Bad Romance: Love You to Death

47m
A bride is murdered 48 hours before the wedding; police uncover a double life.
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Transcript

Speaker 1 This show is supported by Hot and Deadly, a podcast from ID. Hot and Deadly brings you American true crime that is often stranger than fiction.

Speaker 1 Every week, dive into shocking stories of murder and betrayal, from IRS impersonators in Kentucky to a South Carolina businessman deceived by those closest to him.

Speaker 1 You'll hear first-hand accounts from investigators, witnesses, and family members as they share the chilling details behind each case.

Speaker 1 If you love true crime with a southern twist, you're going to want to check this one out. Follow Hot and Deadly so you never miss an episode.

Speaker 1 Am I ever going to love again?

Speaker 3 Couples in love make promises in sickness and in health, to have and to hold.

Speaker 2 But when the past catches up to you, a couple can find the real meaning of the phrase, love you to death. Am I ever gonna love, gonna love, gonna love again?

Speaker 2 Am I ever gonna love, gonna love, gonna love again?

Speaker 4 When she was found, they were planning a wedding. And then that wedding was less than 48 hours away.

Speaker 5 Never would have thought that I would have been going to her funeral that next week instead of her wedding.

Speaker 6 Never would have thought it.

Speaker 7 She came in the door and she said, I'm here to get a marriage license. A lot of things happened after that.

Speaker 8 I don't want to cry.

Speaker 3 Hours away from becoming a bride, Molly Watson's story takes a tragic turn when a stranger makes a discovery on a country road.

Speaker 4 April 27th, 2018. It was a Friday night.

Speaker 2 Glenn McSparron is taking a shortcut from his mother's home there in Monroe County.

Speaker 9 Didn't really think nothing of it, just a typical night.

Speaker 10 It's remote, it's really grown up.

Speaker 9 You're driving in between trees and horse weeds down to the creek.

Speaker 10 You got to turn as you go down into it and go across it because the road kind of curves.

Speaker 3 That night, he says he saw headlights.

Speaker 11 He saw a car come up and kind of cut him off, put their headlights right into his view.

Speaker 10 Once I got a little bit closer, I could see that there was a car and I thought that they wanted past me, so I pulled over to the side of the road.

Speaker 10 Then I could see another car parked over on the right, facing away from me.

Speaker 2 He said he saw saw a short white guy driving the car.

Speaker 4 Glenn McSparran described the car with the older white man as an old grandma car.

Speaker 9 I couldn't hardly see him because of all the glare. And I just kind of turned my head towards the window and I said, hey, is somebody stuck down there?

Speaker 8 And how did he say that? He said,

Speaker 9 I don't know where they're at. It's going to be a while.

Speaker 4 Glenn McSparran had a brief verbal exchange with this older white male, and the other individual indicated that Glenn needed to go around a different way.

Speaker 9 So I just backed my truck up a little bit and went back to the west. The more I thought about it, I was like, that's just, it doesn't, it's not right.

Speaker 9 I talked to my mom, my brother for a minute, and I told him, I said, I'm going to go back through there.

Speaker 3 On his way back, just 30 minutes later, a horrific scene. A body in his headlights.

Speaker 9 I stayed in my truck and I called 911.

Speaker 15 I don't know what the hell's going on here.

Speaker 9 They wanted me to

Speaker 13 make sure if she was alive or not.

Speaker 16 Ma'am.

Speaker 16 Ma'am.

Speaker 17 Oh my God. I don't think she's alive.
No.

Speaker 8 I seen if she was cold to the touch or if she had a pulse and she did not. And I looked in her eyes and I could tell that she was gone.

Speaker 17 Her eyes are open. I swear to God, she's dead.

Speaker 2 She was essentially shot execution style. She had been shot once in the back of the head at point blank range.

Speaker 3 The idea that it never happens here in this country corner of Missouri is pretty much right.

Speaker 3 Police go into full investigative mode, and there's evidence to be found. In the muddy crime scene, they find tire tracks remarkably well preserved.

Speaker 4 And there appeared to be markings that looked like two O's.

Speaker 20 I think everybody looking thought that it was probably a Goodyear tire.

Speaker 21 I came upon this shirt laying in the road, went around the shirt, past it, and then I stopped and I'm thinking,

Speaker 21 we're kind of close to the crime scene here.

Speaker 8 I probably better pick that up just in case.

Speaker 4 That t-shirt, we later learned had gunshot residue on it, had Molly Watson's blood.

Speaker 3 On a road leading away from the scene, they find an empty box.

