00:00:04
[rain] NARRATOR: A young nurse goes
for a run and fails to return. She was running without her
phone and without her dog.
00:00:15
NARRATOR: There's a storm. An anxious husband calls 9-1-1. As cops search for clues, they
hear of a marriage in trouble,
00:00:41
a husband with issues. Sadly, I think Thomas
had a volatile nature. He did have a penchant
for alcohol and drugs.
00:00:50
NARRATOR: Micah Rine's family
had never taken to Thomas Pate. It hurts to know that
she makes that choice.
00:00:58
NARRATOR: She had chosen the
man claiming to love Jesus, but Thomas Pate had
other loves too.
00:01:04
I think it became clear to her
that he was having an affair. And she may have
confronted him with it.
00:01:11
NARRATOR: He had
charmed a naive woman, he had persuaded her
family to accept him,
00:01:15
but there was a dangerous
side to Thomas Pate that his wife knew all about. It was clear that Thomas and
Micah both knew about guns.
00:01:24
[music playing] NARRATOR: Searcy,
Arkansas-- this was where college
students Micah Rine
00:01:56
and Thomas Pate met in 2003. Thomas was an
interesting young man. We teased, and he said it
himself that he was the biggest
00:02:07
redneck city boy that
he knew, because he was from Atlanta which is
a pretty good sized city.
00:02:14
But he enjoyed being out in the
outdoors, hunting, and fishing, and just hanging out really by
himself a lot in God's nature.
00:02:27
He's athletic,
and so it matched up with my sister wanting
to play basketball and be
00:02:32
involved in those things. [whistle and cheering] NARRATOR: Micah had been
raised in a close-knit,
00:02:38
god-fearing household. We are a Christian family,
and we focus on trying to walk what we talk about.
00:02:52
We grew up at
Camp Dakota which is a camp about an hour North
of our home town of Searcy.
00:03:00
We loved spending that
time out at Camp Dakota and swimming, and going
hiking, and spending
00:03:06
that time together. We wanted to be authentic
and actually live our faith. NARRATOR: Christian youth camps,
weekly prayer meetings, church
00:03:16
on Sundays-- this was the solid framework
of Micah Rine's childhood. She led a rather sheltered
life though, I must say.
00:03:26
It was a small town in Arkansas. It's a very home,
family based atmosphere. There's not a lot of exposure
to the underside of the world.
00:03:39
She was very obedient
and was a pleaser. Very energetic. She was very talkative.
00:03:45
[music playing] She also was very driven-- athletically and
academically-- and did
00:03:53
well on the basketball
court especially, and she enjoyed running. NARRATOR: At the
age of 19, she met
00:04:00
fellow students Thomas Pate. Micah and Thomas met
through a friend group. He was trying to
connect one of his friends
00:04:07
with one of her friends,
and that's where that relationship started. So they connected
and spent some time
00:04:14
together prior to
whenever they really did consider each other exclusive. NARRATOR: His childhood had
been very different to hers.
00:04:23
His was a more privileged
type of upbringing I would say. His parents lived outside
of Atlanta, Georgia--
00:04:31
a much more metropolitan,
open, exposed to just about everything. NARRATOR: Even at
this young age,
00:04:40
there were hints that Thomas
Pate was not a model citizen. He had a basketball
scholarship
00:04:45
to a another college initially,
but he lost his scholarship, and he had to leave the school.
00:04:51
And that's when he became
a student at Harding and eventually met Micah. He was more worldly,
and she considered
00:04:59
him tall and handsome. She seemed thoroughly
intrigued by Thomas. NARRATOR: Micah and Thomas
had met in late 2002.
00:05:08
The following spring,
the Rine family formed their first
impressions of Thomas. We hosted a Bible study in
our home on Wednesday nights
00:05:17
for years. We've done that for years. Micah brought him to our
home Bible study I believe
00:05:24
starting in February or March. And that was probably
maybe six weeks after they started dating.
00:05:32
So they would be regulars
on Wednesday night then. So then it was just a matter
of trying to get to know him,
00:05:39
and seeing what he was like,
and what comments he would make, how he fit in with the
other people that were
00:05:45
involved in home Bible study. Our impression of him
he's very down to earth and pretty much what you see
is what you get from him.
