00:00:05
NARRATOR: A remote dirt
track, a desperate 9-1-1 call. [sobbing] NARRATOR: A killer
waiting in the darkness.
00:00:30
I think when she had him
change the life insurance to make her the primary
100% beneficiary,
00:00:37
his days were numbered
at that point. NARRATOR: The victim, Fire
Captain Robert Poynter.
00:00:43
But who would want to murder
a heroic first responder and father of three daughters?
00:00:49
Could it be his wife? I got a phone call
from my battalion chief. And he just said, hey,
I just need to let
00:00:59
you know man that Bob's dead. And my first reaction in my head
was she killed him, didn't she?
00:01:10
NARRATOR: If so,
what was her motive? If I could sum this
case up in one sentence,
00:01:17
I would say this was
a case about sex, lies, money, and murder. CHACEY POYNTER: We've
been having problems.
00:01:22
We-- I was coming to meet
him at the Jack-in-the-Box so we could talk. NARRATOR: Had the
problems Chacey Poynter
00:01:29
was referring to at the
roadside motivated her to kill her husband, Bob Poynter?
00:01:34
[music playing] NARRATOR: Captain Bob
Poynter was a true hero. A much loved family man too.
00:02:08
One admired by his colleagues. A gentle giant. He was, I would say, a true
firefighters' firefighter.
00:02:23
I mean, he loved doing that. He was always calm he
was never get worked up. He has never raise his voice.
00:02:34
And so he just knew exactly
what he was doing at all times. NARRATOR: Stories
of his quiet heroism
00:02:44
abound in his hometown
of Royce City Texas. It was a six-alarm
fire, the biggest
00:02:52
fire in our city's history. And there was a little girl. I don't know how old she was--
00:02:58
five or six-- a little
blonde-headed girl. And she was scared,
and she was crying.
00:03:03
And Bob noticed. And there's a picture of
him, he's sweating, he's hot, and he's bending down.
00:03:12
And he's hugging
the little girl who he didn't even know just letting
her know, hey, we're fine.
00:03:18
Everybody's OK. We're safe. And that's who he was. NARRATOR: Robert Poynter,
or Bob as he was known,
00:03:26
met his first wife,
Amy, at high school. Bob's just, you
know, a good guy. He married his childhood
sweetheart, Amy.
00:03:34
The childhood lovers were
married in the late '80s and were together for
20 years, having two
00:03:40
daughters, Nicole and Natalie. Man, he loved his girls. He would literally
work his fingers
00:03:47
to the bone for those girls. He would take every opportunity
he could to work extra jobs,
00:03:59
to work extra hours,
to work overtime, to do whatever he
could to earn money. And that money was
always for his girls.
00:04:09
NARRATOR: By 2008, the
marriage was in trouble. Daughter Nicole
discovered that her father
00:04:14
was having an affair when she
found a secret cell phone. Nicole tells mom that
dad's having an affair
00:04:21
with this other woman. NARRATOR: Bob Poynter
began dating Chacey Tyler Mormon in December 2007.
00:04:29
She was much younger-- not a lot older than
his daughters, in fact. Chacey Tyler Mormon is a
20-year-old nurse's aide,
00:04:40
and she's a flirt. She's been hanging around
Bob's fire station, checks to see when Bob is
going to be there,
00:04:47
make sure that he sees her. And little by little, she
worms her way into his life.
00:04:57
She was younger. And she told him things
he wanted to hear. And so, I think, she knew
exactly what she was doing.
00:05:07
She was the one
that pursued him, and she really,
really pushed it. Unfortunately, Bob, he
just he took it all in.
00:05:23
To me the big
thing about this case is what a manipulative
person Chacey Poynter was.
00:05:29
I've never seen
anything like it. NARRATOR: Brian Frederick is
a criminologist who's studied
00:05:34
the Chacey Poynter story. He believes that Chacey
regarded Bob as a challenge. So once Chacey Poynter
set her sights on him,
00:05:44
all bets were off. The fact that he was married
and maybe unavailable was sort of a game for her.
00:05:54
And if she could get
him away from his wife, that would be a true test
of her ability to have
00:05:59
some sort of control over him. NARRATOR: Chacey did get
control over him, enough
00:06:04
to get Bob to divorce his wife. And by May 2009, Chacey was
pregnant with Bob's child.
00:06:11
Their marriage soon followed. December 2009, Chacey
and Bob get married. They've been seeing each
other now for two years.
00:06:20
And now, they have a
little child together. NARRATOR: This rapid
escalation in the intensity
00:06:26
of their relationship is
one that analysts know can lead to difficulties later on.