Speaker 4 It was an empty.22 caliber ammunition box. The.22 would be considered a small caliber firearm, along with several other calibers.

Speaker 3 An autopsy later recovers a bullet.

Speaker 4 It revealed that it was a small caliber weapon that was used to kill her.

Speaker 2 The bullet that they found was too damaged to be able to match it up with any particular firearm.

Speaker 23 All we can say about the projectile is that it would be consistent with a small caliber ammunition.

Speaker 14 We initially run the vehicle registration,

Speaker 14 things of that nature.

Speaker 14 We were eventually able to figure out that the victim was Molly Watson.

Speaker 3 Police wake up the family in the middle of the night with some pretty bad news.

Speaker 20 My wife woke me up, said your dad's on the phone.

Speaker 20 He doesn't sound good. Something happened.
I'll never forget my dad.

Speaker 20 He said, Timmy, he said the highway patrol just left our house.

Speaker 12 I was like, what happened?

Speaker 20 He said they found Molly dead in the road.

Speaker 6 I was like, what?

Speaker 26 You know how old she is now?

Speaker 3 Police want to know what brought Molly to this dark, desolate place, and even more puzzling, who'd have a reason to kill her?

Speaker 4 Molly Watson's body was found wearing her engagement ring on her left ring finger they were planning a wedding wedding of her dreams that wedding was less than 48 hours away

Speaker 22 We always heard about the wedding. We were very excited about the wedding.

Speaker 28 You know, the colors, the theme, the decorations.

Speaker 3 Molly has a wedding planner who's working on the details.

Speaker 29 There's a lot of burgundy and gold.

Speaker 30 Kind of reminded me of like a Renaissance kind of theme.

Speaker 31 Two dresses she could not make up her mind.

Speaker 33 This dress, as you will see with it on me,

Speaker 33 I show it with me wearing one ball gown crinoline.

Speaker 3 Molly Watson is 35. Her friends describe her as sweet, creative, bubbly.

Speaker 24 Me and Molly were both kind of goofballs, but she was like my best friend.

Speaker 22 Lots of artwork, costuming.

Speaker 5 She was really good at that.

Speaker 3 She has a YouTube channel. She plays with makeup and shows off her sewing.

Speaker 20 She wanted to start like a weekly vlog where she would, you know, just talk about herself or what's going on in her life.

Speaker 33 I work in education right now. I have two degrees in psychology, a bachelor's and a master's.

Speaker 24 She wanted to be a singer for a long time and she had a really good singing voice.

Speaker 33 I am going to sing the healing incantation from Tangled.

Speaker 37 Flower gleam and glow.

Speaker 37 Let your power shine.

Speaker 3 Molly was married in her early 20s. The relationship didn't last more than a few years.
During the breakup, she's pregnant and has a son.

Speaker 24 Declan was her world.

Speaker 25 She would take him to the zoo, you know, she would take him about anywhere with her.

Speaker 24 That was just her world right there.

Speaker 3 Later, she dates a woman she'd known since they were in kindergarten together.

Speaker 3 But that relationship falls apart when Molly meets somebody new at the prison where she works as a corrections officer, a lieutenant named James Addy.

Speaker 3 He's 16 years older than she is, and Molly's brother says the couple doesn't spend much time time with her family.

Speaker 8 There was definitely an age gap there.

Speaker 20 At first, you know, it was weird for us, but, you know, everybody kind of got past it.

Speaker 3 I asked her, you know, what does your family think about him?

Speaker 27 And she was really kind of hesitant. And she said, you know, my family doesn't really like him.
They've only met him a few times.

Speaker 3 But Addie's brother looked up to him.

Speaker 39 Growing up, Jim, he was a role model and example. He was in the Marine Corps.
And then from the Marine Corps, he got out after Desert Storm and just created a life.

Speaker 40 Molly told her brother that James mentioned he'd been married a few times. One marriage to a woman named Melanie resulted in two children, Ben and Emma.

Speaker 39 I loved Melanie. She was always nice, always kind, funny.
It was just Melanie. The type of women that Jim liked were very,

Speaker 39 very nice. very kind.

Speaker 3 At this point, James and Molly seem to be a couple, and he's quite the romantic. He writes, you're truly the love of my life now and forever.
You are my everything. I adore you.

Speaker 41 After seven years of having this relationship with James, well, she surprises her family.

Speaker 41 She suddenly announces, I'm engaged.

Speaker 3 You were booked for her makeup and hair three years ago. Yes.
What did you know about Molly and the wedding and her fiancé? I remember meeting her.