00:05:55
As he came to home Bible
study, he had the right words and knew the Christian
lingo, so to speak.
00:06:04
And so he would say
some of the right things and do some of the right things. And even asking him to
pray at home Bible study,
00:06:13
he would say what I would
call, a typical prayer. NARRATOR: In hindsight,
like his father
00:06:22
Dennis Rine wonders
just how authentic Thomas was on those occasions. It was the game
that he was playing.
00:06:29
He knew the right lingo,
and the right things to say to try to impress us,
but was he really living it?
00:06:39
NARRATOR: Micah's
family had misgivings about her new boyfriend. But at first, they
stayed neutral.
00:06:45
When they started
dating, of course we were paying really close attention. And early on, when we
didn't see that it really
00:06:54
appeared to be a
good fit, we started paying closer attention. He's OK. Wasn't over the top
impressed, but didn't
00:07:06
have any big red flags
to start with either. We started expressing
some of our concerns,
00:07:12
and the problem
with that, though was that we couldn't
really put our finger on what it was that
we wanted to point
00:07:22
out that was not a good fit. NARRATOR: Even Micah
wasn't sure at this stage that Thomas was the
right man for her.
00:07:29
There was one incident when
they were dating seriously two springs before
they got married,
00:07:36
and we were on a ski trip. And it was just Micah
and I on the ski lift. And she said, dad, if you notice
any red flags with Thomas,
00:07:46
I want you to point
those out to me. DENNIS RINE: And I said, Micah,
you can rest assured I will.
00:07:51
NARRATOR: Before long,
Thomas made admissions about his past that gave
the Rines a more concrete
00:07:57
reason to be concerned. He shared that he had
made some poor choices during his high school years
and even the first year
00:08:06
or so of college. Part of that had to do
with a lot of partying, a lot of drinking,
some promiscuity,
00:08:15
even dabbling in some drugs. I believe that
entered into him losing his basketball
scholarship
00:08:22
with the prior college. NARRATOR: Terri and Dennis
couldn't understand why Michael
00:08:26
would want to date somebody
whose values seemed so removed from hers and theirs.
00:08:33
But Micah also believed
in second chances, so when Thomas insisted
that he no longer took
00:08:38
drugs or slept around,
she and her family wanted to believe him. She says, well, he's changed.
00:08:45
We find out later again
that that's not true. NARRATOR: Were enough
alarm bells ringing
00:08:50
to stop the couple marrying? Just how bad was the boy in the
life of the devout Christian,
00:08:56
Micah Rine? [music playing] Micah Rine was at Harding
University studying nursing.
00:09:05
Her subject choice was no
surprise to those who knew her. You don't take
on that profession
00:09:10
without having a heart for the
vulnerable, and for the broken, and the hurting. NARRATOR: Did Thomas Pate come
across to Micah as a broken man
00:09:20
who needed fixing? Looking back, Micah's
father thinks so. She would stay
to try to help him.
00:09:27
And I think she
even had a sense of, I may be the only
one able to help him. NARRATOR: By this
time, they had begun
00:09:34
to see how Michael's
relationship with Thomas was changing their
beloved daughter.
00:09:39
She was very
bubbly, and friendly, and very outgoing to everybody. And then all of a sudden,
she was very withdrawn,
00:09:49
she was stressed,
she just started having these tendencies
that drew her inward rather than being outward.
00:09:58
And she was very much
an outward person. Now she was very private,
but she was very outward.
00:10:03
Where if they went
out, he'd probably say, you know, why aren't you
dressing like that person?
00:10:08
Or why do you have to be
so picky about your food? You know, things that would
make her feel bad about herself.
00:10:16
I can easily see that
happening, because I think a little of
that may have happened
00:10:21
to him with his father. I believe Micah went
into the relationship open, wholehearted, honest,
transparent, and vulnerable.
00:10:31
And then this very shining,
bright light in our lives, the light just kind of went out.
00:10:40
She didn't want to come around. NARRATOR: But Micah was smitten. In early 2004, a little over a
year into their relationship,
00:10:48
Thomas proposed. It was about two years from
the time they started dating till the time they got married.
