
00:33:08
words, undercover officers to watch his movements and see what happens. The following day, undercover units
00:33:16
tailed Andre as he left home. They don't know where he's going, and so they
00:33:20
follow him. To their surprise, Andre goes to a gun [Music] store. This put law enforcement on edge
00:33:34
because is she alive somewhere? and he's going to buy a gun to kill her. Andre filled out the paperwork
00:33:42
required to purchase a firearm. He paid for it. The sale was done, but he just runs out of the store, leaving the gun
00:33:52
there, leaving his driver's license there. It could be that he realized that
00:33:59
there was an undercover officer in the store, and he left for that reason. There's such a thing as what we consider
00:34:08
to be suspicious behavior. There's something that we would consider to be guilty behavior. Uh and then there's
00:34:15
something that we would consider to be dangerous behavior. He was doing all three. So at that point, the decision
00:34:21
was made to take him down there at the store. Once Andre was in custody, police noticed cuts to his hands that weren't
00:34:39
there when they spoke to him the day before. What we can see is that he has linear uh lacerations to his fingers
00:34:48
there. There are solid uh cuts that go straight across the two fingers. And you know, we asked ourselves, where did
00:34:55
these injuries come from? Police carried out further searches of the McDonald home.
00:35:04
The garage door was knocked off the tracks. They see what appears to be a shovel in the backseat of that car. They
00:35:12
found a hammer. They found a flashlight. And they found clothing hidden in a trash
00:35:17
can. They found two 5gallon containers of of gasoline and a large log splitting axe, a small hatchet, and large trash
00:35:30
bags. What's important about that is those items weren't there the first day in the
00:35:37
first search. [Music] Forensic analysis of the items revealed disturbing details. The hammer and the flashlight
00:35:48
had what appeared to be blood on it. Inside the house, detectives found other suspicious items.
00:36:00
We were able to find in the trash can in the kitchen the remnants of a receipt and it had been torn to little pieces.
00:36:09
It was a receipt for many of the items that were in the garage. The receipt led investigators to
00:36:16
the hardware store where they were able to recover surveillance footage from the
00:36:20
previous night. These are not items that a husband would be buying when his wife is missing.
00:36:29
Like, why would you go to a home improvement store and buy a shovel, buy an axe, buy gasoline? This is not normal
00:36:37
behavior for somebody who's worried about their missing wife. Police discovered that the day before
00:36:45
Andre went missing, her and Andre had argued after they'd visited their tax adviser. Andre discovered that Andre had
00:36:54
opened up a new business without his knowledge. [Music] Ideally, you want your partner to be
00:37:03
supportive of your ambitions and your goals and your investment in your growth. Um, unfortunately, that's not
00:37:10
always the case. Um, sometimes that can be seen as intimidating rather than inspiring. And then as a result of that,
00:37:21
that could then fracture the relationship because one partner might feel jealous of another partner's
00:37:27
success and ambitions. We know an argument continued to take place after they left the tax
00:37:37
office. And we know this because when we looked at his cell phone records, we saw
00:37:42
an argument via text by both Andre and Andre. Investigators also recovered footage
00:37:51
from a local gas station recorded at exactly the same time this text argument was taking place.
00:37:59
We see Andre at the gas station. We see him park at a pump, but he stays in the car for a prolonged period of
00:38:09
time. Andre is telling her, "How dare you open another business without me."
00:38:16
And Andre is basically telling Andre to calm down. And Andre clearly is not calming down.
00:38:25
[Music] In the wake of the argument, Andre returned home, arriving at 11:47 p.m. To
00:38:35
shed light on what happened next, police pulled Andre's phone records. Andre McDonald's phone was turned off 1
00:38:44
minute after midnight. An hour later, he sends her a text message and he says, "Hey, where are you?" And then he sends
00:38:53
one more text. He writes, "You should not have opened that LLC without me."
00:39:00
Phone records showed that by then Andre's phone had ceased all communication. Financial searches also
00:39:08
showed no further activity on her credit card. And flight data checks proved that
00:39:15
she did not board a plane. But a search of Andre's cell phone proved more fruitful.
00:39:22
He was searching things like, "Can you get fingerprints off of wood? Is Texas
00:39:28
soil acidic or alkaline? How long does it take for a body to decompose?" What's
00:39:33
intriguing about this is it gives us, the investigators, an opportunity to see what he was thinking.
00:39:42
Police could only draw one conclusion. The search now began for Andre's body.