Speaker 11 She was so excited.

Speaker 18 She wanted a Disney theme.

Speaker 2 A very wonderful wedding had been planned at the Stony Creek Inn. Molly had invited her family here to come to this event.

Speaker 29 She was bubbly. She was happy.
She enjoyed talking about her wedding. James was kind of the opposite of Molly.
He was very quiet.

Speaker 29 didn't show much enthusiasm. I just thought he was just a groom along for the ride.

Speaker 3 And then, according to Molly's brother, in the middle of planning the wedding, James gives Molly some terrible news about Melanie, the mother of his children.

Speaker 20 James had told Molly, who told me, that Melanie was involved in December in a really bad car wreck and that she was on life support. And they didn't think she was going to make it.

Speaker 29 When I was reaching out to Molly to try to get the meeting scheduled, she had mentioned that James' ex-wife had passed away from a car accident over the holidays.

Speaker 29 So he had to go do funeral stuff with his kids when we were trying to meet.

Speaker 3 There are some last-minute changes. James and Molly cut their guest list in half and it turns out his daughter Emma won't need the hair and makeup team.

Speaker 27 The plan was that she had a stepdaughter who she was planning to do hair and makeup on.

Speaker 42 I did also want to let you know that it is just going to be me getting hair and makeup done.

Speaker 42 My soon-abie daughter has decided she and a friend are going to do each other's hair and makeup, and so

Speaker 42 we're just going to go that route.

Speaker 3 Molly worries that her fiancé may be getting cold feet.

Speaker 9 Are you changing your mind?

Speaker 22 Not at all.

Speaker 25 Then what?

Speaker 3 It worries me that you were changing yours.

Speaker 13 I wasn't.

Speaker 34 Good.

Speaker 3 Two days to go till the wedding, the couple are meeting at the county recorder's office to get their marriage license. He remembers Molly well.

Speaker 7 The cameras I got in the back of my office for security filmed all that.

Speaker 7 Molly Watson came in the door just shortly before four o'clock and she said, I'm here to get a marriage license. And she was quite pleasant to talk to.
We had a good time.

Speaker 3 You can see James there in his uniform, running late, hurrying inside.

Speaker 7 And then Mr. Addie walked in the door and he was not smiling.
He was acting like this was not the place he wanted to be in.

Speaker 7 She reached right over to him and was touching his arm and stuff and she would pat him on the back and she would lean into him a little bit.

Speaker 3 He watches as they leave the office, hand in hand.

Speaker 7 That's just tough.

Speaker 8 It really is.

Speaker 7 Because she was a sweet girl.

Speaker 7 A lot of things happened after that.

Speaker 8 I don't want to cry.

Speaker 3 Just hours later, that marriage certificate is found at the crime scene.

Speaker 4 Her marriage certificate was located in her car that had her name in there as well as her fiancé's name.

Speaker 3 Now, in the middle of the night, there's something they've got to do right away. They head to her fiancé's house.

Speaker 2 So they went to his house that evening.

Speaker 12 While the trooper is there in the home, he makes a startling discovery.

Speaker 2 There's another woman in James Addie's house.

Speaker 3 She asks the trooper, what are you doing here?

Speaker 2 And I imagine the trooper probably felt much of the same thing. What are you doing here?

Speaker 41 It turns out the woman who was there is James Addy's wife, Melanie Addy.

Speaker 15 She's his wife?

Speaker 21 The guy's living a complete double life.

Speaker 2 What is going on here?

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This is going to be catastrophic.

Speaker 35 We're fighting for our marriages and the girls are just putting us through hell. They make everything about themselves.

Speaker 1 I can't.

Speaker 11 Hopefully, this doesn't end in a bloodbath.

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Speaker 3 When police show up at James Addy's door to tell him that Molly, his fiancé, is dead, his wife is as surprised to see them as they are to see her.

Speaker 43 About 2:30, I think, I saw police car lights out my window. It was very strange to see that.

Speaker 43 I didn't know what was happening.

Speaker 11 She wasn't ready for everything that was about to come. She wasn't prepared that he had this whole other life that was happening without her.

Speaker 2 He admits that he was cheating on Melanie with Molly and that, yes, they had been engaged to be married.

Speaker 23 Mr. Addy became visibly hot and uncomfortable during that interview.
So hot and uncomfortable that he actually walked over to his window, opened it, and put a box fan there to blow the cool air in.

Speaker 23 James Addie had volunteered that the last time he had spoken with Molly Watson was earlier in that evening and showed the police a screenshot of a 22-minute phone call from her to him.