00:10:55
Before Micah and
Thomas got married, he asked my dad's
hand in blessing. NARRATOR: Dismayed,
Mr. And Mrs. Rine tried
00:11:04
gently to change Micah's mind. There was this moment where
my sister called me and said,
00:11:12
mom and dad don't want this
relationship to continue. When I point
out the red flags,
00:11:19
because she was, as Terri said,
invested in this relationship and she had been groomed in
this manipulative relationship,
00:11:29
she wasn't willing to listen
to dad's advice at this point. She was torn, because
we are a close family,
00:11:37
and she was drawn to Thomas. NARRATOR: As their daughter's
wedding approached, Terri and Denise Rine continued
to question her decision.
00:11:44
Just the week
prior to her wedding, we were just hanging out,
and I said something to her
00:11:50
about the fact that I'm so
disappointed that you're not going to have any children.
00:11:55
She loves kiddos. And she said, well, why
would I not have children? And I said, well, Thomas
has made it real clear
00:12:03
that he does not
want to have children and that he has no
plans of being a dad. Before I walked
her down the aisle,
00:12:11
I said, Micah, it's
still not too late. If you want to back out of
this, I'll support you 100%.
00:12:18
I want what's best for you. And she just said,
no, let's go with it. And so we did.
00:12:24
We just, we walked
down the aisle, and the marriage took place. PATIENCE BRANHAM: I believe
they both were enamored
00:12:40
with each other at some point. I believe they got
married intending to live happily ever after.
00:12:49
After they married, they
still lived here for two semesters, almost a whole year.
00:12:53
PATIENCE BRANHAM: And then
she had received a nursing job with a clinic in
Memphis, and they
00:12:59
moved to Memphis, or rather
Bartlett, which is just on the outskirts of Memphis.
00:13:04
NARRATOR: Twice the size
of Searcy, Arkansas, and sitting just 13 miles
from downtown Memphis,
00:13:09
Bartlett was a big change
for Micah Rine Pate. But at first, she seemed
to take it in stride.
00:13:16
Micah graduated in 2005 and
moved to Memphis shortly after and worked in labor and
delivery at Methodist.
00:13:23
And then come about to
work with us at MOGA. She was the loveliest soul. NARRATOR: Business
manager, Melissa Conklin,
00:13:31
runs a women's health clinic
in Bartlett, Tennessee, and she saw Micah
blossom as a nurse.
00:13:36
Her co-workers would have said
that she was the nurse's nurse. That she was the nurse that you
wanted on your side, the one
00:13:45
that you wanted to be there
to help you with a patient. [babies crying] She worked at an OB/GYN group
here, and they were very close.
00:13:54
They were all women, they're
all very close together. NARRATOR: In Micah's
personal life, however,
00:13:59
things were not
running as smoothly. I think they were a
little suspicious of Thomas.
00:14:05
And Micah was becoming
less happy, I'll say. They rarely went home, and
it got to be less and less.
00:14:17
They started missing some
of the holidays which were very important to the Rines.
00:14:22
The thing that
I noticed the most was her making excuses for
Thomas not wanting to be there.
00:14:30
There was an example with
my parents' 50th wedding anniversary and
my dad's birthday,
00:14:36
and we had a big celebration. And everybody was
excited to come and spend a good weekend together.
00:14:42
Well, Micah came, but she had
to make excuses for Thomas not wanting to
come and have fun.
00:14:49
CASEY RINE: Thomas was always
awkward around our family, but he knew about us
giving advice to Micah
00:14:58
and trying to have
her think about that a lot more than she did. NARRATOR: On the rare occasions
that the Rines did get a visit
00:15:07
from Michael and Thomas,
they saw glimpses of his troubled personality. Thomas had a hunting dog.
00:15:17
And he told the hunting dog to
stay in the back of the truck. And then Thomas went
off to do something
00:15:24
else working on a trailer. Well, the dog was still
pretty much a pup. It saw Thomas go over there
and work on the trailer.