00:06:32
Chacey and Robert
didn't have the most ideal start to their relationship. They started off as an affair.
00:06:38
She got pregnant very quickly. And I think that
really locked down the relationship much faster
than maybe both of them
00:06:42
were intending. So what started out
as a fun fleeing, really turned into a
huge responsibility
00:06:50
on both their parts. NARRATOR: Bob Poynter's new
young wife proved to be a drain
00:06:56
on the family finances too. She was a very
manipulative person. A very materialistic person.
00:07:06
I mean, when you looked at
her text messages with Robert, it was one big purchase
or vacation to the next.
00:07:15
That's how she seemed to live. What's my next big purchase? What's my next vacation?
00:07:20
That's kind of how she lives. NARRATOR: Manipulative
and materialistic. And Bob soon
discovered there was
00:07:28
more to be concerned
about in Chacey Tyler Poynter's character. One that didn't bode
well for the future.
00:07:35
She had real bad mood swings. She would come, sometimes
she would be smiling, and then, the next
thing you know,
00:07:44
they would be in
the office and soon, she'd be screaming at him. NARRATOR: Bob Poynter's first
marriage had lasted 20 years.
00:07:53
His second marriage was on the
rocks almost from the start. Just how dangerous was the moody
manipulator, Chacey Poynter.
00:08:02
There was a loud shot. I went on my phone in my
back pocket, and I called. I called.
00:08:07
I-- I just-- I ran. I didn't know what else to do. NARRATOR: When Bob Poynter
married his much younger
00:08:18
second wife, Chacey,
he first got her to sign a prenuptial agreement. Did he already have suspicions
about her character?
00:08:26
It gives you the indication
that perhaps Robert didn't fully trust Chacey. After all, he didn't really
know her very well at the time
00:08:33
that they were getting married. And perhaps, he just wanted
to safeguard his assets
00:08:38
in case she wasn't very sincere
about her actual love for him. NARRATOR: One of the
effects of the prenup
00:08:44
was that Chacey would not
be entitled to Bob's money if they ever divorced. Instead, it would be split
between Bob's three daughters.
00:08:53
Two from his first marriage. And one, his
youngest with Chacey. I believe that it was
totally about the money.
00:09:03
Whilst Chacey Poynter's
prenup entitled her personally to nothing, she did
persuade Bob to take out
00:09:09
insurance against his death. There was a life insurance
policy, a $680,000 life insurance
policy that Bob had.
00:09:19
And Chacey had talked
him into changing it, so that instead
of his daughters, she would be the
primary beneficiary.
00:09:28
I think when she had him
change the life insurance to make her the primary
100% beneficiary,
00:09:35
his days were numbered
at that point. NARRATOR: Money
considerations aside, the relationship
was, by 2010, already
00:09:42
heading for stormy waters. About three years
into that marriage, things started falling apart.
00:09:50
It was pretty evident
that there were problems. You could see it. And in phone conversations they
would have at the fire station,
00:10:02
she was sometimes really loud. And she would call
him every name in the book when they would
get into arguments about stuff.
00:10:13
So it was, like I
said, very evident that they were having issues. Chacey says that the
two were growing apart.
00:10:23
Clearly, the age
difference probably has something to do with that. But we can only surmise.
00:10:30
NARRATOR: Chacey's wild
side began to kick in. To Bob's alarm, she
began to lose weight.
00:10:38
She says Bob doesn't find
her as attractive anymore. But Chacey has this
newfound confidence
00:10:45
and she starts hitting
the bars and nightclubs, going out and meeting men. Chacey Poynter
lost a lot of weight.
00:10:54
And she started
getting attention from all these other men. So she starts
meeting a lot of men.
00:11:05
And not just meeting them, but
she's hooking up with them. MARK MCADAMS: She was--
00:11:10
just from knowing how, from
the stories I heard from Bob-- she was always, always
about her first.
00:11:21
It was always about her first. NARRATOR: She even
left her four-year-old in the care of Bob's
teenage daughter Natalie
00:11:28
while she went out
to visit lovers. And she's so bold that she
actually has Natalie stay
00:11:34
at home to babysit the
four-year-old child while she goes out cheating on her dad.
00:11:41
Chacey didn't seem to have too
much concern about being caught in that could have
been because she
00:11:46
was just brazen or because
she was-- wanted to be caught. But she would do
things like leave
00:11:52
her Facebook open
with messages that can easily be read by anyone. Chacey is enjoying
this new body of hers
00:12:02
and this new lifestyle and
meeting all of these men, and she's not even
hiding it anymore.