Speaker 41 For police, everything has changed since that very first moment that they walked into the Addy's house. This man has a wife.
He was sweating in the interview.

Speaker 41 He's got phone and text messages that seem ever so suspicious.

Speaker 28 So for police, there's plenty.

Speaker 41 What do they do?

Speaker 23 They arrest him.

Speaker 41 They charge him with first-degree murder.

Speaker 2 Now the trick is building a case.

Speaker 37 Doing all right, sir?

Speaker 37 Not really.

Speaker 3 Watching your husband loaded into a police car has to be hard for Melanie when you think about the snapshots of her life before.

Speaker 3 Tell me about meeting James Addy.

Speaker 43 I was working at a convenience store and he was a customer. He came in a lot and finally asked me out.

Speaker 3 And once you two hit it off, did he pop the question pretty soon?

Speaker 43 Very quickly, maybe six months.

Speaker 31 Wow. Wedding.

Speaker 3 You look so young, both of you.

Speaker 43 We didn't have a lot of money. And we had Ben on the way very quickly.

Speaker 39 When Ben came into the picture, man, I remember going up to their house.

Speaker 23 It was always fun.

Speaker 39 So happy.

Speaker 3 A few years later, Emma comes along. So your family is growing.

Speaker 43 It was exactly what we wanted. We had these two great kids.
I was a stay-at-home mom. He went to work.
It was a very traditional way to do things. I thought it was very good.

Speaker 43 I love that picture. Yeah, all of us together at Christmas time.

Speaker 3 As the years go on, their lives seem so normal. James clashes with his teen son, but Melanie says she felt her husband was dedicated to his family and very loyal.

Speaker 3 She never suspected that he was being unfaithful.

Speaker 3 Did you get any sense of whether he was contented and happy in the marriage?

Speaker 43 He seemed the same all the time.

Speaker 41 Melanie did admit that the marriage had its ups and downs, but in her mind, they had always been able to work through whatever the issues were.

Speaker 28 This was her reality.

Speaker 41 Everything was the same. But the fact is, it wasn't.
James Addy was in a completely different place.

Speaker 39 He was over it.

Speaker 39 He was done. He didn't love her anymore.

Speaker 23 James Addy for the past seven years had been living two lives.

Speaker 2 How was he able to separate both of these lives?

Speaker 9 He's a very good liar.

Speaker 3 At one point he takes a trip to Florida on his own. What was that trip about?

Speaker 43 He told me it was a trip related to his work where they were doing some training.

Speaker 11 He took the extra step and printed out what looked like a business letter, made it look official that that's what he was doing, but he was taking the trip to Florida with Molly.

Speaker 3 As I talk to Melanie, knowing where this is going, it's hard not to be a little incredulous. But no matter what I ask, she's consistent.
She did not know the truth about what was going on.

Speaker 43 He would get off work at three, and usually he would get home at five.

Speaker 43 And I would say, well, why are you always so late? And that would be an argument. He didn't want to tell me anything.

Speaker 3 Any suspicions?

Speaker 43 Not about an affair, no.

Speaker 3 So let's go back then to April 27, 2018. Any strange behavior on his part?

Speaker 43 No, not at all. Nothing.
He just seemed like he always did.

Speaker 43 About seven o'clock, he came in to the living room where I was and said he was going to a friend's house.

Speaker 3 Did it strike you as unusual or odd?

Speaker 43 I remember being irritated that I wanted him to just be home. And he had a hard time staying home.

Speaker 3 Do you remember when he came home?

Speaker 43 I was asleep.

Speaker 41 And whatever time James Addie got home, well, Melanie says that she woke up at two in the morning to the sound of his snoring.

Speaker 41 And she says she did what she normally does, move to the couch in the living room.

Speaker 3 The police tell you

Speaker 3 that your husband has a dead fiancée? Yes. And he's engaged to the wife.

Speaker 3 And you're learning all of this in one hour.

Speaker 6 Immediately, yeah.

Speaker 3 And you've been married for 20...

Speaker 43 23 years.

Speaker 3 What did you think?

Speaker 43 I can't even tell you. It was just mind-boggling.
It made no sense at all. None.

Speaker 19 Were you angry?

Speaker 3 Were you hurt? What were you feeling?

Speaker 43 Probably just disbelief in the beginning. It didn't seem right.
This was not my life.

Speaker 3 Did you think that your husband was capable of murder?

Speaker 29 Yes.

Speaker 43 It just seemed like something he would do to fix a problem. He was a pretty selfish person.