00:15:33
And then the dog
got off the truck and walked towards Thomas. Thomas screams at the dog--
00:15:41
I told you to stay
on that truck! And he picked the
dog up by the ears and threw it back in the truck.
00:15:50
Extreme anger, extreme violence. NARRATOR: There were
hints too that Thomas's behavior towards his wife
could also be volatile.
00:16:00
We would talk back
and forth at least twice a week on the phone. I'd just ask her how
things are going,
00:16:08
and she would hint at,
well, Thomas had a good day. We were able to work in the
yard today without any issues.
00:16:17
Well, we had a good day today-- we didn't have any
arguments or fights. NARRATOR: Looking
back, all the signs
00:16:22
were there that Micah
had found herself in a controlling relationship. We don't know that
he ever hit Micah
00:16:28
physically, but the yelling,
and screaming, and belittling-- you're so stupid, why
can't you get this right?
00:16:36
And then at the other extreme
of saying, oh, you're so sweet, I love you so much.
00:16:42
It wasn't like
bruises, and cuts, and scratches, and broken
bones, and cigarette burns.
00:16:50
It wasn't that kind
of domestic violence. It was the kind of scars in her
heart, and her spirit dampened.
00:16:59
And all those things that
made her who she was. Many of those were taken away. She was basically
wearing herself
00:17:09
down trying to be the
perfect wife, employee, and hopefully a mother. The things that we
saw in her relationship
00:17:18
were very typical
observations that you would see in someone
who is trying to manipulate another person.
00:17:27
But at the time, we didn't
know that's exactly what it was, because it's so deceptive.
00:17:32
NARRATOR: Micah's
friends in Bartlett, Tennessee, had similar concerns
about the kind of husband
00:17:36
that Thomas Pate had become. MELISSA CONKLIN: Micah
kept us all very at bay. I mean, she was very separate.
00:17:43
She did have a co-worker
that she ran with. And she would meet
her at Micah's house.
00:17:50
And they would go run. She wasn't allowed
inside the house. Micah took call at night and
on weekends, and if she did,
00:17:58
then she couldn't sleep in
the same bedroom as Thomas. After talking to
coworkers, co-employees,
00:18:07
fellow church members,
things of that nature, she was struggling with
being who she perceived
00:18:13
Thomas wanted her to be. He just belittled her, and
I think that his drinking didn't help that, because it
would be in those spells that
00:18:23
he would drink, and
things would come out of his mouth that it shouldn't. NARRATOR: Thomas had
told Micah's family
00:18:28
that his days of drinking
to excess were behind him. It wasn't true. Then one day in spring
2009, Michael discovered
00:18:35
alcohol wasn't his only vice. He actually spent the weekend
with a young woman in Tunica.
00:18:42
NARRATOR: The family's
fears about Thomas Pate appeared to be true. This was a young
man who was anything
00:18:47
but the devout Christian,
the changed individual, that he had claimed to be. [music playing]
00:19:01
Micah spent Easter
2009 with her parents. Her husband, Thomas,
didn't join them.
00:19:07
She had come to our
house for a weekend, and he was going
hunting is what he said.
00:19:15
NARRATOR: The following week,
she was back at work as usual. Now she went home one
day and surprised Thomas.
00:19:23
And he said he was sick, so he
wasn't going to be working any. So she thought she would
go home and fix some soup
00:19:29
during the middle of the day. And when she got there, he
was on the phone with somebody
00:19:36
that he seemed to be talking
rather intimately to. NARRATOR: Back at
the clinic, Micah
00:19:42
couldn't conceal her distress. Thomas's hunting
trip Easter weekend had clearly been a sham.
00:19:48
I remember Micah seeing
a provider in my office, being totally,
totally distraught.
00:19:52
To the point of where I
went and got her stuff and helped her out the
door, and she went home.
00:19:58
We found it out in
investigating for the trial that he actually had met a
woman on a flight to Atlanta.
00:20:06
And he was indeed in
communication with her and had met her for a
weekend at the casinos
00:20:12
in Tunica, Mississippi. NARRATOR: Micah was devastated. But on the 28th of April
when she celebrated
00:20:18
her 26th birthday
with her family, she didn't tell them about
the affair or anything else
00:20:23
that Thomas had been up to. Micah did not
confide in us at all about any struggles that she
was having in her marriage.