00:12:08
She leaves her laptop out on the
counter with her Facebook page open where she's flirting
with these other men
00:12:14
just openly online. NARRATOR: In a
bizarre twist of fate recalling the earlier secret
messages discovered by one
00:12:21
of Bob's daughters, it was
Natalie who discovered Chacey was cheating on her father.
00:12:26
She found intimate
online conversations left open on Chacey's laptop. I think Chacey almost wanted
to throw that in Robert's face.
00:12:35
Like, I don't care
about you anymore. And I could care less if you
know I'm having an affair
00:12:39
or not. I think at that point,
she was acting very impulsively, very selfishly. And maybe she was
building up a lot
00:12:45
of resentment towards Robert. And whether or not, he
deserved that resentment or not, she wanted him to know
and she wanted to hurt him.
00:12:51
It kind of shows that she was
probably quite narcissistic and believed that she could get
away with all kinds of things.
00:12:58
NARRATOR: Bob was
distraught but desperate to try and hold things together
for the sake of their daughter.
00:13:04
Well, Bob was
obviously devastated. He had gone through
a divorce before and he did not want to
go through that again.
00:13:15
And it was all because
of his daughter. He did not want to
hurt her that way, and so he expressed
that to me a lot.
00:13:26
Bob is, you
know, thinking, OK. I had one failed marriage. I really should give
this another try.
00:13:32
So he says to Chacey, let's
try to patch things up. He did not want to leave her.
00:13:40
No matter what, he did not want
to leave that baby girl of his. NARRATOR: 2016, and in a last
ditch bid to save his marriage,
00:13:47
Bob takes Chacey and their
young daughter on a holiday. So he plans this
vacation to Mexico,
00:13:54
and he tells his
friends at work, we're really going to
try to work things out. I'm taking her on
this romantic trip.
00:13:59
Robert had found
out that Chacey has been cheating on him a few
days prior to the vacation.
00:14:03
But they went down there,
anyway, to try to work things out one last time. And from what we
could tell, it just
00:14:10
didn't go very well at all. She was texting two
of her different men that she was having
affairs with constantly
00:14:17
over this time period. So it appears whatever
they wanted to accomplish, or what Robert really
wanted to accomplish
00:14:23
in Mexico did not happen. So it then appeared to have
been a very successful, from his point of view
vacation, in bringing
00:14:31
the family back together. MARK MCADAMS: He called
me the day they got back. And he told me then,
he's like, that's it.
00:14:43
When he called me, I just said,
hey, how's it going, brother? He said, not good.
00:14:49
That's it. I'm contacting my lawyer. Bob didn't seem really
sure where his relationship
00:14:55
was going in September. He emailed his divorce attorney. At the same time, he was
text messaging Chacey
00:15:02
trying to find out
if they could talk and get together and reconcile. He filed for
divorce but he doesn't
00:15:08
actually go through with it. NARRATOR: Meanwhile,
Chacey was far from done with Robert Poynter.
00:15:13
She certainly
wasn't about to let his money slip away from her. And I believe she wanted
to be with Robert Poynter.
00:15:18
But Robert Poynter
made very good money. He made over $100,000 a year as
a captain with the university
00:15:24
fire department. He worked a lot of overtime. He bought her a
lot of nice things.
00:15:28
He let her redo the houses. Like she wanted bought a Jeep. She wanted to get
breast enhancements.
00:15:34
So she became accustomed
to that lifestyle that he could provide for her. NARRATOR: With no easy exit
from her marriage and good
00:15:42
financial reasons
to stay, will Chacey go looking for another way out? She stood to gain a lot
of money if Bob was dead.
00:15:50
On the other hand, if they were
to divorce, she'd be penniless. NARRATOR: A plot
was hatched to kill
00:15:55
Bob for the insurance payout. Chacey is somebody who has the
patience to develop something
00:16:02
in a thoughtful
manner so that she can ultimately get what she wants. I believe she'd been planning
this murder for a while.
00:16:10
NARRATOR: Throughout
the summer of 2016, Chacey point started
affairs with several lovers.
00:16:15
She was having
multiple affairs there were four
different affairs that had gone on that we know
of within the last 12 months.
00:16:23
NARRATOR: Criminologist
Brian Frederick recognizes one specific
trait of potential killers
00:16:28
which Chacey Poynter
was displaying. So psychopaths are known for
being sexually promiscuous.
00:16:35
And it's probably
not a requirement that they be attractive, right? But, you know, she did have sort
of this femininity about her
00:16:48
that she most likely used to her
advantage quite successfully. NARRATOR: Chacey tells
each of her lovers
00:16:54
that she wants Bob gone. She was running this
con on multiple men almost in an indiscriminate way.