Speaker 43 He could be controlling and intimidating and it could be challenging.

Speaker 23 Melanie Addy begins searching her house. She searches a loft-type area above the garage, which she rarely went into, and found a photo album.

Speaker 2 She finds several photos of Jim and Molly together, smiling, a happy couple.

Speaker 11 She found the photos of them in Florida on this trip that she had thought was a harmless business trip for him to go on, that he was actually there with his fiancée getting ready to get married.

Speaker 3 Were you asking yourself, how could I have missed this?

Speaker 43 Oh, absolutely. Every day.

Speaker 43 Every day.

Speaker 43 How do you not see this?

Speaker 43 I guess because I wasn't supposed to see it.

Speaker 3 So he's under arrest. He's in jail.
Yes.

Speaker 3 Did you go visit him?

Speaker 43 The following week, we were both in tears.

Speaker 43 Both in tears.

Speaker 3 What is he saying to you?

Speaker 43 That he's sorry. He's very sorry for the affair, but he insists that he was not the killer, that he is not responsible for this.

Speaker 23 Was there a part of you that felt for him on any level?

Speaker 43 Absolutely. Because I felt like, oh, I have to take care of him.
This is what we do. We take care of each other.

Speaker 3 Did you look at him suddenly as a stranger, as somebody you didn't know?

Speaker 43 I looked at him as someone I didn't want back.

Speaker 3 Now investigators have got to untangle this mess. They have to have evidence.
They have a t-shirt, the ammunition box, and now there's one other item they find near that dirt road. A cell phone.

Speaker 3 Molly's cell phone.

Speaker 3 That phone now means that prosecutors can take the case to the courtroom. There's another voice that will be heard.

Speaker 47 Like they say, deceased person doesn't speak, but it's almost like Molly was speaking from the grave.

Speaker 3 James Addy, the former prison guard, now underguard himself. At trial, lead investigator Bradley Ream takes the stand to testify about that jaw-dropping moment in the Addy home.

Speaker 17 I asked her who she was.

Speaker 17 She replied, I am his wife.

Speaker 15 I was like, well, I was wondering what was going on.

Speaker 46 And he told me that I got myself involved in something I shouldn't have.

Speaker 3 Glenn McSparron testifies about finding Molly.

Speaker 48 When you first went to the water processing the first time, was there another car present?

Speaker 26 Yes, there was.

Speaker 17 We came upon

Speaker 17 a pair of headlights down by the creek, and then I could tell there was another car facing away from me.

Speaker 3 Glenn McSparron testifies about seeing that man at the crime scene, but in a blow to the prosecution, he can't identify James Addie as the man he saw.

Speaker 17 I couldn't get a really 100% clear look at him.

Speaker 3 But McSparrin's description of the car that man was driving, that old grandma car, police say matches Addie's car. And then they take a good look at the tires.

Speaker 3 Prosecutors say one of the tires on Addie's car, a Goodyear, is just the kind that could leave a double O impression like the one found near Molly Watson's body.

Speaker 41 It wasn't just that double O print from the side of the Goodyear tire. Officers have something more.

Speaker 41 What prosecutors call a perfect tire print in the mud just a few feet from Molly's body.

Speaker 3 A state crime lab expert testifies that he compared the right rear tire on Addie's car to a cask that was made at the scene of the crime next to Molly's body.

Speaker 45 And what conclusion did you draw, if any, about the tire and the cast?

Speaker 26 My conclusion was that particular tire made that particular impression.

Speaker 41 Prosecutors are convinced that this tire track matches Addie's car. The defense is saying not so fast.

Speaker 2 All right, I'd like to talk to you about this comparison that we just had that states there is no widely accepted scientific principle behind an examiner looking at one tire and looking at a cast and saying they look the same to me.

Speaker 47 States Exhibit 67.

Speaker 5 Could you explain to the jury what they're looking at here?

Speaker 46 That is

Speaker 50 an empty ammo box of 22 caliber.

Speaker 3 A prosecution witness testifies that bullets found in the 22 caliber rifle found in James Addy's home are consistent with the Thunderbolt ammunition, the kind that came in that empty ammo box they found.

Speaker 3 Even so, that doesn't prove that it's the murder weapon.

Speaker 41 Prosecutors call a long parade of highway patrol investigators and criminalists, and then they introduce a key item of evidence.

Speaker 3 A cell phone. Molly's cell phone.

Speaker 47 Molly Watson's cell phone was a vital link in the chain of evidence for prosecutors.

Speaker 4 Information from her cell phone did tell us that she had driven from her home to this location while she was on the phone with James Addie.