00:20:33
We were even unaware that
there had been indiscretions with at least one other woman.
00:20:40
We were unaware of his
promiscuity and his attraction to pornography on his computer.
00:20:51
NARRATOR: Micah
returned to Bartlett after her birthday determined
to make her marriage work.
00:20:56
Two days later, on the
30th of April 2009, her parents were about to go
to bed, and the phone rang.
00:21:01
[phone ringing] We got a call that
Thursday night, I think it was around 10:00, 10:30.
00:21:07
It was the first call. Thomas said, hey, do
you know where Micah is? She's gone out for a run,
she hadn't come back.
00:21:15
PATIENCE BRANHAM: She
normally would walk her dog and go on runs by herself,
because her runs were lengthy--
00:21:20
they would be like six miles. Anywhere from six to
12 miles at a time. Thursday night
which was the 30th--
00:21:27
Micah worked late night. It was kind of a
dreary, rainy night. That was not uncommon
for her to go running.
00:21:32
It was uncommon for her to
go running late at night, in the dark, in a rainstorm.
00:21:38
Where could Micah be? Where's Micah? You know, the dog was
there, she wasn't there.
00:21:45
And he just didn't know. No, we haven't heard
from her, but please, call us and let us
know if you hear
00:21:51
anything of what's going on. And so there was at
least one other call-- or maybe two, I can't remember--
but on the final call,
00:22:00
it was OK, Thomas, you need
to be calling the police and start a search. We packed our stuff and
headed to Memphis immediately.
00:22:25
It's about a two hour drive. At that point, when
we got to the house, he had already organized
a search party,
00:22:34
and they had been at
it for several hours. PATIENCE BRANHAM: He'd notified
people in the neighborhood--
00:22:40
her friends, her co-workers. Everyone was looking for Micah. Where was Micah? So there's this big search,
this big hunt for Micah,
00:22:51
the evening of the 20th. We got to Memphis
between 1:00 and 2:00 o'clock in the morning.
00:22:59
And so as soon as we
got there, he said, well, she's gone out for a run. So I started running
the routes that I
00:23:06
knew that we had been on. Different routes that we had run
from her house around Bartlett.
00:23:14
NARRATOR: While her
husband searched, Terri tried to work out what
could have happened to Micah.
00:23:19
There were too many things
that simply didn't make sense. One of the interesting things
that Terri discovered early on
00:23:27
was Thomas had put out
the trash that day. And in the trash were quite
a few bottles of tequila
00:23:36
and I forget what else. And Terri asked him about it. Said, hey, what are all these
bottles doing in your trash?
00:23:43
And Thomas said, well, sometimes
people come by and just put their trash in my trash.
00:23:50
TERRI RINE: During the
night, I ask Thomas-- it just occurred to me-- did y'all have a fight?
00:23:57
Did you have a
disagreement, and maybe she's just left
and spent the night with a friend or something?
00:24:03
He said, no, they hadn't
had a disagreement. Nothing had happened. NARRATOR: A lead detective was
also suspicious about Thomas's
00:24:11
version of events. The investigator's name-- Todd Halford. As I walked around the
house, instead of Thomas
00:24:17
sitting or talking to anybody
or talking to the officer, he actually followed
me throughout the house
00:24:21
and made small talk with
me while I was looking at different things,
explaining things
00:24:27
that I didn't need explanation. Lieutenant Halford checked
the weather reports against when
00:24:34
Thomas said she went running,
and there were severe storm warnings with lightning and
severe rain at that time when
00:24:44
she was supposed to be running. Heavy rain, heavy
thunder-- most people don't go jogging in that
even if they're training
00:24:50
for a marathon. As we were looking
through the house, Micah's purse is
still at the house,
00:24:55
Micah's phone is
still at the house, her ID is still at the house. I mean, even when you go
jogging or go to the gym,
00:25:01
you take your phone with you. NARRATOR: The following
morning, 12 hours after Micah supposedly
went out running,
00:25:06
Casey Rine arrived in Bartlett
to help with the search. I drive to her house. And at her house, there's
yellow tape everywhere,
00:25:16
there's police cars everywhere. And it starts to make
me even more alarmed. I believe Lieutenant
Halford came to the house
00:25:26
about 7:00 o'clock,
and that's when he moved us to
the police station to continue the
investigation there.
00:25:34
CASEY RINE: So I go on
to the police station, and the first person I see
when I walk in is Thomas.
00:25:40
And I walk in, and we meet
in the middle of the lobby, and we hug. And I'm crying, and he's
crying, and I'm like,
00:25:48
we're going to find her,
it's going to be OK. We're going to find her,
it's going to be OK.
00:25:51
And he's telling me, I'm sorry,
I don't know where she is. I'm sorry, I don't
know where she is.
00:25:58
And that's the last time
that I've spoken to Thomas. NARRATOR: In the meantime,
word was spreading
00:26:05
of Micah's disappearance. We called husbands, we
went and got four-wheelers, side-by-sides.
00:26:11
And we went to the Loosahatchie
Bottoms to look for her. NARRATOR: The
Loosahatchie Bottoms
00:26:15
is a remote, wooded area
about the Loosahatchie River just a few miles from
Micah and Thomas's home.
00:26:21
MELISSA CONKLIN: We did
that for a few hours and came up with nothing. NARRATOR: Back at the
Bartlett Police Department,
00:26:26
investigators were already
working on the assumption that Micah had not
simply had a fall
00:26:30
will become lost while jogging. The interrogations started
at the police station.
00:26:38
One of my first questions
for Lieutenant Halford was, why are you taking Thomas
to this other place?
00:26:44
He goes, well, typically
in these situations, the first person we have
to eliminate is the spouse.
00:26:51
And so we're going to question
him separately from the family. And I was like, OK.
00:26:56
And of course, the husband
is one of the suspects. Almost 75% to 90% of the time
that someone ends up dead,
00:27:06
the spouse ends up as a
suspect at some point. NARRATOR: In this
moment, the Rines
00:27:12
were hit with the likelihood
that the daughter's husband had a hand in her disappearance.
00:27:17
That's when our conversation
started to move to well, does he know something about it?
00:27:24
So that's when
it began to sink in that we've got a problem. When we were interviewing
him up here at headquarters--
00:27:34
without the door closed
just a regular room, just sitting there talking to him--
00:27:37
any time we would ask
him a question that was the least bit pointed,
that would maybe position him
00:27:45
to give us an answer he
didn't want to give us, he'd start dry heaving. Around noon is when we
started to move towards,
00:27:52
I think Thomas knows
something where she's at. So as that progressed, we
became more and more concerned.
00:28:01
NARRATOR: At the couple's house
on Foxfield Trail, Bartlett, police were asking the
same question-- had
00:28:06
Thomas Pate harmed his wife? They take computers,
they take phone bills, they take the actual phones.
00:28:17
CASEY RINE: The police uncover
a lot of different things from multiple
bottles of alcohol,
00:28:23
to a history of pornography. All through that search
afternoon, more and more doubts
00:28:31
began to arise about,
what's going on here? We're not getting
the whole story. There's things here
that don't add up.
00:28:39
And they start going
through more personal items, and it turned out that
Micah kept a journal.
00:28:49
The journal was very revealing. This journal was intended
to be between Micah and God.
00:28:57
There was one entry
in her prayer journal in February before
this happened in April,
00:29:02
and she had a whole paragraph
that spoke to Thomas's indiscretions and faithfulness.
00:29:09
NARRATOR: Through
the journal, cops began to build a picture of
the troubled days and weeks
00:29:13
before Micah's disappearance. I think it became clear to her
that he was having an affair.
00:29:18
And she may have
confronted him with it, and they were
beginning to argue. And they were
arguing, and I think
00:29:25
it got more and more frequent. NARRATOR: Micah's final
journal entry would turn out to be tragically prophetic.
00:29:35
I was one of the last
people that saw Micah alive. [music playing] NARRATOR: Presented with
evidence of his infidelity,
00:30:13
his drinking, his wife's
obvious unhappiness with the state of
their marriage, Thomas Pate began to crack.
00:30:20
It became clear that
he was more involved in the disappearance and
the ultimate demise of Micah
00:30:27
than he was letting on. Under intense questioning,
denying that he knew anything
00:30:31
about his wife's
whereabouts, Thomas Pate demanded to speak to his father. And he's not telling the
Bartlett Police anything
00:30:38
except for her leaving,
she's gone jogging, he doesn't know where she is. And the father comes in
and just wants him to tell
00:30:46
the police where Micah is. Just tell them where she is. He went from being very
aggressive and telling Thomas,
00:31:06
you know, don't lie to me,
tell me if you hurt her, tell me where Micah is. He went from that within
a matter of minutes
00:31:14
to Thomas confessing. Around 8 o'clock
that night, the police pulled me, and my mom, and
my dad into the side room.
00:31:55
We found that Thomas had made
the statement that he had shot her and left her lying
in this low-lying area
00:32:04
that was real muddy and marshy,
and during rainy season, it floods. NARRATOR: The area was
the Loosahatchie Bottoms,
00:32:50
the very place that
Melissa Conklin and Micah's other
worried colleagues had searched for
much of the day.
00:32:56
Thomas had taken mica there
just a few days before. It was her birthday just
two days prior to this,
00:33:02
and so we had visited
with her on the weekend-- I had-- and said,
oh, what did you do?
00:33:09
And she said, well, Thomas
found this new place for us to go target shooting,
I believe, and run the dogs.
00:33:19
But it's not very far from our
house, it's just down the road. NARRATOR: Thomas
had told detectives
00:33:25
that on Thursday
the 30th of April they had gone out for another
target practice session,
00:33:30
but that a terrible
accident had occurred. According to Thomas, they
would go target shooting out
00:33:36
there, and somehow
there was a mistake, and he accidentally shot
her in the back of the head.
00:33:45
The fact that he
knew that whole time and was lying to us the
whole time is so painful.
00:33:54
It's so painful, so painful. But we were just so eaten
up with anger, just so mad,
00:34:00
that this man allowed her family
to drive in-- her mom, her dad, her brother, her friends--
00:34:10
to spend this time looking
for her, hoping to find her, for you to know all along
that you had shot her
00:34:20
and left her at the
Bottoms with ants and mud. NARRATOR: As Micah's
family processed the news,
00:34:26
a police search party set
out to recover her body. I personally walked out
to where they found her,
00:34:32
and it is way off the road,
in the middle of thorns, brambles, mud, leaves,
and it looked as if he
00:34:41
had probably carried her there. Probably with the
intention of throwing her in the Loosahatchie River.
00:34:47
Typically, if that rain would
have continued-- and it did-- her body probably would
have washed away had he
00:34:54
not taken us there to get her. MELISSA CONKLIN: Many bodies
end up in the Loosahatchie,
00:35:00
unfortunately. But he couldn't make
it quite to the river, so he left her there,
face down, with a gunshot
00:35:11
hole in the back of her head. And the interesting thing is
she's not wearing her shoes,
00:35:18
and she's wearing
white socks which are not dirty on the bottom. And this is a muddy,
muddy place where
00:35:27
she is full of dried
leaves, dead grass, thorns, things of that nature. He will tell you that
some extraordinary,
00:35:41
unbelievable that her
boots fell off her feet, that's why she had no shoes on. She had all the same
clothes that she had on when
00:35:52
she was at my office that day. NARRATOR: It was
yet another hint, another piece of evidence,
that this may not
00:35:58
have been a terrible accident. On May the 2nd, 2009
Thomas Pate was charged with second degree murder.
00:36:06
The only time I got a
true impression of Thomas was when I was cross
examining him on the stand
00:36:14
for that bond hearing. NARRATOR: Thomas succeeded
in securing bail. As he awaited
trial, investigators
00:36:20
set out to prove
that Michael's death had been a deliberate act. Firstly, they re-examined
Thomas's claim
00:36:26
that Michah had been
shot as she wandered into the path of his gun. That would be highly
unusual for Micah to do that.
00:36:33
The gunshot wound is in
the middle of her back-- the back of her head. It goes through her ball cap.
00:36:40
And it's not quite a contact
wound, but it is close. We spent a lot of time
at a Christian youth camp,
00:36:48
and one of the things we do at
Camp Dakota is target shoot. She was well aware of the
safety issues involved
00:36:55
with guns and to not
be in front of someone that was with a loaded gun. NARRATOR: Micah had plenty
of experience with firearms,
00:37:05
and so did her husband. Thomas was very experienced
in firing weapons. He was also experienced at
being with other people who
00:37:15
had weapons. He went hunting all the
time with his friends. And going through the autopsy,
and seeing the crime scene
00:37:22
photos, and looking
at the clothing-- which was a ball cap with
the hole in the back of it--
00:37:32
and the blood and a
little powder burn, the pathologist and
ballistics experts believed that the shot had
been fired at close range
00:37:40
and with some precision. NARRATOR: To them, this
was no stray bullet. Other evidence considered
were his actions
00:37:48
after Micah's death. There's no accident
when you shoot somebody in the back of the head.
00:37:53
One shot with her own gun,
and you don't call anybody? You don't call 9-1-1? That wasn't an accident,
that's not an accident.
00:38:21
I think that speaks
something to the manipulation in the heart. That's a very telling thing to
me that's very difficult for me
00:38:33
to give up. He left Micah out there
for over 24 hours-- wild animals, elements,
it didn't matter.
00:38:42
And I do think
that the evidence from the texting, the leading
us on a wild goose chase,
00:38:51
all of those different
things led to that this was more than an accident. NARRATOR: To further prove
that there was the evidence
00:38:58
the police had found in
the couple's home-- signs that their marriage was
increasingly troubled.
00:39:03
The officers tracked back
through his phone records, and there were many
texts with another woman
00:39:10
who was from New Jersey. And then they got into the
bills for the credit cards, and that's when they discover
that there was a charge--
00:39:19
charges made-- at
Tunica, Mississippi. Charges made for actually
the slot machines.
00:39:25
He used the credit card to
play on the slot machines and to pay for the hotel room
that he and this woman from New
00:39:32
Jersey spent the night in. I believe that she caught
him in his adulterous exploits.
00:39:45
I believe that she
caught him in some lies. And as she realized
what was going on,
00:39:52
I don't know that to be true. But in my mind, I believe
that was the turning point that led to her death.
00:40:03
NARRATOR: Micah's loved
ones waited almost two years for Thomas Pate's trial to
begin with mixed emotions.
00:40:09
We wanted to hear
what he had to say. We wanted to know why. Early on, he was offered
a plea deal of second degree
00:40:17
murder and 15
years, and we asked our friends to pray
that he would take that, and he did not.
00:40:26
It was a disappointment
to us that he did not take the plea on the front end. He could have saved us
all those months of grief.
00:40:35
We wanted to grieve the
loss of our daughter. We wanted to get used to this
new normal of having a daughter
00:40:42
that was no longer with us. Instead, we had to concentrate
on all the stuff that was going
00:40:49
on in Memphis and make
trips over there that were very emotionally laden. NARRATOR: On Monday
March 7, 2011,
00:40:57
Pate entered an Alford plea. The Alford M says, I'm not
confessing to doing this,
00:41:04
but the evidence against
me is overwhelming, and so therefore, I
wave the white flag.
00:41:11
So there's not a confession. There is part of me that felt
some relief that this is over.
00:41:19
And so I say, that is
God's way of saying, here's the best blend
of justice and mercy.
00:41:30
We get to feel some
justice that there's a consequence being paid
for what happened to Micah.
00:41:38
NARRATOR: Micah Rine went
into her marriage believing in the choice she was making,
and her faith gave her comfort
00:41:45
when things began to go wrong. Micah's trust in
Thomas was misplaced. Micah was stubborn.
00:41:53
Micah had a very
willful personality, and so I do believe that she
was trying to make it work.
00:42:00
Even though the
marriage was pretty bad, she kept her faithfulness
and her love for God.
00:42:11
And that lets us live with hope. There will be a
day when I'll see Micah again because of
the resurrection of Jesus.
00:42:21
[music playing]