00:39:52
But it wasn't until 4 and a half months later when a farm worker made a chilling
00:40:01
discovery. Under the sunbleleached skeleton of a cow were human remains. Got the call that we found some
00:40:10
human remains on on a ranch not too far from where Andreine disappeared. The remains are extremely
00:40:18
dismembered and scattered. possibly burned. DNA analysis confirmed the decomposed
00:40:27
remains belonged to Andrin McDonald. Steven Spear was the prosecutor on the case.
00:40:38
She had been out in essentially ranchland field for several months in South Texas. Those are harsh conditions.
00:40:45
She was largely skeletal. There was blunt force trauma on her skeleton on several different
00:40:51
places. She had a kind of a triangle-shaped area had been knocked out right around the
00:40:58
chin. There have been some impacts on the spine, also a broken rib. Now, when this was looked at by the medical
00:41:06
examiner and also by a forensic anthropologist, all of them indicated that this would be uh from hits from a
00:41:13
tool such as a hammer. DNA testing confirmed that the blood found on the hammer at the house
00:41:22
belonged to Andrin. And despite the advanced level of decomposition, the autopsy also confirmed another of the
00:41:31
police's suspicions. Andre attempted to burn her body. We know this because we were able
00:41:39
to see charred marks on her fingers. We now know that he purchased that gasoline to burn her body. We look at
00:41:49
the shovel. We look at the log splitting axe and the small hatchet and the trash
00:41:54
bags. Those items are clearly clearly purchased for the sole purpose of dismembering and disposing of her body.
00:42:03
Now, investigators also had an explanation for the cuts to Andre's hands. There's a wire fence that is around the
00:42:13
perimeter of that field and it is possible that he received those lacerations on his fingers lifting or
00:42:22
lowering that wire fence and trying to throw her body over it. On Saturday, July 13th, 2019, Andre
00:42:34
McDonald was charged with the murder of his wife Andre. No one wants to think they know someone capable of of such a
00:42:41
horrific crime. People thought really highly of Andreine. They thought she was a great person. She did so much for the
00:42:48
community. It's hard to think that her husband would want to hurt her. But when investigators dug deeper into
00:42:58
the marriage, a very different picture began to emerge. This is far from a happy
00:43:04
marriage. Andreine and Andre have been fighting. Andre on several occasions had been physically abusive to Andre and
00:43:11
that he had assaulted her. Tensions over the business increased over the course of the
00:43:16
marriage and police had already been called out to the house for a number of domestic
00:43:22
disputes. Andre and Andreine likely stayed together in their relationship far longer than it was healthy to do
00:43:30
because they had built so much together and they likely both came from traditional families. I think a lot of
00:43:37
the reason they didn't get divorced was because they were in this business together and they didn't want to split
00:43:42
it up. Further investigations found other conflicts within the marriage, not least
00:43:51
that in recent months, Andrin had rekindled her relationship with a former lover back in Jamaica.
00:43:59
Andreine might have come to a conclusion that actually maybe this was not a relationship she wanted to be in for the
00:44:06
longer term. Especially if it was one that was violent. If something isn't working, you typically pivot and you try
00:44:16
and make something else work. That can look like trying to repair the relationship with your partner so that
00:44:22
it can be a safe and loving one again. It can also look like maybe I will search for another relationship
00:44:28
elsewhere or I'll look for growth in other areas of my life. Um perhaps I'll
00:44:33
go into business, grow my business. So how can I grow when I feel stuck? Did he kill her because of the
00:44:46
affair or because of the money? He became aware of the affair more than 6 months before he killed her.
00:44:54
It was the day he was at the tax office that he killed her. Clearly, the motive here was monetary. He wanted the money.
00:45:03
He wanted the business. He could deal with the affair. He didn't care about this marriage any more than she did. It
00:45:10
was the business that he wanted. At his trial, the jury acquitted Andre of murder, instead finding him guilty of
00:45:20
manslaughter. He was sentenced to 20 years plus five more for tampering with the evidence. I'm sad at at the tragedy,
00:45:29
at the loss of a beautiful person like Andre McDonald. But I'm happy that I was
00:45:34
able to be part of giving her her family and her daughter justice. The murder of Andre McDonald cost more
00:45:44
than just one life. It cost all the years and all the good that she could have given to the world. All the hard
00:45:52
work she was doing, the business she was building, the lives she impacted, that all went with her. And it is a huge
00:45:59
loss. [Music]