Speaker 41 Investigators are poring over all these text messages between James and Molly, and what they're hoping to do is reconstruct the events leading up to her killing, and maybe they'll find even a triggering moment that caused it to happen.

Speaker 3 And investigators say there's a reference to that story about Addie's wife, Melanie, dying after a car crash.

Speaker 3 Prosecutors say Addie texted Molly that his ex-wife's funeral was happening the day before their wedding.

Speaker 9 The funeral is tomorrow.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry, sweetness.

Speaker 41 I love you so, so much.

Speaker 3 Why would James Addie lie? Why tell Molly that his ex-wife, Melanie, was dead?

Speaker 3 Some speculate that maybe he hoped the story about the car crash would cause his fiancé to postpone the wedding and the collision of his two lives.

Speaker 3 But instead, it may have sped up his day of reckoning.

Speaker 2 Molly, at a certain point, did try to look into this and question this according to some of the things brought up in court.

Speaker 4 Forensic searches of Molly's phones indicated that the day before she was murdered she was looking for Melanie Addy's obituary.

Speaker 2 Was obviously unable to find an obituary for Melanie Addy.

Speaker 3 Prosecutors point out that Molly's online search happens the day before her murder and argue this theory.

Speaker 3 Molly figures out that James's wife isn't dead and confronts him, and they say that's what led him to kill her.

Speaker 45 Did James Addie have a plan to see Molly that night?

Speaker 21 As stated here in the exhibit, the text message says, I think I'm going to see you tonight.

Speaker 21 And that was sent from James' purple phone to Molly.

Speaker 37 He knew.

Speaker 45 He knew what was going to happen. He knew how that date was going to end.

Speaker 23 Earlier in the evening of April 27th, before James Addy departed his home, he had sent text messages from himself to himself.

Speaker 9 Have a meeting tonight at 8, normal place.

Speaker 9 You have to be there.

Speaker 12 James Addy seems to be almost firing himself up to do something

Speaker 6 drastic.

Speaker 9 Don't be a again.

Speaker 9 Let's go, man.

Speaker 2 If it was as if one part of him was telling the other to come on, we can do this.

Speaker 12 Let's go.

Speaker 45 Trying to psych himself up for something. Obviously, now we know what it is.
Don't Don't be man.

Speaker 1 Let's go, man.

Speaker 51 He's talking himself into it.

Speaker 48 He's getting himself ready.

Speaker 51 Molly was lured to this Monroe County road. A 22-minute phone call and a 22-minute drive to her death.

Speaker 41 For the next 30 minutes or so, police say that Addie's phones, both of them, are silent. No calls, no texting.

Speaker 3 That

Speaker 19 is when he killed Molly Watson.

Speaker 47 What could have or would have been James Addy's closest allies as a criminal defendant, his wife and his daughter, are now actually going to take the stand against him.

Speaker 5 Were you aware that you were on a guest list to attend your dad's wedding?

Speaker 5 Two rings surrounded by a steel cage!

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Speaker 49 I hate you. She hates me.

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Speaker 48 Will you please state your name and spell it for the court reporters?

Speaker 49 Emma Addie E-M-M-A-A-D-D-I-E.

Speaker 23 The evidence at trial showed that Emma Addie had actually met Molly Watson previously.

Speaker 20 James's daughter Emma needed a costume.

Speaker 49 And dad said that he knew somebody who did that kind of thing and that person was Molly and he took me to go meet her and she

Speaker 49 made a costume for me.

Speaker 20 James had introduced Molly as a friend from work.

Speaker 48 Did you know about his relationship with Molly?

Speaker 37 No.

Speaker 2 She articulated to the jury what she saw and heard and remembered from that night.

Speaker 49 I was still up

Speaker 3 doing homework at around 10 p.m.

Speaker 12 And that's when, that's around the time that dad came home.

Speaker 41 On cross-examination, the defense really tries to create some doubt with timing. Maybe he was in the garage working on his car.
Maybe she didn't know.

Speaker 55 You'd agree with me that back in this timeframe that your dad would frequently be in the garage, correct?

Speaker 37 Yes.

Speaker 3 Emma's most damaging testimony may be about that bloody t-shirt. Remember the one that was found in the road near the crime scene?

Speaker 47 The t-shirt becomes so important to this case because it's a one-of-a-kind t-shirt. And here's the kicker.
It was made by James Addy's daughter, Emma.

Speaker 49 Do you recognize that shirt?

Speaker 37 Yes, right.

Speaker 48 How do you recognize that shirt?

Speaker 4 She was able to identify it because she'd made it as a part of one of her classes and so she was able to affirmatively say that is the t-shirt that I made.

Speaker 49 Yeah I know that's my shirt.

Speaker 47 She gave it to her father.

Speaker 49 I brought them home that day after the contest and dad said that he would take one to the garage just to use his rags.

Speaker 3 Addie's defense says that's not proof that maybe Addie had just given the t-shirt to Molly.

Speaker 21 Is it so implausible that one fiancé has a shirt that belonged to their fiancé?

Speaker 48 As far as her marriage with James Addie, can you describe it for the jury?

Speaker 41 Testifying next. The woman James Addy allegedly said was dead.
His now ex-wife, Melanie Addy. She filed for divorce soon after his arrest.

Speaker 48 It was good sometimes.

Speaker 52 It was bad sometimes.

Speaker 49 I thought we

Speaker 48 both tried to make it work.

Speaker 4 You were called to testify.

Speaker 3 How hard was that?

Speaker 12 It's horrible.

Speaker 23 It's just horrible.

Speaker 43 You don't want to be there. I don't want to be in a position where I'm hurting him.
I don't want to do that.

Speaker 48 So in April of 2018, were you still married to Mr. Addie and living in that same home?

Speaker 49 Yes.

Speaker 48 Did you have any plans to divorce at that point?

Speaker 33 No.

Speaker 43 He'd always been very hard on me about

Speaker 43 how a wife should act and how a wife should be. And then he did this.

Speaker 43 He had an affair. And that's okay.
No, we were done. We were done.

Speaker 2 James Addy didn't react to his ex-wife taking the stand, but everybody else did. Anybody watching was riveted.

Speaker 41 Prosecutors also ask Melanie about that outrageous story, the one they say James told Molly that Melanie was dead.

Speaker 56 Were you in a horrible car crash in October of 2017 around Christmas or New Year's? No.

Speaker 56 And is it fair to say you did not pass away in April of 2018?

Speaker 48 That's correct.

Speaker 41 After calling nearly 20 witnesses, the state rests its case.

Speaker 26 Thank you, sir. You made step down.

Speaker 41 And now it's time for the defense to take its turn. All kinds of options here.
They could introduce evidence, they could call witnesses, or they could put James Addy himself on the stand.

Speaker 41 Instead, they do none of the above.

Speaker 2 Not putting up a case for the defense is fairly common because the argument is it's the state's burden to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 2 Once my client puts a witness on the stand, now we're in competition

Speaker 8 for who is more likable, for who do we believe more.

Speaker 2 You lose the state's burden and you take on a burden yourself.

Speaker 38 The evidence will show that the state does not have proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 13 Your doubts are reasonable.

Speaker 21 Your doubts are reasonable because Jim did not kill Molly.

Speaker 2 They attempted to raise enough reasonable doubt about the things that weren't there. There was no murder weapon.
What would be the motive of a man in love killing his fiancé?

Speaker 11 He was in love with Molly, was the defense, and he was having an affair, but that didn't necessarily mean that he was the killer.

Speaker 4 Closing arguments in this case ended up being on what would have been James and Molly's three-year anniversary.

Speaker 51 Molly Watson does not get to celebrate her three-year wedding anniversary today, but you

Speaker 51 have the power to give her justice. justice.

Speaker 47 The jury deliberated about two and a half hours the fate of James Addy and announced they had reached a unanimous decision.

Speaker 45 All right, then. My understanding, the jury has reached a verdict.

Speaker 52 Do I have a four-person?

Speaker 37 Yes, sir.

Speaker 5 When the jury walked in, like five of the jury members looked at us. Like they...
glanced over and I thought, okay,

Speaker 3 I don't know if this is a good sign or not.

Speaker 52 Verdict reads as follows as to count one. we, the jury, find the defendant, James Addy, guilty of murder in the first degree.

Speaker 4 The jury found James Addy guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Molly Watson and armed criminal action.

Speaker 34 Oh, I was happy.

Speaker 20 I was so happy to hear that because my sister got justice.

Speaker 3 Did you feel that your husband should have been found guilty of murder? Absolutely.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Is he a killer?

Speaker 6 Apparently.

Speaker 2 You asked me earlier what I was surprised at during the trial.

Speaker 16 During the entire course of the trial, he failed

Speaker 16 to

Speaker 16 represent anything that I brought forward.

Speaker 41 Up until this point, James Addy has fully exercised his right to remain silent throughout the trial. But now he's ready to open up and give the court his version of what he says really happened.

Speaker 15 There was no way that I could have done this crime.

Speaker 41 And he's going to point to someone he says is the true killer.

Speaker 41 Give it up for Chicago.

Speaker 57 Sebastian Maniscalco's new stand-up special, It Ain't Right, is coming to Hulu on November 21st.

Speaker 36 30 years ago, Jeff Bezos, complete nerd.

Speaker 54 Bezos now ripped to shreds on his super yacht and the boxes keep

Speaker 34 coming.

Speaker 57 Sebastian Maniscalco, It Ain't Right, premieres November 21st, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

Speaker 58 Coming to Disney Plus and Hulu. Cassidy, get us home.
Jonas Brother, you got it. It'll be the best Jonas Christmas ever.

Speaker 58 Can't wait to see you guys. We love you.
If they can only make it home.

Speaker 55 What's going on? Our tour plane burned?

Speaker 53 No.

Speaker 2 We cannot miss Christmas.

Speaker 35 Nothing can stop us from getting home now.

Speaker 38 Moonlight.

Speaker 15 You won't be alone this trip.

Speaker 22 You lost all three of your passports?

Speaker 53 It's Christmas. Anything can happen, right?

Speaker 58 A very Jonas Christmas movie, now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu, with the TBPGDL.

Speaker 3 Thank you. Can you have a seat?

Speaker 59 We are here today on 188C-CR 01983, State vs. James Addy.

Speaker 16 The matter comes on today for final disposition.

Speaker 41 Two months after his conviction, James Addy is formally sentenced. Mr.

Speaker 59 Addy, having been convicted by a jury of your peers of the charge of murder in the first degree, I hereby sentence you to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Speaker 9 That being the sentence mandated by law.

Speaker 41 Once sentencing is over, the judge wants to hear from Addy about why he now claims his lawyer did not do a good job.

Speaker 3 Anyone expecting regrets or remorse is in for quite a surprise.

Speaker 2 Normally, criminal defendants keep their mouths shut, they say yes when they're supposed to, and they move on their way to get their appeal going.

Speaker 3 Not James Addy. He is scheduled to spend the rest of his life in prison, but he's got plenty to say, beginning by reading a love letter to the woman he's convicted of killing.

Speaker 12 Molly is the love of my life.

Speaker 41 Addy insists that Molly was the love of his life. He says he misses her terribly and would have done anything to keep her happy.

Speaker 41 Addy is now asking for a new trial. He's complaining to the judge that his defense counsel was ineffective.

Speaker 2 Honestly, let his defense attorney have it. He said that he did not think that TJ did a great job.

Speaker 59 You give me an idea of what kind of stuff you wanted him to bring forward:

Speaker 15 cell phone records,

Speaker 15 Facebook posts that were in discovery

Speaker 16 that showed motive that something else was there.

Speaker 2 Molly had an ex who, according to him, had stalked her.

Speaker 2 Very much so had a motive to do harm to Molly as her wedding was approaching.

Speaker 4 We reviewed all of the evidence collected during this investigation and presented the relevant admissible evidence at trial.

Speaker 4 And there was no evidence of any other person with a direct connection to Molly Watson's death.

Speaker 23 And that evidence pointed to one person, James Addie, who had the motive, means, and opportunity to take Molly Watson's life.

Speaker 43 I would like to see him and ask him,

Speaker 27 what were you thinking?

Speaker 43 Why did you do this to us?

Speaker 43 Why did you do this to you?

Speaker 3 You don't see yourself as a victim. Not at all.

Speaker 43 Molly's the victim.

Speaker 43 She's not here. She lost her life.

Speaker 41 You just think of the lyrics of that song that Molly loved so much from the movie Tangled.

Speaker 33 Bring back what once was mine.

Speaker 37 What once

Speaker 37 was

Speaker 37 mine.

Speaker 8 Just a couple of days ago at work, I'm a mechanic and we have our bay doors open.

Speaker 8 And out of the blue,

Speaker 20 this balloon came right up to me and it says, we love you, we miss you.

Speaker 8 And that was Molly telling me, hey, we're watching you.

Speaker 24 So it definitely felt good.

Speaker 44 It's one of Britain's most notorious crimes, the killing of a wealthy family at Whitehouse Farm. But I got a tip that the story of this famous case might be all wrong.

Speaker 25 I know there's going to be a twist, willn't they? A massive twist.

Speaker 57 At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover-up in this case.

Speaker 44 I'm Heidi Blake. Blood Relatives is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker.
Find it now in the In the Dark podcast feed.