00:17:00
Kind of like just throwing
anything at the wall and seeing what would stick. So charm, lies, manipulation,
these are all characteristics
00:17:09
of a psychopath. And she talks
about wanting him dead in multiple of
these text messages
00:17:16
to all these different men. Now, most of them
didn't take the bait. They told her, leave him.
00:17:21
Call the police. The normal reactions
that most people would have if that were true.
00:17:27
NARRATOR: Chacey lied
to her various lovers that Bob was being abusive
and violent towards her.
00:17:32
Chacey starts complaining
that Bob is taking testosterone and steroids, she
says, because he's
00:17:39
treating a low
testosterone problem and she says it's making
him angry and abusive.
00:17:46
But it is very interesting
that Chacey was already pinning these behaviors on Robert.
00:17:51
It's almost as if
she was already building a case against why
he was a horrible person
00:17:56
and why she had to
do away with him. Chacey Poynter used this sort
of damsel in distress tactic.
00:18:02
She had all these lovers and she
let them all know that you know her husband was being abusive.
00:18:08
NARRATOR: But the truth
of Bob's character according to the people who knew
him best was very different.
00:18:13
Around this time,
Bob's grown daughter, Natalie, she's 16 at the
time, moves in with them.
00:18:20
And she lives there
for about six months. And she says, she
never, at that time that she lived with them,
ever saw any evidence
00:18:27
at all of any abuse. She was claiming to
be abused but there is no evidence we ever found
of physical abuse at all.
00:18:36
No one could or
would say that Bob had that violent tendency, or
abusive tendency about himself.
00:18:43
Chacey claimed that Robert
was abusive towards her. And we found no
evidence of that.
00:18:50
We talked with his
ex-wife who said Robert was a big old Teddy bear. That she did not act like
a battered woman in any way
00:18:58
that we could find. There was never any
phone calls to police. None of her friends got
up on the witness day
00:19:05
to testify to that. People who were
friends testified the opposite that Casey
was the dominant person
00:19:11
in this relationship. NARRATOR: It was all a fiction
designed to entrap her lovers
00:19:16
to let them all know
she was being abused and a knight in shining armor
might come to her rescue.
00:19:23
She had so many of them but
she was bound to find one that was so wrapped up in her story.
00:19:29
And who he thought
she that he might have seen it as an
opportunity to save the person who he admired.
00:19:36
I mean, this is a
Machiavellian trait, right? Cunning, manipulative,
and unscrupulous.
00:19:43
NARRATOR: But what was
Chacey's game plan? And who could she dupe
into carrying it out?
00:19:48
If she can have multiple
lovers, and even just one of them falls into her trap
and is willing to take the life
00:19:54
of her husband, then she's one. POLICE: Let me ask you this, OK? And I need you to be
honest with me, OK?
00:19:59
Were you out here
with anyone else? No.
POLICE: Other than-- No. NARRATOR: Chacey Poynter
was plotting the murder
00:20:06
of her husband,
Bob, but she didn't intend to do the job herself. The lover who would
pull the fatal trigger
00:20:13
was Michael Glenn Garza. In the summer of 2016,
she met a guy named Michael Garza on Facebook.
00:20:20
And they began a relationship. Michael is just,
he's bananas over her. He is madly in love with Chacey.
00:20:27
Garza seemed to be
quickly enamored with her. And soon, he began saying he'd
do anything for her or anything
00:20:35
that she wanted him to do. Chacey has been-- she's been
making the rounds with the guys
00:20:42
and she has been
planning this story in anyone who will listen that
her husband, Bob, is abusive.
00:20:49
And he has these
horrible anger issues. And I'm really kind
of afraid of him. And he's a bully.
00:21:00
Michael Garza is the
one who took the bait. So I thought she was kind
of baiting all of these men
00:21:05
to see who would tell her
what she wanted to hear. And then she finally found
that was Michael Garza.
00:21:11
With a dupe willing
to do anything for her, Chacey Poynter put
her plan into action.
00:21:16
You know, she started to
really trash Robert to Michael. He was the type
of guy who thought
00:21:23
Chacey was the best thing
that he was ever going to get. And she was very
manipulative with him.
00:21:28
Well, Michael Garza
hears this and you know he's very protective of Chacey. So Chacey works that story.
00:21:37
She puts this in his head. Here's this bully of a husband. This brute who's brutalizing
this beautiful young woman.
00:21:45
Her story to Michael Garza is
that they're not even married. That they were divorced already.
00:21:50
And he was just the
ex-husband who was still trying to control her. He's making up all these
lies really just to push
00:21:57
Michael Garza's buttons. And it had that effect on him. NARRATOR: Chacey's husband,
Bob, meanwhile is tormented
00:22:03
about their future together. On September 8, 2016,
the day before the murder, Bob texts Chacey and
says, look, I think
00:22:16
we can really work this out. Let's try. Let's give this marriage a go. But on the same day, he
contacts the divorce lawyer.
00:22:25
So he's covering his bases here. NARRATOR: It was a turning
point in Chacey's attitude.
00:22:31
Divorce meant no money for her. No, and I think that
what made her do it when she did it
was find out that,
00:22:37
hey, he's going to leave me. So that window of opportunity
here is closing for me.
00:22:42
NARRATOR: The evening
of September 9, 2016, after spending the day
with Garza at his house,
00:22:47
Chacey contacts her husband. Chacey texts Bob and
she says, yes, Bob. Let's try to work this out.
00:22:56
I think we can
save this marriage, but I really need to talk. She says, I really love you Bob.
00:23:02
I really do. And she's texting at all
caps emphasizing that. Over the next couple of hours,
she engages in these text
00:23:11
messages with Bob. Kind of like a cat
and mouse game. And she's laying out this trap.
00:23:16
Her plan was-- she
told him we're going to meet up at
Jack-in-the-Box in Royse City for late night tacos.
00:23:21
And that's something
that they used to do when he was a fireman. So he worked late
hours long hours,
00:23:29
and he might come
home late at night, and he would bring home
Jack-in-the Box tacos for her.
00:23:33
And then some
more time goes by. And she says, I'm almost there. The GPS says, I'm
three miles away.
00:23:41
15 minutes later, Bob
sends a text message and says, long three miles. All of this two hours worth
of texting back and forth,
00:23:51
this little game
of hers, she never had any intention of
meeting Bob at a restaurant.
00:23:56
She's actually been
having sex with Michael Garza all afternoon, all
night, and they have a plan.
00:24:03
NARRATOR: Chacey sends
a text that will lead Bob to a remote dirt track. So Chacey finally leaves
Michael Garza's house
00:24:11
and she gets in her
Jeep and she drives out to this old dirt
road, untamed road,
00:24:17
out in the sticks. She goes to this place
on County Road 2595 which is a very secluded area.
00:24:23
It's not a regularly
traveled road. Then she texts Bob
and she says, Bob, my Jeep is stuck in the mud.
00:24:31
Can you help me? So she knew that this
damsel in distress tactic would you know cause
some distress in him,
00:24:38
and that she would be able to
lure him to wherever she needed him to be to get the job done.
00:24:43
NARRATOR: Ever the man of
action, Bob gets in his truck and rushes to her aid. Well, Bob's first responder
instincts kick in right away,
00:24:50
and he jumps in his truck
and he heads out to rescue his damsel in distress. He'd be, just do it.
00:24:54
I'm going to help. That's just how he was. When he reaches the
dirt road, Bob finds
00:24:59
Chacey waiting at the turn off. She tells him the Jeep is a
little way down the track.
00:25:03
She walked him down that road. Hand in hand, walked
him down that road, that distance knowing
what was coming for him.
00:25:11
NARRATOR: When Bob
gets into the Jeep, Michael Garza is
ready and waiting. He goes to climb in and boom,
Michael Garza had been inside
00:25:20
lying in wait with a shotgun. And he blasted
Robert in the temple. After he sat in
the vehicle, he
00:25:28
was immediately shot in the head
with a shotgun at close range. The wadding was still in the
temple of the side of his head.
00:25:39
It was obviously a terrible,
terrible thing that she walked him to his death. That's what struck
me is that how evil
00:25:50
it was that she had
no remorse for that. She just walked him hand-in-hand
down there where she
00:25:55
knew what was coming for him. NARRATOR: Chacey puts the next
part of her plan into action.
00:26:02
Meanwhile, Chacey is
calling 9-1-1, and she is just acting hysterical. Royse City Police
Department got a phone call
00:26:12
around 10:45, 10:47 PM. DISPATCHER (ON PHONE):
Hunt County 9-1-1. It's a Friday
night, lady, they
00:26:20
could barely hear anything. She's running. They hear her breathing heavily. They get a ping from the
9-1-1 where her cell phone is.
00:26:31
It's off County Road
2595, which is just south of the Royse City High School. DISPATCHER (ON PHONE): OK.
00:26:37
Calm down. Where are you at? The county road
doesn't even really appear to be a county road.
00:26:41
It looks more like a field. There are on the scene
less than three minutes. [sirens blaring]
OFFICER: Ms. Poynter?
00:26:46
Yeah, yeah. OFFICER: You OK?
- Yeah. OFFICER: OK. I just keep seeing
his face in my--
00:26:51
OFFICER: All right. --in my head. Once they got there,
they immediately made contact with her and
their body cameras roll over.
00:26:58
Body cameras are used to
record everything as it is. It removes interpretation. It removes, I forgot I said
this or I didn't say this,
00:27:08
I said that. So it's a silent witness
that's always credible. NARRATOR: As police
arrive, Chacey
00:27:14
continues her dramatic show. They get out there,
and they see a woman. She has blood on her.
00:27:19
She's hyperventilating,
saying that somebody shot her husband down the road. CHACEY POYNTER: We've
been having problems.
00:27:26
And we-- I was coming to meet
him at the Jack-in-the-Box so we could talk. OFFICER: Uh-huh.
00:27:31
CHACEY POYNTER: We
used to stop and get tacks at that
Jack-in-the-Box when he'd come home late from work.
00:27:38
When I went off the road,
that's when I called him. And I said I need
you to come help me.
00:27:42
And he said, where are you? And I told him, I said,
I'm on a dirt road. That's all I know.
I don't know the numbers.
00:27:47
And so-- Probably half a mile down
the road, around a bend that's heavily wooded,
and then Robert Poynter
00:27:54
was sitting there in a
Jeep, Chacey Poynter's Jeep, with a shotgun was
blast to the head.
00:28:00
OFFICER: Breathe. Breathe for me, Ms. Poynter. I'm trying. OFFICER: Calm down and
breathe for me, OK?
00:28:05
I got some questions. I'm trying to fill
in some holes, OK? OK. OFFICER: Have you ever
been out here before?
00:28:09
No.
OFFICER: You've never-- I've never been
out here before. OFFICER: --only
tonight, right now?
00:28:13
Yes. Yeah. The body cam footage
is quite powerful. It shows her panting and nervous
and every emotion that she has.
00:28:24
If you see the video of her
in the back of the ambulance, in the back of the
police car, she was--
00:28:33
she thought she was
really good at acting. And she would turn those
emotions off and on at will.
00:28:39
There was-- there
was a loud shot. [gunshot] And the Jeep started rolling
and I didn't see anything.
00:28:47
And I thought I was shot. I thought-- and when I walked
at him, I yelled his name
00:28:52
and I just saw something coming. And I got my eye on it. I went for my phone
on my back pocket.
00:28:59
And I called. I called. I just saw. I ran. I didn't know what I was-- I think Chacey was emulating
what she believed a grieving
00:29:08
wife would look like. And she basically, in
a very superficial way, presented what she thought other
people should expect of her.
00:29:18
The body language
would suggest to me that she didn't
know how to control her body when telling a lie.
00:29:26
The first thing the officers
are going to be looking out for is consistency. And when I say that, consistency
in emotion and story delivery
00:29:34
all the time and the
voice inflection. The emotion to be placed at the
right time and the right place.
00:29:42
NARRATOR: Officers
at the scene struggle to piece together exactly what
happened on County Road 2595.
00:29:49
When she tells
this bizarre story, she claims that she her
truck got stuck in the mud,
00:29:55
and that her husband came out to
rescue her and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this guy comes
out with a gun and shoots him.
00:30:03
It isn't adding up. It doesn't make any sense. Of course, it's a lot
easier to manipulate
00:30:08
a man you're having sex
with than law enforcement. This type of behavior is often
seen with individuals who we
00:30:14
sometimes label as psychopaths. That they have this
shallow emotion that they display to others,
but it's only used as a way
00:30:21
to get to their goal. It's interesting when
people manufacture stories, they don't know how
to fake their emotions
00:30:30
at the right time. If they're supposed
to be outraged, it has to happen
during a certain point
00:30:39
in the conversation. They don't feel
these feelings. It's not genuine. But they kind of know how to
pretend to look like you have
00:30:50
the feelings of a person
who might actually care about her loved ones. And she basically did it
to the best of her ability
00:30:57
but it was way over the top. And if they're
supposed to be sad, there's a certain thing
that would trigger
00:31:03
an uncontrollable response. All these things
have to line up. You almost have to listen to the
story and match those things up
00:31:11
to find out if they're
actually on point. NARRATOR: Chacey's
story was all a lie.
00:31:18
Of course that didn't make
sense to the police department because they hadn't had a
murder at that time in 12 years.
00:31:23
And there's not just random
people out in the woods killing people
here in Royse City.
00:31:28
NARRATOR: But if Chacey story
about a mysterious killer didn't make sense, how could
the authorities figure out
00:31:33
the truth of her
involvement in the murder of her husband, Bob Poynter. I got a phone call
from my battalion chief.
00:31:42
And he just said, hey, you
know, we just need to let you know man that Bob's dead.
00:31:50
And my first reaction, in
my head, was she killed him, didn't she? NARRATOR: When Fire Captain
Bob Poynter was murdered,
00:32:02
it struck to the core of his
community just outside Dallas. His funeral on
September 15, 2016
00:32:10
was very emotional,
and very beautiful. It was attended by his
fellow firefighters
00:32:18
from the University Park
Fire Department as well as firefighters and police
officers from all
00:32:25
over the state of Texas. They make these friendships
and bonds because every crime
00:32:30
scene you go to, there's
going to be a fire, and there's going to
be a police there.
00:32:33
And they're your friends
and brothers and sisters. I don't even know
how to describe it.
00:32:42
It was-- I've never been to
a firefighter funeral just, you know, all the bagpipes
and the other firemen
00:32:51
and police officers from the
surrounding communities coming. And just seeing his
family, his mom,
00:33:03
who's one of the
sweetest ladies ever, and watching the distress on
her face and his daughters.
00:33:18
You can imagine the
sound of bagpipes playing a formal ceremony to honor him. He'd been there for 19
years and was well respected
00:33:27
and well loved. MARK MCADAMS: At the end,
they always ring the bell. It's like they set the tones off
and show that his time is over.
00:33:38
And that was rough, rough
knowing that was it. That was the worst day in
my time there, 20 years.
00:33:52
[bagpipes playing] I was his lieutenant
for several years. And the first fire
we ever fought
00:34:05
together, he grabbed me
by the shoulders like, hey, we got this, bro. And that was his thing.
00:34:10
He said that all the time. And so, if you go to our
fire station right now, there's a flag hanging
on the wall and below it,
00:34:18
is that, we got this bro. NARRATOR: It was time to find
out exactly what had happened.
00:34:23
Chacey Poynter had a clear
motive for murder, her husband Bob's life insurance policy.
00:34:28
She was the beneficiary
of his life insurance policy which was worth over $600,000.
00:34:33
She would have gotten
a pension on top of that, a survivor benefit
pension, all the assets.
00:34:39
I mean it was worth
probably close to a million dollars of total
assets that she would have got.
00:34:44
NARRATOR: There was
also the possibility that Chacey might lose
custody of her daughter
00:34:48
if Bob were to divorce her. She knew that she was
fixing to lose everything. She knew that, you know,
he had all the cards,
00:34:57
and so she wanted that
life insurance money. She wanted that money, and
she wanted the baby girl.
00:35:10
She felt like that
was the only way for her to get what she wanted. NARRATOR: Out on County Road
2595, late in the evening
00:35:17
of September 9, 2016, her story
to the police, that the killer was a mysterious man who
appeared out of the darkness,
00:35:23
seemed implausible. It isn't adding up to cops. So they take Chacey
in for questioning.
00:35:31
NARRATOR: During that night,
under interrogation, Chacey's twisted tale began to unravel.
00:35:37
She was taken to the
police station about 2:00 in the morning. When she got there, her
story changes pretty quickly.
00:35:43
Now she finally admits she
knows who this shooter was. It was Michael Garza
who's her boyfriend.
00:35:51
Then she admitted to her
affair with Michael Garza. He admitted that they had
sex with day of the murder,
00:35:58
and said, I don't know,
maybe he did this. NARRATOR: Despite naming
Garza as the shooter,
00:36:02
Chacey maintained that she had
never meant for Bob to die. Then Chacey's story changed.
00:36:09
But then, she admitted to a
plan of what they were going to do after the fact, which
was going to be to burn
00:36:15
the truck that he was in. Michael Garza was going to have
to leave the state for a while,
00:36:22
lay low. So she changed it multiple
times throughout the interview. She was trying to
do what she always did
00:36:30
which is, save her own skin. It's not a surprise to me that
she would say and do anything
00:36:34
to try to keep herself
from going to prison for the rest of her life. NARRATOR: Investigators
didn't believe a word of it.
00:36:45
When you look at
the text messages, it's pretty clear that she was
the one who initiated this.
00:36:53
That she wanted it to happen. And she wanted it
to happen quick. The very next morning,
she was arrested.
00:36:58
Officers obviously
didn't believe her story. NARRATOR: While Chacey was
held at the police station,
00:37:05
her lover, Michael Garza,
was still on the loose. Garza was a truck driver, and
he immediately went on the run.
00:37:12
But after he found out that the
SWAT team had raided his home, he turned himself in.
00:37:18
So police still need some
hard evidence to connect Michael Garza to the murder. And then, five weeks
later, they get it.
00:37:26
A farmer finds a shotgun
out in his field. We had his Facebook photo
when she quickly took down
00:37:34
but we got it before she did,
of him holding that shotgun. So for Michael Garza's case,
it was a big piece of evidence.
00:37:41
We also found
shotgun shells that were fired by that shotgun on
Michael Garza's front porch
00:37:46
in the flower bed around it. So for him, it was a
big piece of evidence. NARRATOR: By now,
the lethal lovers
00:37:52
had turned on each other. Garza claimed it was actually
Chacey who had killed Bob.
00:37:57
And Michael Garza
had actually taken the stand in his own
defense during his trial.
00:38:02
With him, taking
the witness stand, that was just not a good idea. Whenever you have these types
of cases where two people worked
00:38:08
together to commit
a murder, they're going to point the
finger at each other, it's all the other
person's fault.
00:38:15
And he actually tried
to put the blame on Chacey as she was doing to him. So these two lovers are
pointing fingers at one another,
00:38:22
trying to get
themselves off the hook. NARRATOR: The investigation
into Bob Poynter's murder
00:38:26
had exposed Chacey's multiple
affairs and the plot to cash in on the insurance policy.
00:38:32
The very night that Chacey was
having her husband Bob killed, she was actually texting
with another lover
00:38:41
and planning to hook up
with him later that night. This was just a classic tale
of sex, lies, and greed.
00:38:49
I knew. I knew as soon as
he told me that she had something to do
with it, it struck
00:38:59
me that that's who it was. I didn't know all the
details but I knew she had something to do with it.
00:39:05
When she found out that he
was going to get a divorce, her answer was that
if she killed him,
00:39:10
she would have had
all that money. Close to a million
dollars in total assets. So she would be able to maintain
the lifestyle that she liked.
00:39:19
That she would have got
rid of Robert Poynter. A charge of murder was
upgraded to capital murder.
00:39:25
And she was tried in April 2017. We felt that the case was very
strong against Chacey Poynter.
00:39:33
We had her at the
scene of the crime. We had her text messages where
they're talking about getting
00:39:40
rid of Robert Poynter. And then we had her
statement to law enforcement. So I felt fairly
good about that case.
00:39:46
NARRATOR: Found
guilty by the jury, Chacey Poynter was sentenced
to life imprisonment
00:39:50
with no parole for
at least 30 years. And I believe she was the
most culpable person here.
00:39:56
Michael Garza was the
person she found to do this, but she was the driving
force behind this murder.
00:40:06
I would have been completely
happy with the death penalty for both of them. They didn't give him
that option of life.
00:40:13
So my head was I
would have been fine with me if they got that too. NARRATOR: The insurance money
went to Bob's three daughters.
00:40:23
When you talk to
her family members, they didn't seem surprised
that she did this.
00:40:29
I think that says something and
they knew, from a young age, that she was an awful person.
00:40:33
She might be in that
sociopath category. She just couldn't feel anything
for anybody but herself.
00:40:38
Chacey Poynter in my opinion
is a textbook psychopath. So there's a test called the
psychopathy checklist which
00:40:46
is something that psychologists
and caseworkers will use to assess a person's case file.
00:40:51
Anything over a 30, I would
be deemed a psychopath or someone with psychopathy. I came up with a 33
for Chacey Poynter.
00:41:03
She was the biggest
liar that I have ever seen in the 11 years of doing this. And she was pretty
good at it for a while.
00:41:14
NARRATOR: Bob Poynter
was an all American hero loved by those who knew him. He was a class act, a true
brother in the fire service,
00:41:23
a great dad. And he's just a
good man overall. And a good friend and
I miss him every day.
00:41:33
NARRATOR: He had met Chacey
and begun an affair with her in shady circumstances.
00:41:39
But even though, their marriage
was steeped in suspicion and deception from the start,
nobody could have predicted
00:41:46
that Bob Poynter, the fearless
firefighter and respected role model, would have his
life cut tragically
00:41:51
short by his own wife. I am convinced that if
Chacey pointer had not been caught, that
she probably would
00:41:59
have gone on to do this again. We'd be talking about
a serial killer. [music playing]