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 90
    Most heartbreaking
  • 85
    Most shocking
  • 85
    Biggest twist
  • 80
    Most dramatic

Episode Highlights

  • Desperate Call from Alabama
    A distraught husband calls 911 after a shocking incident with his wife.
    “My wife, she pulled a gun on me and said...”
    @ 00m 12s
    May 22, 2025
  • Summer's Life and Challenges
    Summer Tatum, a vibrant woman, faced many challenges but remained strong and determined.
    “She never let it slow her down.”
    @ 02m 18s
    May 22, 2025
  • Tragic Shooting Incident
    Hunter Tatum calls 911 after shooting his wife, leading to a complex investigation.
    “I shot her. I just don't know where.”
    @ 12m 51s
    May 22, 2025
  • Video Evidence Reveals Truth
    Home security footage contradicts Hunter's claims, revealing chilling moments before the shooting.
    “You can hear her screaming, 'Don't kill me.'”
    @ 22m 08s
    May 22, 2025
  • Trial and Sentencing
    Hunter Tatum is found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to 198 years.
    “The video evidence...put an exclamation point on the case.”
    @ 24m 32s
    May 22, 2025
  • The Disappearance of Andre McDonald
    Andre McDonald goes missing, prompting concern from family and friends.
    “She came to work every single day at 8:00.”
    @ 29m 26s
    May 22, 2025
  • Suspicious Behavior
    Andre's actions raise red flags for investigators after his wife's disappearance.
    “He was doing all three: suspicious, guilty, and dangerous behavior.”
    @ 34m 19s
    May 22, 2025
  • The Chilling Discovery
    Human remains are found months later, confirming the worst fears.
    “Under the sunbleached skeleton of a cow were human remains.”
    @ 40m 01s
    May 22, 2025

Episode Quotes

  • The camera doesn’t lie.
    Summer Tatum: Tragic Murder of Expecting Mother | Killers Caught On Camera
  • I told her it’s okay to go.
    Summer Tatum: Tragic Murder of Expecting Mother | Killers Caught On Camera
  • This is no longer just a domestic incident. This is a double murder.
    Summer Tatum: Tragic Murder of Expecting Mother | Killers Caught On Camera
  • How could you have done something so horrible?
    Summer Tatum: Tragic Murder of Expecting Mother | Killers Caught On Camera
  • When you hear somebody in real time beg for their life...
    Summer Tatum: Tragic Murder of Expecting Mother | Killers Caught On Camera
  • This is far from a happy marriage.
    Summer Tatum: Tragic Murder of Expecting Mother | Killers Caught On Camera

Key Moments

  • Summer's Joy03:42
  • Tragic Shooting04:50
  • Emergency Response06:13
  • Trial Verdict24:41
  • Suspicious Behavior34:19
  • Chilling Discovery40:01
  • Murder Charge42:34
  • Loss of Potential45:59

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown