Diary of a Killer (Rebroadcast)

Speaker 2 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 2 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 2 You'll hear first-hand accounts from investigators, witnesses, and family members as they share the chilling details behind each case.

Speaker 2 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 4 A killing that shocked a community inside a couple's home.

Speaker 5 Was it murder or was it self-defense?

Speaker 6 I'll take you inside the manhunt. 2020 begins right now.

Speaker 7 There had been a murder and the place was crawling with police.

Speaker 10 You can see the legs lying on the kitchen floor.

Speaker 6 So she's just shot in cold blood.

Speaker 8 She is gunned down in her own house.

Speaker 12 It was a sensational case because of who was involved. It happened with a gentleman who was high-powered, former Marine, former cop in New York City, an attorney, very successful.

Speaker 12 She was very successful.

Speaker 7 Who was Angela Bledsoe? And who was this mystery couple?

Speaker 15 Angela was done. She wanted out, period.

Speaker 17 He became more controlling?

Speaker 9 He was looking up hidden cameras, spy cameras.

Speaker 6 Surveillance, why?

Speaker 1 What did he find out?

Speaker 6 Turns out they both had secrets, and he was carrying his around in a sort of diary. Did you think James Ray was dangerous?

Speaker 12 There's two sides to every story.

Speaker 6 Do you see any indication that maybe she just lost it and decided to attack?

Speaker 15 When she moved in,

Speaker 15 that was the beginning of the end, literally.

Speaker 6 You're along for the ride with James Ray, a New Jersey lawyer and father who appears to be in the middle of a routine day, like picking up his daughter, Alana, from school.

Speaker 6 But there's nothing routine about what's happening here. In just a few short hours, the lives of dad and daughter will be changed forever.

Speaker 18 Whenever I was in his presence with the children, he just was like a caring father, you know.

Speaker 6 That evening, six-year-old Alana and her dad are making their way to a New Jersey steakhouse to meet up with some family members.

Speaker 6 It's a meal that will be both brief and bizarre, beginning from the moment James Ray pulls into the parking lot.

Speaker 14 James Ray meets up with his brother, Robert Ray, in the back of the restaurant parking lot. where it is dark.
His daughter and Robert's wife at the time go inside the restaurant.

Speaker 14 James is wearing sunglasses in the evening and according to his brother, his demeanor is described as panicky.

Speaker 6 Before he became a lawyer, James Ray served as a Marine and a police officer, so he was familiar with stressful situations. But according to his brother, this felt very different.

Speaker 14 Once alone, James makes an unusual request of his brother. And it's interesting to point out that these two are not particularly close.

Speaker 14 But Ray asks his brother to watch his daughter Alana for 24 hours. Robert Ray agrees and the two men transfer Alana's luggage from one car to the other.

Speaker 14 Then they go inside the restaurant.

Speaker 6 Everybody's beginning to order their meals but things are pretty strange. Ray passes on food and sips his water and it's clear that somebody is missing from this family gathering.
Alana's mom, Angela.

Speaker 7 They're sitting in a booth and he asks his brother to take a picture of him with his daughter

Speaker 7 and after the picture he slips out as if he's going to the bathroom.

Speaker 14 He excuses himself from the table, exits the restaurant, and begins to leave the parking lot. Robert tries to stop him, but James just keeps on driving.

Speaker 14 Robert Ray is so taken aback by what transpired, he drives over to his brother's home in Montclair, New Jersey.

Speaker 14 When he arrives, the home is dark, and the car he saw James leave the restaurant in is not in the driveway.

Speaker 6 With his niece now in the car, Robert decides that the best thing to do is to drive the nearly 70 miles back to his home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and get six-year-old Alana settled in for the night.

Speaker 9 When they were getting the child ready for bed, meaning Robert Ray and his wife at the time, that's when they discovered in the suitcase the letter.

Speaker 6 It's a one-page typewritten letter telling his brother that something awful has happened.

Speaker 9 And based on the content, that letter, Robert Ray called 911.

Speaker 22 Monthly Police, Inspector Richie.

Speaker 22 Hello, Inspector.

Speaker 23 My name is Robert.

Speaker 22 I live in Pennsylvania. I just got word that something horrible thinking has happened at my brother's house there in Penn Clare.

Speaker 22 And what happened? I am not certain, but it sounds like there might be a murder victim there.

Speaker 24 What's the address?

Speaker 22 North Mountain Avenue.

Speaker 22 All right, Richie. I'm a root.
I think some units up there is meeting me up there and just confirm the address.

Speaker 20 Securing the scene and securing any evidence and safety of the people at the scene is my primary responsibility.

Speaker 20 As an investigative supervisor, I need to start thinking about what I have to do once I get to the scene and what needs to be done prior to my arrival.

Speaker 20 As far as the suspect goes, I didn't know where he was at this point. We had to assume that there's a potential threat inside the house and proceed accordingly.

Speaker 10 From the rear of the house, looking through the sliding door, you can see the legs lying on the kitchen floor.

Speaker 27 I can stay out of the side now. Yeah, yeah, they confirmed it.
It's one DOA inside the house.

Speaker 27 We're going to be putting in the falling vehicle, you know, considered armed and dangerous.

Speaker 6 Use caution. Inside the home, investigators are beginning to collect the pieces of a puzzle.

Speaker 10 There was a handgun in the pool of blood.

Speaker 20 There was a handgun in the living room on a coffee table. There was a gun cleaning kit in the living room on the coffee table.
And obviously the projectile that was embedded in the couch.

Speaker 29 There's a blood trail leading from the living room couch to the kitchen. Also, there was another shell casing that was on the kitchen floor.

Speaker 20 The clock that had appeared to come off the wall was lying in the kitchen sink and it had stopped.

Speaker 6 The victim is positively identified as 44-year-old Angela Bledsoe, James Ray's live-in girlfriend. The little girl picked up from school is the couple's daughter.

Speaker 9 That was a disturbing aspect of the case. A minor child,

Speaker 9 six years old at the time, picked up by her father

Speaker 9 and

Speaker 9 never went home.

Speaker 9 She never saw her mother again. She ended up up going to Allentown, Pennsylvania with two people she barely knew.
And then after her father walked out, she never saw him again either.

Speaker 6 Down in Maryland, Angela's parents get the devastating news that their youngest daughter is gone. Tell me about that day, Mr.
Paletzo.

Speaker 30 I think I yelled and nothing came out.

Speaker 13 I cried.

Speaker 30 And then I said to myself,

Speaker 13 Letzo,

Speaker 31 You got to get yourself together.

Speaker 6 What did you think had happened?

Speaker 18 I didn't ask for details.

Speaker 30 I did not know what happened. I did not know what happened.

Speaker 6 What'd you learn about this story and these two people?

Speaker 9 She was indeed a very successful woman. I believe her sister even said that she was making more money in her 20s than her parents had made their entire lives.

Speaker 6 But where exactly is James Ray?

Speaker 9 Developing story out in New Jersey where police are searching for a murder suspect. Well at that point we came up with a game plan.

Speaker 29 Public enemy number one was James Ray.

Speaker 32 Lawyer by day to night described as armed and dangerous.

Speaker 29 Something was off, something was wrong.

Speaker 7 You know, I started knocking on neighbors' doors and nobody really seemed to know the victim or her boyfriend.

Speaker 6 Back in Allentown, Pennsylvania, investigators are headed to Robert Ray's home to find out what else was in that suitcase. And what they find will spark an international manhunt.

Speaker 33 They know who they're looking for.

Speaker 9 Now they just need to find him.

Speaker 32 Authorities believe he shot and killed his living girlfriend inside their Montclair home behind me.

Speaker 9 The crime itself occurred in Montclair, New Jersey, which is a quiet, suburban, affluent township.

Speaker 7 Montclair is a town of about 40,000 people, 12 miles west of Manhattan.

Speaker 10 A lot of people who reside in Montclair work in New York.

Speaker 12 Very family-oriented, and you have a lot of New Yorkers and even some celebrities now moving to Montclair.

Speaker 20 Mixed socioeconomic statuses, very diverse all around.

Speaker 6 It's beautiful.

Speaker 7 There are a lot of old stock Victorian homes. It's got a bustling downtown, a lot of great restaurants.

Speaker 32 Police were called to the upscale house here on the 300 block of North Mountain Avenue shortly before midnight.

Speaker 14 I was living in Montclair when this case happened and everybody kept thinking, are we in danger? Is there something going on? Is it a spree?

Speaker 14 Because nobody's used to that kind of crime happening in that area.

Speaker 29 You expect a call from the city at some point, but getting a call from Montclair was surprising.

Speaker 32 They found 44-year-old Angela Bledsoe had been shot. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Speaker 6 News of a murder was shocking in this picturesque town of tree-lined streets. James Ray and Angela Bledsoe, like many here, were a professional couple raising a six-year-old daughter.

Speaker 7 James was very accomplished. He had a MBA and he had a law degree.

Speaker 35 James looked great on paper. He has his own business.
He was a Marine. He was a former police officer.

Speaker 7 They met in Brooklyn. Angela was working as a financial advisor and Ray offered to hire her.
at his insurance brokerage.

Speaker 36 And Angela, what she would do is she recruited people to sell life insurance. They had an agreement as far as the commission that she would get and the cut that he would get.

Speaker 6 So she didn't work for him, she worked alongside and helped his business.

Speaker 36 Exactly.

Speaker 17 They had a lot in common as it pertained to business and I know that they had this like power couple dynamic between them and I think she was attracted to that as well.

Speaker 6 Family and friends we spoke with said they were happy. Angela seemed to have found a good guy.

Speaker 36 The first time that I saw him was at my dad's surprise birthday celebration and from afar I could see them and they seemed very happy together. I mean they were dancing and He twirled her around.

Speaker 36 She, you know, she was laughing and smiling and they seemed happy. So I was like, oh, they look nice together.

Speaker 35 You could see that they had a connection. They had a spark amongst themselves.

Speaker 36 And she told my mom, well, mom, he's special.

Speaker 38 Initially, I thought he would be a

Speaker 34 nice individual for her. I could tell he was a little older than her when I first met him.

Speaker 17 So I wasn't sure how serious it was.

Speaker 6 There was an 11-year-age difference between Angela Angela and James.

Speaker 35 He probably was extremely charming, which is, I'm sure, how he attracted Angela, because I know Angela, so he would have had to kind of bring his A-game to get her to even want to look his way.

Speaker 17 I could see how James was charismatic, and he did have ways about him being funny, intelligent, and things like that. So I think she looked at him kind of like as a catch.

Speaker 6 Do you remember when she met James Ray and what she said about him?

Speaker 39 Well, she admired him and then the relationship kind of moved along pretty quickly.

Speaker 6 You talked a lot. Did she share much about her love life? Did she want to be married at some point? Did she talk about what she wanted for herself personally? She did.

Speaker 36 She wanted to be married and we did talk about that.

Speaker 6 So for this couple, clearly something went tragically wrong on that October night.

Speaker 15 And for the detectives who began to investigate, their attention turned to James Ray, having left behind his daughter with his brother Robert Ray and those two suitcases.

Speaker 9 There were two suitcases that he packed for his daughter with a lot of clothing. He printed out and left for his brother a Disney Cruise itinerary.
There were certified checks.

Speaker 9 One was in the amount of $11,500 for his daughter. The other was in the amount just shy of $10,000 for Robert Ray to cash for the daughter.
He also left a letter for his brother.

Speaker 6 This letter that Ray left for his brother is chock full of information for investigators. But first and foremost, it's a startling admission that Ray did in fact shoot his girlfriend, Angela.

Speaker 6 He says he has an explanation, but he also goes on to say, quote, I am scared and don't want the long burden of a trial to prove my point.

Speaker 15 In the aftermath of the shooting, He felt he was in a no-win situation, so he had to flee.

Speaker 7 And he also didn't have his ducks in a row.

Speaker 18 row he knew he was going to be arrested and that he would need bail money so he had to figure that out before he turned himself in on the news it was saying that james ray was on the run for killing angelo

Speaker 42 investigators are now looking for bledsoe's boyfriend 55 year old james r ray iii

Speaker 6 we didn't know where he was

Speaker 7 It was very dramatic.

Speaker 20 He is in the wind, as we like to say,

Speaker 20 which is, you know, we we don't know his whereabouts, and all we can do is gather enough information.

Speaker 6 It is quite a story, and there's more. In the letter, Ray drops several bombshells, including claims that Angela was becoming violent with him.

Speaker 15 After nine years of this long relationship, Angela was done.

Speaker 15 She was leaving James Ray. She wanted out, period.

Speaker 6 Some are even wondering if the relationship was doomed from the start when Angela discovered an explosive secret he'd been keeping from her.

Speaker 4 Helping story right now, Essex County, a suspect on the run following a murder in Montclair.

Speaker 43 A woman was found dead along North Mountain Avenue. Police are now looking for the boyfriend.

Speaker 44 I got a call early one morning indicating that there had been a murder in Montclair.

Speaker 28 Communities like Montclair, it is very, very rare.

Speaker 44 So that's a situation that's going to get a lot of media attention.

Speaker 6 I was calling everyone I knew in town, all my connections.

Speaker 7 I wrote a deep dive about who is Angela Bledsoe and who was this mystery couple.

Speaker 6 Angela's family describes her as a gentle soul, quiet, soft-spoken. They say she'd been that way since since childhood.

Speaker 6 Take me back to childhood growing up. Give me a sense of what that was like and how you all got along.

Speaker 36 We're pretty much a middle-income family, church-going folks. We went to church on Sunday, went to Sunday school.
We got along very well.

Speaker 6 What were her interests as a child?

Speaker 1 Andrea, she was very active in school.

Speaker 36 She was an honor student. She was a part of the Student Government Association and also a fellow rattler.

Speaker 36 Because we both attended Florida AM University.

Speaker 6 Once she was in college and she majored in business.

Speaker 36 Yes, she was a part of the Student Government Association. She pledged Beta Alpha chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated.

Speaker 17 After she graduated, she moved to New York.

Speaker 17 I believe she was very successful as a financial analyst. I didn't know too many 27-year-olds who were able to buy their first home, let alone in New York, in Brooklyn, in a Brownstone.

Speaker 35 And that brownstone was one of those stepping stones to get her to where she wanted to be.

Speaker 35 If I had to say she had a type, Angela would have a type of someone who was going to be as successful and driven as she is.

Speaker 15 And that's when Angela met James Ray.

Speaker 35 You could definitely tell that he was very into her and that she was very into him.

Speaker 6 The couple seemed to be happy and in love, but it turns out James Ray was harboring a deep secret.

Speaker 7 James was married.

Speaker 7 They had two grown adult children.

Speaker 35 I do not recall how she found out, but she was not pleased, as you can imagine.

Speaker 35 It's not in her character to date a married man, and it would never have been her first choice to become involved with the married man.

Speaker 17 I know what she told me was that she didn't know at first. So my only guess is that she was already smitten by this point and couldn't let go of the relationship.

Speaker 17 But once you find out, then you have a decision to make.

Speaker 6 Although Angela knew James was married, she stayed in the relationship.

Speaker 17 And I was surprised at her decision to continue to date him. So I don't know if she was already too deep in the relationship to stop it.

Speaker 39 And you wore rose-colored glasses in a lot of cases.

Speaker 35 Love kind of blinds you to certain things and it makes you more willing to overlook or give grace as it should, right? When you're in love with someone, you want to operate from a place of grace.

Speaker 17 I was beginning not to like him and I didn't like their dynamic together. And I was just hoping it was like a phase and it would go away.

Speaker 17 But then when she got pregnant with their daughter, I think that locked her in.

Speaker 36 If you look at some of the pictures that she took when she was pregnant, you could tell she was already in love with her baby.

Speaker 15 Angela and James's daughter, Alana, was born in 2012.

Speaker 35 I feel like Angela approached motherhood in the same way she approached like all the other things in life. Like, she was committed to making sure that her child has

Speaker 35 the best experiences, best opportunities.

Speaker 6 Was she happy as a mom?

Speaker 38 Oh, yes.

Speaker 39 Yes indeed. She loved being a mother.
You would almost think she might have been the first mother. She was extremely protective

Speaker 37 of Alana.

Speaker 15 After she had the baby, Angela lived largely on her own in Brooklyn while James lived comfortably with his wife in Upper Montclair.

Speaker 6 What about James Ray? Was he a good father? Was he an involved father?

Speaker 36 Early on, he was not. And even one time when she wanted to go to a meeting, he wasn't available.
And she was really frustrated.

Speaker 36 And I asked her, I said, well, you know, before you all had her, did you all discuss how you all were going to facilitate and handle things? And she said, no. So there was friction there.

Speaker 6 Eventually, after Ray's wife of more than 20 years, mom of his two grown children, moves out, Angela moves in to his Montclair home.

Speaker 6 When she moved in, was the hope that they would become more of a family, that they would participate together?

Speaker 6 What were the expectations, do you think?

Speaker 36 I think the long-term expectation was that they were going to get married. That's what she hoped for initially.

Speaker 7 And they both were very close to their daughter. He took her golfing three times a week.
He cooked and they just loved her.

Speaker 36 And I think it started off in a positive light with hopes. you know, of a future marriage at one point.
And then it just, it changed over time.

Speaker 17 When she lived with him is when you can see someone day in and day out of who they are and I think that's when I first started to get a sense from her that she wasn't as happy as I thought.

Speaker 35 They weren't really communicating with one another. They were kind of past the honeymoon phase of the relationship and kind of into the reality.
But it really became a co-parent.

Speaker 35 existence in the household and it was no longer a relationship.

Speaker 7 She complained about him to her family. She said he was controlling.
He would criticize her in front of their daughter.

Speaker 39 After a while, I noticed every time she called, she was complaining about him more and more and more.

Speaker 17 She would just text me little things he would say, little things he would do. He became a little paranoid, and he became more controlling after a while.

Speaker 35 We were at homecoming one time, and we were going to take a group picture.

Speaker 35 There were some guys in the picture, friends, that we all went to school with, and she was like, just don't post that.

Speaker 37 I don't want to hear about that when I get back home.

Speaker 41 The more she would share, the more his actions

Speaker 17 worried me. It even got to a point one time I was like, Do you need to come stay with me until you figure out this situation? Because it doesn't sound like you're safe.
It sounds like he's unraveling.

Speaker 17 And I even put that in text messages to her.

Speaker 6 So you wanted her to move on. Did she say why she hadn't moved out?

Speaker 36 Well, she needed to find a place. And she was wavering: like, can I try and make this work? Should I stay? Should I leave? She wanted, you know, her daughter to have a full family, a mom and a dad.

Speaker 6 And you wanted her at that point to move on and to claim her own life.

Speaker 36 I want her out of the house.

Speaker 6 But as the troubled relationship heads towards a violent end, more skeletons will come out. It turns out Angela had been keeping secrets of her own.

Speaker 1 I am so excited for this spa day.

Speaker 45 Candles lit, music on, hot tub warm and ready.

Speaker 45 And then my chronic hives come back. Again, in the middle of my spa day, what a wet blanket looks like another spell of itchy red skin.

Speaker 1 If you have chronic spontaneous urticaria or CSU, there is a different treatment option. Hives during my next spa day? Not if I can help it.
Learn more at treatmyhives.com.

Speaker 1 Two rings surrounded by a steel cage.

Speaker 1 You wanna play games?

Speaker 1 We're gonna play games. Oh my god, are you kidding me? This is gonna be a war.

Speaker 47 Stream Survivor Series War Games, November 29th at 7 Eastern on the ESPNA.

Speaker 32 The manhunt is for James Ray, who is suspected of fatally shooting his girlfriend.

Speaker 6 24 hours after Angela Bledsoe's body is found, James Ray is on the run. And as with any fugitive considered armed and dangerous, the U.S.
Marshals are called in.

Speaker 6 Meanwhile, police are still processing the crime scene scene and examining that stunning letter Ray wrote to his brother.

Speaker 20 Robert Ray immediately notified us of what was in the letter, which basically indicated that he was cleaning his weapons and that Ms. Bledsoe came at him with another weapon.

Speaker 6 Right there in the second paragraph, Ray saying that he was cleaning his guns when Angela picked one up and was going to shoot him.

Speaker 18 He said that he shot her in self-defense, but she pulled a gun on him.

Speaker 20 He shot her and couldn't stop shooting her.

Speaker 12 It was a sensational case. It happened with a gentleman who was high-powered.
She was very successful. It goes back to that whole thing of you never know what's going on behind closed doors.

Speaker 14 One of the first things investigators started to pour over was the couple's text messages, and a picture begins to emerge of a relationship on the brink.

Speaker 15 When she moved in, that was the beginning of the end, literally.

Speaker 15 At some point,

Speaker 15 James became controlling. James became jealous.
James became a complainer.

Speaker 35 He called her names.

Speaker 15 He said she was lazy.

Speaker 29 It just seemed like he wasn't in the right state of mind.

Speaker 29 He was very jealous and not trustworthy of Angela whatsoever.

Speaker 9 He was looking up hidden cameras, wall clock hidden cameras, spy cameras, GPS trackers.

Speaker 6 Surveillance, why?

Speaker 9 I can't answer that. He was asking her about her whereabouts all the time, according to the text messages that we had.

Speaker 35 At that point in time, in their relationship, he was very well aware that Angela was looking to kind of move on.

Speaker 15 Because he was breaking into her phone, he did discover at some point

Speaker 15 that she could have been seeing someone named Bakari.

Speaker 15 He had a sense that something was going on because he was reading text messages and things like that.

Speaker 12 He thought she was leaving to go have this affair and continue on a relationship with another man in another state and take away their daughter.

Speaker 15 Bakari and Angela went to school together, FAMU.

Speaker 15 They were friends there, strictly friends, nothing romantic. And when they graduated, they kind of like, you know, separated.
She went to a FAMU homecoming event and reconnected with Bakari.

Speaker 9 They saw each other at this homecoming, and that precipitated a sexual relationship that they had.

Speaker 6 Bakari Burns.

Speaker 9 Yes, Bakari Burns. And then they began an intimate relationship.

Speaker 6 Did you hear or had she shared that she was seeing somebody else?

Speaker 36 Well, she had her friend, Bakari. I do feel that she had feelings for him, but as far as dating and all of that, she didn't say that they were dating.

Speaker 17 When I read the text, James found out about Bakari, I called her. What did he find out? Who is Bakari? Because you never told me anything about Bakari.

Speaker 17 She just made it seem like he was jealous of an old college boyfriend.

Speaker 12 Two days before the murder happened, James Ray had called Buccari Burns and he frightened him. Do you know that I exist? Do you know that Angela has a daughter?

Speaker 12 Do you know that Angela lives with me and sleeps in my bed with me every night? Are you aware of me?

Speaker 12 And before that conversation ended, James Ray says to him, I may be coming down to visit you in Florida.

Speaker 9 Things started to come to a head, apparently, between Angela Bledsoe and James Ray. Angela Bledsoe sent a text message to James Ray indicating that she was done.
She was done with the relationship.

Speaker 9 She checked out. And then she gave him a list of reasons why she was done.
Such as... That he just wasn't compassionate, he didn't respect her, that he was controlling.

Speaker 6 That he wasn't invested in the relationship.

Speaker 9 He wasn't invested in the relationship. And it became apparent to her that...
She can't change him.

Speaker 6 So their relationship was falling apart.

Speaker 9 It was not salvageable.

Speaker 9 One of the things that struck us was a pre-nuptial agreement that he had drawn up between the parties. But they weren't married.
They were not married, and they had no intention of getting married.

Speaker 6 So why would there be a prenup?

Speaker 9 He knows she's leaving. He knows that she was interested in another man.

Speaker 9 And it was an act of desperation.

Speaker 6 What did he want in the prenup agreement? What was he going for?

Speaker 9 There was a clause in that prenuptial agreement that we coined, the infidelity clause. And it basically said that if either party is cheating,

Speaker 9 the offending party shall pay a sum of $300,000 per act of infidelity. The date timeline that he referenced was from January 1st of 2018 up until October.

Speaker 6 He was going back to the period that he knew that she was involved with another man.

Speaker 9 Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 6 But even though Angela was seeing another man,

Speaker 6 why and how would it come to this? With With Ray's allegation that Angela grabbed the gun and tried to kill him?

Speaker 17 Angela was not a violent person. If anything, I felt like she felt sorry for him because she knew she was going to leave him.
And I think she actually felt bad for him.

Speaker 17 So I can't imagine her threatening him or trying to hurt him.

Speaker 6 Did your sister have familiarity with guns?

Speaker 36 Did she shoot guns? No, she did not.

Speaker 6 So there was no doubt in your mind.

Speaker 36 No doubt about whether she shooted. It didn't even make any sense.

Speaker 17 I did ask her one time if there was any abuse in the house and she denied it. And so I was like, are you sure he's never shown any violent tendencies or like something you're not sharing with me?

Speaker 17 And she was like, there was one time where he tried to choke me, but that was it. I was just like, how can you not take that seriously? I would think that would trigger her to want to leave sooner.

Speaker 17 And I think once that erratic behavior started becoming more frequent, that's when she was like, okay, now I'm going to start looking for a place to live.

Speaker 12 She was looking to get a home in New Jersey. So she decided, if I'm going to do this, I'm moving out with my daughter, keep her in state, but I need to get out of this house.

Speaker 6 Back at that house on North Mountain Avenue, police are also making other discoveries. Clues left behind at the bloody crime scene are telling their own tale.

Speaker 6 When you saw this, you said this was significant. Why was that important to you?

Speaker 8 This is actually gold for us.

Speaker 42 Police came to this home on a wellness check around midnight and made the horrifying discovery inside 44-year-old Angela Bledsoe dead from gunshot wounds.

Speaker 18 I couldn't believe what I was hearing and what I was seeing on the news.

Speaker 6 Inside the house on Mountain Avenue, police are trying to piece together what happened to Angela Bledsoe.

Speaker 6 And the one person they can't question is her partner and killer, James Ray, who's vanished after claiming self-defense.

Speaker 6 Now, he is a former military person, a former law enforcement. officer.
He had martial arts training. Did it make sense that he would run from her if she were even pointing a gun at him?

Speaker 9 When you look at his background, you know, what you know about police officers, what you know about military personnel, what you know about people trained in the martial arts is that they're trained to defuse situations.

Speaker 9 But he chose deadly force.

Speaker 12 There is one person who's claiming that he could do nothing else but fire at her. to save his own life.
But there's much more to it because there's two sides to every story.

Speaker 6 And forensic evidence often tells its own story.

Speaker 6 Howard Ryan is a crime scene expert who spent 25 years with the New Jersey State Police. We asked him to walk us through the evidence found at the scene.

Speaker 6 You begin looking at these crime scene photos, you're going to see something that we don't see.

Speaker 8 If you're in this field, you tend to key in on certain things. A lot of times in a shooting or any act of violence, the question that has to be answered is, how? How did it happen? happen?

Speaker 6 Inside the couple's home, a number of things were found, including a cache of weapons.

Speaker 10 Recovered one Springfield 9mm

Speaker 10 on the kitchen floor. There was one Springfield 9mm on the coffee table.
Two.22 caliber revolvers.

Speaker 10 And then there was two 12 gauge shotguns that were recovered from the bedroom.

Speaker 20 There was also a gun cleaning kit and a couple gun cases.

Speaker 6 And detectives noticed something else, that fallen clock in the kitchen sink.

Speaker 10 The clock was displaying a time of 1115, so it's a presumption that the clock fell off of the wall at the time of the shooting.

Speaker 9 They together dropped off their minor child at school that morning, so nobody else is there.

Speaker 6 Looking at the evidence, Ryan zeroes in on that nine millimeter lying near Angela's body. You see the gun here with a lot of blood underneath it.
What jumps out right away to you here?

Speaker 44 What it tells us really

Speaker 8 is that the gun was placed there after the blood.

Speaker 6 What about here though? You do see blood on the gun right there.

Speaker 8 With the amount of blood, if this gun had moved through this blood, I would have an expectation of blood being all over the surface of the gun on that side, and it's just not there.

Speaker 6 So that immediately was an alarm bell for you?

Speaker 29 Yes, it it was.

Speaker 14 At this point, investigators don't think that nine millimeter was the gun used to kill Angela.

Speaker 6 Authorities are looking at Ray's claim of self-defense, and to them, the evidence at the scene suggests otherwise.

Speaker 9 There was no gun in Angela Bledsoe's hand.

Speaker 12 And there were also no fingerprints. If the gun was pointed by Angela Bledsoe at James Ray, there should have been some fingerprints.

Speaker 12 It was apparent that things had been moved so this looked like a staged crime scene to you yes along with the gun at her side then we see a stool a stool which they say didn't belong there

Speaker 8 there is a mobile phone seated perfectly centered on the top of the stool with a substantial amount of transferred blood stain

Speaker 8 what does this blood tell you what that tells us is This phone with the blood on its surface was placed in this position after the bloodshed.

Speaker 6 Investigators also have questions about four shell casings found at the scene, three of which they say appear to have been moved.

Speaker 9 There were four discharged.45 caliber shell casings that were recovered in that home. One was found on the kitchen floor.

Speaker 9 Three had been picked up and placed in a gun box that was on the glass coffee table where the other guns were placed.

Speaker 12 Detectives saw them right on the coffee table lined up next to each other. Highly unusual.

Speaker 29 Three shell casings right side up on the living room table. Something's not right here.

Speaker 12 Obviously someone had placed them there.

Speaker 6 While much of the evidence is right there inside the kitchen, a picture is beginning to emerge for investigators of a deadly confrontation that started in the couple's living room.

Speaker 12 There were four shots fired at Angela Blitzell.

Speaker 12 One missed, three went into her body. One to the chest, one to the back, and one to the head.

Speaker 6 So you were able to kind of map out what you think happened.

Speaker 8 Yes, we believe that the first shot was right here on the couch. The projectile is there, the blood is on the cushion of the sofa.

Speaker 8 We know that she moves, there is a transfer of blood on the armrest of the sofa that she ran around. We know that she's moving towards the kitchen because that's her final resting position.

Speaker 8 At that point, she receives a gunshot wound to the back, so I believe this is the second shot. She goes down, she's on the ground.

Speaker 8 As she ends up in this final resting position, there is is a shot that ricochets and strikes the floor. And after that, we believe she's shot through the head.

Speaker 9 What's important about that is that it shows that Angela Bledsoe was being fired upon from above.

Speaker 9 She was already on her back on the kitchen floor.

Speaker 6 So she's just shot in cold blood.

Speaker 8 She is gunned down in her own house.

Speaker 6 This is a couple that was in the midst of a lot of turmoil. Do you see any indication that maybe she just lost it and decided to attack?

Speaker 8 I don't think so. The gun that was placed next to her on the floor, there was no round in the chamber.
Even if she were to grab the gun in defense, she would have loaded the weapon.

Speaker 8 I don't think she ever touched the weapon.

Speaker 6 But those who know James Ray say there's got to be another side to this story.

Speaker 18 Personally, I cannot imagine what really happened.

Speaker 6 I can't imagine.

Speaker 7 We don't know what really happened.

Speaker 18 It was only two persons in the house at the time. Angela, she cannot speak.
Only other person knows God, and he's not talking.

Speaker 6 But James Ray is talking on the lamb and on the phone as he flees the police.

Speaker 9 For about an hour, he was speaking to this woman.

Speaker 6 And he's got a lot to say.

Speaker 23 I had to call you.

Speaker 37 I had to speak with you.

Speaker 4 Essex County, a suspect on the run.

Speaker 29 Public enemy number one was James Ray.

Speaker 32 Authorities believe he shot and killed his living girlfriend inside their Montclair home.

Speaker 6 After the murder, he is on the run. He's getting out of town.

Speaker 8 Yes, he's immediately getting out of town.

Speaker 50 If you commit a crime in the state of New Jersey, we will not forget, we will not forgive, and we will find you.

Speaker 6 What did that say to you that he was on the run?

Speaker 9 If someone's acting in self-defense, why would they run? Is that somebody looking to get out of town after after they committed a brutal homicide?

Speaker 6 Tonight, we're taking you inside the mind of the man who pulled the trigger, his written ramblings on the road.

Speaker 7 While there was a manhunt for him, he was writing this kind of like an adventure story.

Speaker 6 His story was what?

Speaker 9 Angela was in a tirade.

Speaker 7 He feared for his life.

Speaker 6 He thought she was going to shoot.

Speaker 23 Did she tell you how much she hated James? How much he despised him? How she wanted to spit in his food?

Speaker 6 She was about to leave this relationship.

Speaker 9 No question.

Speaker 33 And he knew this?

Speaker 9 No question.

Speaker 6 He was not happy.

Speaker 9 No question.

Speaker 7 We didn't know where he was.

Speaker 8 He is just a ghost on the road.

Speaker 6 44-year-old Angela Bledsoe, a devoted mom, has been found shot to death in her home here in upscale Montclair, New Jersey.

Speaker 6 The last person to see her alive is her live-in boyfriend, James Ray, who admits to killing her, he says in self-defense. Now, there's a problem.

Speaker 6 James Ray has vanished.

Speaker 32 Police tonight are searching for a 55-year-old man, lawyer by day tonight, described as armed and dangerous.

Speaker 18 When the news was they're looking for him,

Speaker 18 he's on the run. And I say, well, he must have snapped if this really happened.

Speaker 32 We want to show you a photo of the man. They are now wanting to arrest, 55-year-old James Ray III.

Speaker 6 Give me a sense of how you are coping. You've lost your daughter in a very tragic way.
You're trying to take care of your granddaughter.

Speaker 6 And the man who is accused of killing your daughter is on the run.

Speaker 6 How are you coping with all of this?

Speaker 30 We did not know where he was.

Speaker 6 What was that like for you and the family?

Speaker 36 He could have come for us. There was a fear of what else he could do.

Speaker 6 But the Bloodsoe family, in the midst of their grief, have to find a way to put their fears aside.

Speaker 6 You're planning a funeral for your daughter.

Speaker 6 And he is on the lose. Tell me about having to go through a funeral and bury your daughter, your youngest.

Speaker 37 You know, it hurt walking in there, but then, too,

Speaker 13 I saw an abundance of flowers.

Speaker 13 I said, my goodness, she has really touched a lot of lives.

Speaker 36 It was a beautiful homegoing service for her.

Speaker 36 We had to have it at a mega church because of the number of people

Speaker 36 that were in attendance.

Speaker 6 Angela's family is waiting anxiously for news of Ray's whereabouts, and authorities are now beginning to build what they say is a timeline of Ray's actions after the deadly encounter.

Speaker 12 In those immediate hours, he doesn't leave the home. Angela is there, lifeless, in the kitchen, bleeding out, and he

Speaker 12 gets everything in order.

Speaker 7 He was alone in the house from 11:30

Speaker 19 when Angela died to 4:30.

Speaker 7 So he had a lot of time.

Speaker 9 He was planning his departure and he was planning on getting out of town.

Speaker 7 He was also writing his last will and testament. He was doing a lot of banking.

Speaker 14 Remember, part of the trove of items Ray left behind in a suitcase with his brother were those two checks. One in the amount of $11,500 for his daughter and another just shy of $10,000.

Speaker 6 Surveillance cameras capture Ray picking up his six-year-old daughter from school.

Speaker 15 After James picks up his daughter, he makes several more phone calls, including one to his adult daughter, Chelsea.

Speaker 51 Hey, Chelsea, how are you doing? This is Dad. Love you.

Speaker 26 Just love to hear your voice.

Speaker 51 You take care of yourself.

Speaker 51 Daddy, love you very much.

Speaker 11 Listen, I'm going to ask you a big, big favor.

Speaker 51 Get to know your sister Lana, please.

Speaker 26 Thank you for the presence you gave me.

Speaker 51 Talk to you, Lady Childs. Love you.

Speaker 9 And then he called his adult son, Jay, and left him a voicemail as well.

Speaker 51 Hey, Jay, how you doing, buddy? This is Dad. Just 12 to 1, love you.
Give me a buzz when you can.

Speaker 6 The longest call Ray makes is to an old friend.

Speaker 9 For about an hour while he was on the road, he was speaking to this woman.

Speaker 9 As he's speaking to her, he's recording it.

Speaker 27 The phone call starts off with Mr. Ray discussing mundane issues such as the weather, but eventually goes into

Speaker 27 Mr. Ray airing out his grievances about the situation with Miss Bledsoe.

Speaker 51 She's upset and annoyed because five years ago,

Speaker 51 I wasn't available to be there with her when she was pregnant.

Speaker 51 I was married. You know that.

Speaker 51 I did everything

Speaker 51 that I can possibly do.

Speaker 11 I was often so tired from staying out late at night visiting her and the baby.

Speaker 9 When he started to discuss the relationship and things that he discovered on Angela's phone,

Speaker 9 you could hear his tone start to change and his demeanor start to change.

Speaker 51 I find out

Speaker 11 that she's planning

Speaker 11 to take Alana. She wrote her cousin, as soon as I get in my house, I'm out.

Speaker 26 And she's gone.

Speaker 51 We're gone.

Speaker 9 It was clear based on that conversation that he had seen conversations Angela was having via text.

Speaker 51 Hear the next one.

Speaker 51 The brother-in-law has the audacity to say somebody ought to tell him, meaning me, that nobody in the family likes him.

Speaker 15 James Ray and his friend had this long conversation, but he left out one glaring omission,

Speaker 15 that he had just killed Angela.

Speaker 6 Ray also never mentions that he is a man on the rhyme.

Speaker 6 So what exactly is going on in the mind of this killer?

Speaker 11 If I fly to Ethiopia and my brother and Alana need support, I need to be able to count on you, Miss.

Speaker 26 You can't. You can't.

Speaker 49 An all-new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming on Hulu.

Speaker 45 Mom Talk started as a sisterhood and that's gone to flames.

Speaker 1 New secrets and lies are coming out. This is going to be catastrophic.
We're fighting for our marriages and the girls are just putting us through hell.

Speaker 3 They make everything about themselves. I can't.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, this doesn't end in a bloodbath.

Speaker 49 Watch the Hulu original: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, now streaming on Hulu, and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

Speaker 52 Give it up for Chicago.

Speaker 24 Sebastian Maniscalco's new stand-up special, It Ain't Right, is now streaming on Hulu.

Speaker 52 30 years ago, Jeff Bezos, complete nerd, Bezos now, ripped to shreds on his super yacht and the boxes keep coming.

Speaker 24 Watch Sebastian Maniscalco.

Speaker 52 It ain't right.

Speaker 24 Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

Speaker 6 James Ray seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. Once a doting dad, he's now a wanted man, and he's been missing missing for nearly a week.

Speaker 32 The manhunt is for James Ray, who was suspected of fatally shooting his girlfriend inside the house they shared with their child.

Speaker 7 It was a long time that he was on the run. People were nervous.

Speaker 6 Ray had already killed his girlfriend, Angela.

Speaker 6 And now some are terrified about who could be next.

Speaker 7 Her lover in Florida had to go into a hotel into hiding.

Speaker 36 He had threatened the lover.

Speaker 39 We were fearful. We didn't know where he was.
Could have came to Maryland.

Speaker 6 Authorities knew they were running out of time.

Speaker 44 This was a well-coordinated effort between federal, state, local, international efforts. We knew that if we did not move, quickly would have the risk of having a cold case.

Speaker 6 Finally, after more than a week, there's a huge break in the case.

Speaker 44 We were able to put in motion a red notice.

Speaker 44 Red notice is basically an international warrant.

Speaker 28 We eventually received some information that he had traveled to Mexico.

Speaker 44 So once we finally found out where he was, we put out an APV on him.

Speaker 44 including a notification should he get on a plane.

Speaker 44 And as it turned out, he did get on a plane.

Speaker 6 James Ray takes a flight to Mexico City. His passport hits.

Speaker 6 And authorities now know he has booked a flight to Havana, Cuba.

Speaker 6 Somebody reaches out to Cuban officials

Speaker 6 who take Ray into custody immediately.

Speaker 14 Now keep in mind, the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Cuba, making the extradition of American citizens from the country extremely rare.

Speaker 6 James Ray could have gone anywhere in the world, but he chooses Cuba. Seems he's trying to figure out where he can go and maybe not come back.

Speaker 6 But FBI agent Brandon Lackey flew to Cuba to do just that, bring James Ray back to the U.S.

Speaker 28 The supervisor yelled at me and said, Hey, Brandon, is your official passport good? And I said, yes, sir, it is.

Speaker 28 He said, okay, well, I need you to go to Cuba tomorrow.

Speaker 28 When I became an FBA agent, I never thought that I would be traveling down to Cuba to take a fugitive into custody.

Speaker 28 As we land at the airport in Havana and start taxing towards what we believe was the terminal.

Speaker 6 Captured on Cuban state television and obtained by NBC News is the arrest of James Ray. Seems Cuban officials wanted something in exchange for Ray.

Speaker 28 It was pretty obvious that they expected me to give some type of speech, and so they ushered me towards the podium. I spent a couple minutes just thanking the Cuban government.

Speaker 28 On behalf of the United States government, we are incredibly grateful for your assistance and your support in detaining him and getting him back to the United States.

Speaker 14 After Agent Lackey gives his speech, Cuban law enforcement officials turn Ray over to American federal agents.

Speaker 28 Mr. Ray looked healthy.
I can best describe his demeanor as a mix between a little bit of surprise and a little bit of relief.

Speaker 9 When he ends up getting on a plane from Cuba back to America, escorted by federal agents, he blurts out he just went there to clear his head, that his intention was to come back in early December.

Speaker 28 Myself and Mr. Ray were sat right beside each other for about three hours.
So we talked.

Speaker 28 He did not describe any type of mistreatment by the Cuban officials, or he didn't have any altercation with with any of the inmates or anything like that.

Speaker 5 A murder suspect from New Jersey on the run from police, now in custody.

Speaker 7 Liz, he was on the run for nearly two weeks and finally captured some 1,300 miles away trying to escape into Cuba.

Speaker 53 Last night, the defendant James Ray III was returned to Teterbarrow Airport and is now at the Essex County Correctional Facility here in Newark. Mr.

Speaker 53 Ray left New Jersey, traveled to the southwest United States, and then crossed over the border into Mexico.

Speaker 6 From there, he took a plane to Cuba.

Speaker 36 When they finally said that they had apprehended him and that he had gotten all the way to Cuba was just mind-boggling.

Speaker 44 Nobody seemed to remember any case where Cuba was involved, where there was an international flight, a pursuit out of the country, an apprehension, let alone the fact it was a homicide in one of the the most affluent towns in New Jersey.

Speaker 15 I think he felt like, oh, America doesn't have an extradition treaty with Cuba, so I'm going to be here and forget about it. But that's not how it works, buddy.

Speaker 50 If you commit a crime in the state of New Jersey, we will not forget, we will not forgive, and we will find you.

Speaker 9 If someone's acting in self-defense, Why would they run? That's not someone acting in self-defense. That's somebody looking to get out of town after they committed a brutal homicide.

Speaker 39 It was such a relief that I was very grateful that they brought him back from Cuba. I wish they would have kept him there.

Speaker 6 With Ray now back on U.S. soil, police begin to search his small black duffel bag.
And hidden in there is something completely unexpected.

Speaker 54 The very first page where he begins to speak about the actual incident does take us into the mind of a killer.

Speaker 6 Could this be the diary of a killer?

Speaker 6 When James Ray finds himself in custody back in the U.S., amongst his meager possessions are a wad of cash, a change of clothes, a road atlas, and most curiously, an 18-page handwritten journal.

Speaker 6 It's part memoir, part spy thriller.

Speaker 6 The former police officer and Marine detailing for the first time the full version of what he says happened the day he killed his live-in girlfriend Angela Bledsoe.

Speaker 27 In his handwritten journal, he lays out a version of events after dropping his daughter off at school on the morning of October 22nd, 2018.

Speaker 6 His story was what?

Speaker 9 His story was that they together dropped off their child at school that morning and on their way home they began to talk about their relationship and in his words Angela was in a tirade.

Speaker 25 She began to get emotional and started talking about how no one in her family likes me. Then reflecting on what she called the worst years of her life because I called her lazy.

Speaker 27 Miss Bledsoe indicated that she was going to run errands. Thinking that he was alone in the house, he decided that it would be a good time for him to clean his guns.

Speaker 27 He took his guns out of his safe, went went downstairs, placed them on the coffee table, and then went to the bathroom. He heard Angela call out to him.

Speaker 27 Upon entering the living room, he saw her sitting there with a gun in her hand.

Speaker 7 And he said she went on a tirade, complaining about everything that was wrong with her relationship and wrong with him.

Speaker 54 The very first page where he begins to speak about the actual incident.

Speaker 6 He asked Catherine Ramselin, a forensic psychologist, to analyze Ray's journal.

Speaker 54 Leaving behind a narrative that they killed someone and spending the time, it's stunning. There's no sense of being disturbed by what he's done.
It's very calculated.

Speaker 54 There's a definite urge to control how exactly how people are going to understand this. James Ray's narrative does take us into the mind of a killer.

Speaker 25 As she continued to rant about all the dysfunctional things in our relationship with a weapon pointed at me and not hearing the words coming from my mouth. Put the gun down.
We can talk about it.

Speaker 25 I remember feeling nervous and scared and out of options.

Speaker 26 He said he very carefully kept eye contact with her, but tried to reach for a gun.

Speaker 7 To protect himself, he said he shot once in her direction. He thought he missed.

Speaker 27 He then ran back to the bathroom where he remained for several minutes, or what he describes as what felt like an eternity. Mr.

Speaker 27 Ray then exits the bathroom and follows the trail of blood leading from the living room to the kitchen.

Speaker 25 She was initially sitting up with the gun towards her side. Her head turned towards me as I took a step from the stove in her direction.
She lifted her arm and pointed at me again.

Speaker 25 Out of reaction, I fired in her direction and it seemed like I couldn't stop firing.

Speaker 27 He then fired multiple shots in her direction,

Speaker 27 ultimately killing her.

Speaker 6 Ray goes on to write that his intention after realizing that Angela's gone was to take his own life as well, except he had other things to do first.

Speaker 25 Left the house, only with plans to return to the house, lay next to Angela, and pull the trigger. However, I wanted to get Alana to a safe place and place her in the custody of my brother.

Speaker 54 He was going to lie down and shoot himself in the head, and he kept being distracted from this idea that he was going to kill himself too.

Speaker 6 After the murder, he is on the run. He's getting out of town.

Speaker 8 Yes, he's immediately getting out of town and getting out of the state.

Speaker 25 After the tragic course of events, a six-day road trip was underway to arrive at my planned destination of obscurity.

Speaker 9 He got a taxi to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Then he paid cash for that that cab ride.

Speaker 12 He knows to lose his car because he knows police will be looking for that car.

Speaker 12 Remember, this is an ex-cop. He's a lawyer.
He knows how the criminal investigation works. So he's being very methodical about what he's doing.

Speaker 6 Describing what he says he does after he leaves New Jersey, Ray's writings become even more bizarre, almost as if he's narrating a novel.

Speaker 7 While there was a manhunt for him, he was writing this, kind of like an adventure story. He writes that this should be published and half of the proceeds can go to my daughter.

Speaker 6 In the journal, names are changed. Ray calls himself Jack, Angela Mousie, and his young daughter, Snookums.
The Chronicle even has an apt title, On the Move.

Speaker 25 The taxi from New York Airport dropped Jack off in Philadelphia, Chinatown at 2 a.m.

Speaker 25 As he passed the block where homeless undertook shelter, Jack sought cover of police by blending in with the homeless to get some sleep.

Speaker 7 And he had the murder weapon and he dislodged various pieces and left them in different restrooms along the way. And then he went to a truck stop and started hitching rides.

Speaker 6 James, calling himself Jack, hitchhikes through multiple states into Mexico before ultimately making that ill-fated trip to Cuba.

Speaker 6 The once successful attorney at law, now running from it with just the clothes on his back.

Speaker 25 With little money available, Jack had to adopt a survivor's mentality, only focus on shelter, money, and food.

Speaker 12 I don't think James Ray ever thought he was coming back to face a court and a jury in Essex County, New Jersey.

Speaker 6 He chronicled so much of his escape and this story in a journal. How important was this journal to you in your case?

Speaker 9 It was extremely important. You compare it to the evidence that you have, and you're able to corroborate or contradict what he is claiming.

Speaker 6 Now charged with murder, James Ray is about to stand trial and his words wouldn't be the only ones coming back to haunt him.

Speaker 16 I enjoy going to the conference with my sister. It reminds me of what life that I could have had had I listened to her when I was in my 20s.

Speaker 6 Angela Bledzo was dead, but in some ways she was almost able to speak to you.

Speaker 9 Absolutely.

Speaker 6 There's a saying, the wheels of justice turn slowly. But in the case of James Ray, that was an understatement.

Speaker 6 It would take four and a half years before his high-profile case, delayed by the pandemic, would finally make it to this New Jersey courthouse.

Speaker 6 Weeks turn into months, turn into years. You were dealing with your grief and your broken heart.
And now you've got this trial that's facing you.

Speaker 6 How important was that to you to stay the course for the trial?

Speaker 50 Very important for our daughter until the trial came.

Speaker 56 Four years after Angela Bledsoe was shot and killed at her Montclair home, her boyfriend is now standing trial for murder.

Speaker 6 Every day, Angela's grief-stricken parents sit side by side in the New Jersey courtroom. Other family and friends of hers wear pins adorned with her picture to show their support.

Speaker 36 We were going to show up on a regular to make sure that they understood that we loved her, we're going to be here for her.

Speaker 15 We knew that this is going to be one of the biggest trials that happened in the state of New Jersey in a very, very long time.

Speaker 7 The prosecution's challenge is to demonstrate that he did not act in self-defense, that it was intentional.

Speaker 7 What was really interesting to me is that the jury is 14 with alternates and 10 of them are men. There's only four women on the jury.

Speaker 7 And that was pretty striking to me, especially since the victim is female.

Speaker 9 She was brutally gunned down by James Ray, the defendant seated here before you, in the home that they shared with their six-year-old daughter.

Speaker 44 Shell Miller, she is a pit bull. She stays on a case like a pit bull on a pork chop.
She really sunk her teeth into it.

Speaker 23 And while her body was bleeding out and getting cold from death,

Speaker 9 this attorney and former United States Marine

Speaker 9 was preparing for a life of obscurity

Speaker 23 in the hope of taking refuge in the non-extradining country of Cuba.

Speaker 6 Pitted against the prosecution is hard-nosed, brash New Jersey native, defense attorney Brooke Burnett.

Speaker 15 Brooke Barnett is a very successful lawyer. She's won many cases.
She does a lot of these high-profile cases.

Speaker 6 When confronted

Speaker 23 by Angela with a gun pointing directly at him, that he had no choice.

Speaker 21 but to shoot.

Speaker 7 She's really fiery, and Brooke made some really, like, big bombshell accusations.

Speaker 41 It was theater, really.

Speaker 9 Smeller, your next witness.

Speaker 23 They would call Robert Ray.

Speaker 14 Naturally, one of the first people prosecutors called to the stand, James Ray's brother, Robert.

Speaker 6 Testified against his own brother. He did.

Speaker 9 He did.

Speaker 23 Why did you feel you had to call the police?

Speaker 8 I didn't think anyone else had.

Speaker 26 If

Speaker 13 the contents of the letter were what were written in it, then

Speaker 23 the police needed to be called.

Speaker 15 It was riveting.

Speaker 13 People were like, oh my God.

Speaker 15 So I feel like there was a, I'm doing the right thing, but that's my brother. I think that first day with Robert Ray set the tone for the entire trial.

Speaker 6 Angela Bledzo was dead, but in some way she was almost able to speak to you. Absolutely.
Through text messages.

Speaker 9 Absolutely.

Speaker 23 Angela would complain that he was controlling and demeaning. He was sending her Bible verses on how a woman should be submissive to her man.

Speaker 14 Angela's sister, Lisa LeBoux, took the stand to read some of the text messages they exchanged in the months leading up to the shooting.

Speaker 23 What did she text you on October 12th, 2018 at 537 a.m.?

Speaker 36 She says, he's been up all night.

Speaker 1 I think, wonder if he went through my phone.

Speaker 6 When you were on the stand at one point, you read a text that your sister had sent you that had alarmed you.

Speaker 6 What did it say?

Speaker 36 Pretty much, I'm going to beat you up if I find that you're cheating.

Speaker 6 That's pretty scary stuff.

Speaker 15 Lisa LeBoud was asked to read excerpts from Angela's diary. She saw entries about how James Ray treated her.
She literally broke down in tears.

Speaker 16 I enjoy going to the conference with my sister.

Speaker 16 It reminds me of what the life, of what life

Speaker 37 that I could have had had I listened to her when I was in my 20s, I would have

Speaker 16 moved to Florida, purchased a very nice house, and built a practice.

Speaker 6 You became so emotional at some point they had to pause

Speaker 6 the court.

Speaker 6 What were you feeling at that moment?

Speaker 36 That just tore me apart.

Speaker 6 She was about to leave this relationship.

Speaker 9 No question.

Speaker 6 And he knew this.

Speaker 9 No question.

Speaker 6 He was not happy.

Speaker 9 No question.

Speaker 6 So there was your motive right there.

Speaker 9 One of our motives.

Speaker 27 It became very clear that there was not only motive evidence that would present a reason why Mr.

Speaker 27 Wray would want to kill Angela, there was also evidence that would directly refute his claim of self-defense that had been put forth in his handwritten journal. It really put together

Speaker 27 a very clear picture of what occurred.

Speaker 9 We hired an expert, a bloodstain pattern analysis expert, and he was critical to the case as well.

Speaker 6 Howard Ryan, who walked us through the crime scene analysis, testified for the prosecution.

Speaker 9 Is there any evidence that you could see from this crime scene that would support that handgun in the kitchen ever being in Angela Bledsoe's hand?

Speaker 8 No, I don't think it was ever in her hand.

Speaker 8 Based on the evidence, she was trying to get away, and he gunned her down from behind.

Speaker 6 That's not exactly self-defense.

Speaker 9 It's not self-defense.

Speaker 12 I think when the jury heard this forensics analysis, that said to them, There's no disputing the science here. We were all very curious to see how this gentleman is going to defend himself.

Speaker 6 That's when Brooke Barnett takes center stage.

Speaker 23 Angela had grown to hate, even despise, disdain for James.

Speaker 15 She was finding flaws, and it was working. So I believe at that point, the tides shifted.

Speaker 23 Angela was not controlled. Where does it show that James is controlling? If anything, she's the one who's on his heels.
Where are you? When are you coming back? How long are you going to be?

Speaker 23 No evidence of that.

Speaker 33 It started with a phone call in the early hours of the morning.

Speaker 51 911, what is the address to your emergency?

Speaker 33 A terrified woman tells the operator she's been kidnapped, assaulted, and that she's trapped in a room with her attacker.

Speaker 33 He's fallen asleep, so she quietly and ever so carefully finds his phone and calls for help.

Speaker 47 Is there any way you can get out of the building?

Speaker 26 I don't know. We're not looking at him.
I'm scared.

Speaker 33 This 911 call began began an investigation that would turn the town of Ashland into a crime scene.

Speaker 49 We've got something big going on here. The first thing that hit my mind is a monster.

Speaker 33 A new series from ABC Audio and 2020, The Hand in the Window. Out now, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 46 Fall is all about cozy comforts, but when you're prioritizing your health, it's easy to feel like you're missing out.

Speaker 46 With Hero Bread, you can enjoy all your your fall favorites because they're made with Hero Bread sliced bread loaves, tortillas, bagels, dinner rolls, and more.

Speaker 46 Try their all-new Hero noodles with 12 grams of protein and just 80 calories. You won't believe Hero Bread's options have 0 to 5 grams net carbs and are high fiber from the taste and texture.

Speaker 46 They've even got small batch drops of indulgent favorites like the popular Hero Croissant. And right now, Hero Bread is offering 10% off your order.
Go to Hero.co and use code FALL25 at checkout.

Speaker 46 That's fall25 at H-E-R-O.co. All figures are per serving of hero bread.
Contains 2 to 18 grams of fat per serving. See the product nutrition panels on hero.co for more information.

Speaker 6 For weeks, the prosecution has presented a parade of witnesses and strong incriminating evidence against James Ray.

Speaker 6 Now, it's the defense's turn, and Ray's fiery theatrical lawyer, Brooke Barnett goes on the offensive.

Speaker 23 This idea that he's there to try to control her prove it. So in the end that really shows a lot about his character ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 26 Angela had grown to hate,

Speaker 51 even despise.

Speaker 43 She had disdain for James.

Speaker 12 Brooke Barnett didn't hold back and it was shocking to everybody involved. You can hear gasps at times.

Speaker 12 She went right at those jurors trying to gain some kind of sympathy for her client and portraying Angela in a very negative light.

Speaker 6 While prosecutors framed Ray as controlling and jealous, asking about passwords to her phone.

Speaker 4 That my brother was frustrated because Angela wanted to move.

Speaker 6 Barnett paints Angela Bletzo as an opportunist, a woman involved with two men of means, Ray and Bakari Burns.

Speaker 23 She wanted to go to Florida to get her shot with Bakari Burns.

Speaker 17 I learned learned, kind of like with everyone else, like that Bakari was actually a person that she was involved with.

Speaker 6 49-year-old Burns, an Orlando, Florida city commissioner, and the man with whom Angela was having that affair, is called to the stand as a prosecution witness.

Speaker 7 Good morning, Angela, baby.

Speaker 23 I wish I was rolling over to give you a good morning kiss and some good morning.

Speaker 23 What did that mean, Bakari?

Speaker 5 It's a self-explanatory.

Speaker 35 Well, educate me.

Speaker 12 The defense was trying to show James Ray as a sympathetic figure and that's what they were doing here. Bakari Burns was having these exchanges with Angela Bledsoe.

Speaker 15 When Brooke Barnett was trying to paint the picture that Angela Bledsoe was this home wrecker, I'm looking around the room and every single day her parents sat on the left-hand side of the courtroom in the gallery and they're crying.

Speaker 15 One day it got so bad.

Speaker 13 It is an air motion.

Speaker 33 It does an air motion. I didn't have to make a motion.

Speaker 15 The father fainted. He had to be taken out of the court.

Speaker 6 How difficult was that for you to hear unsavory things about your daughter?

Speaker 13 It was very, very difficult.

Speaker 30 It seemed like you were victimized over a game.

Speaker 13 Over lies.

Speaker 30 And I used to sit there.

Speaker 13 Is this how the law acts?

Speaker 15 Two people who are sitting here suffering?

Speaker 36 Our family,

Speaker 36 for us to have to sit there and listen to that.

Speaker 36 And to be treated like we were, that really bothered us.

Speaker 6 Then you were cross-examined.

Speaker 33 Right.

Speaker 23 Meaning nobody, not you nor anyone else,

Speaker 23 you don't live with a couple, you don't really know what happens behind closed doors, correct?

Speaker 36 I wouldn't say nobody, so I don't agree to that.

Speaker 23 Well, did Angela know the ins and outs of your marital issues or problems between you and your husband?

Speaker 54 What problems?

Speaker 23 Oh, you have a perfect marriage?

Speaker 9 Objection, argumentative, judge.

Speaker 23 Objection as to argumentative sustained.

Speaker 36 I've never been in a courtroom like that before. And it was grueling.
And I had no idea it was going to be over a two-day period.

Speaker 23 Did she tell you how much she hated James, how much she despised him, how she wanted to spit in his food?

Speaker 36 She did say that she wanted to spit in his food. She couldn't stand it.

Speaker 23 You couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand it, right?

Speaker 36 I didn't like his behavior. No, absolutely not.

Speaker 14 The defense strategy appears to be twofold. Paint Angela in an unflattering light and put their own witness, a firearms expert, on the stand to rebut the state's crime scene analyst testimony.

Speaker 12 The defense has to put somebody on the stand who will corroborate what James Ray is saying.

Speaker 55 I came to a conclusion that his account was consistent with physical evidence that I looked at and with scientific things I know about shooting and shooting scenes and ballistics.

Speaker 12 I think from the start, Brooke Barnett and the defense took the tack that this was somewhat of a lackadaisical investigation by detectives.

Speaker 15 I didn't see it as fully until Murad Mohammed got on the stand.

Speaker 14 Detective Murad Mohammed was the lead investigator on the case.

Speaker 14 Barnett accused him of willful blindness for failing to speak to people Ray called on the day of the murder and failing to send Angela's cell phone for extraction.

Speaker 23 So, in this case, you did not obtain the telephone evidence from any of these witnesses because you did not feel that it was going to be valuable to your investigation.

Speaker 23 Is that your testimony, Detective?

Speaker 23 No.

Speaker 23 No, you didn't feel it important.

Speaker 21 Everything's important.

Speaker 23 But you didn't obtain any telephone evidence or complete telephone evidence in this case, correct?

Speaker 29 Yes.

Speaker 15 She was finding flaws and it was working. So I believe at that point, the tides shifted.

Speaker 6 As the trial went on,

Speaker 6 were you worried that he might be acquitted?

Speaker 36 There were concerns because all you need is reasonable doubt by one person.

Speaker 36 So yeah, that's kind of scary. And if you keep saying certain things enough, they're going to believe it.

Speaker 6 I'll stand for the entrance of the jurors.

Speaker 23 I submit that if we are to consider the only available account of what happened in the moments, the hours, and the days prior to James Ray being confronted with deadly force, then you must find James Ray not guilty.

Speaker 27 The evidence would show that this was a knowing and purposeful murder. I think Miss Miller did an excellent job in her summation.

Speaker 23 Defense said to you yesterday that I had the last word. Well, that's not true.

Speaker 23 You had the last word here.

Speaker 23 Then the state submits after all the evidence has been presented.

Speaker 9 That last word should be guilty.

Speaker 6 The jury finally gets the case. How worried were you about whether you were actually going to prevail?

Speaker 9 I felt very confident in the evidence that we presented to the jury.

Speaker 9 But there's always a risk in a domestic violence homicide such as this. Again, where there are no witnesses.

Speaker 6 But when the jury went out.

Speaker 9 Yeah, jury goes out. It's out of your control.

Speaker 6 Predominantly male jury. You don't know what they're going to decide.

Speaker 44 And after a seven-week trial, the jury took all of three hours to come back with the verdict, which is extraordinarily fast.

Speaker 6 How do you find on the charge of murder?

Speaker 23 On the charge of murder, we find the defendant Julie of murder.

Speaker 44 The verdict is in and the verdict is guilty. A jury decides James Ray killed Angela Bledsoe.
There was proof beyond a reasonable doubt in every sense of the word.

Speaker 5 The jurors having returned a verdict of guilty on all counts.

Speaker 12 As soon as that foreman said guilty, we looked at James Ray and there was no change. This was a stoic man through and through, emotionless to the end.

Speaker 6 You hear that guilty verdict.

Speaker 6 What goes through your mind and your heart?

Speaker 25 I felt relieved.

Speaker 13 I felt hurt.

Speaker 13 I kind of asked myself, who really won?

Speaker 13 Who won after what we have gone through?

Speaker 36 It's like, thank you, we're getting justice,

Speaker 36 but she's still not here.

Speaker 36 Like, it's like you're back to reality

Speaker 36 that she's not here.

Speaker 36 And it gives you a moment of satisfaction.

Speaker 36 But that feeling just comes back.

Speaker 36 Like,

Speaker 36 you're sad again.

Speaker 12 James Ray stood up. He said one or two words, which he whispered in the ear of his attorneys, and he was led away in handcuffs.
by the sheriff's officers back to his jail cell.

Speaker 6 But two days before Ray's sentencing, when it seems the Bledsoe family is about to find the justice they've been seeking, a bombshell. Does the murder conviction stand?

Speaker 12 It took only three hours of deliberations for this jury to come back with a verdict of guilty against James Ray.

Speaker 6 After nearly five long years, when it seems the Bledsoe family is finally about to see the justice they've been praying for. A shocking turn.

Speaker 6 On of all days, Father's Day.

Speaker 58 In New Jersey, a man who murdered his girlfriend was found dead in his jail cell. The Essex County prosecutor says James Ray was discovered overnight, not breathing.

Speaker 58 He was due to be sentenced later this week and faced the possibility of a life sentence.

Speaker 14 According to a statement released by the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, the cause and manner of Ray's death are unknown and an autopsy is pending.

Speaker 6 And in a stunning twist, Ray's death has a dramatic and unexpected impact on his conviction.

Speaker 14 If someone dies in custody before they've had a chance to be sentenced, it's not uncommon across the country for those charges to be dropped.

Speaker 6 Does the murder conviction stand?

Speaker 9 No, it doesn't. Actually,

Speaker 9 What happens is

Speaker 9 the case is likely to be dismissed.

Speaker 6 Dismissed? Yeah.

Speaker 37 After all of that.

Speaker 9 Technically, you're not convicted in the state of New Jersey until you're sentenced. So while the jury found him guilty, it's not concluded until a judgment of conviction is rendered by the court.

Speaker 14 This adds insult to injury for the Bledso's who feel cheated out of justice.

Speaker 40 There's not a day that goes by.

Speaker 13 That

Speaker 40 one day

Speaker 13 that Angie is on mine.

Speaker 40 Every day we think about that girl.

Speaker 31 I still hurt.

Speaker 6 I still hurt.

Speaker 31 As a father, I wasn't there to protect her.

Speaker 36 One day I told my husband, I said, you know, I could just go to sleep and not wake up because the pain and the sorrow, it's like you're just drowning, you know?

Speaker 6 But in the midst of all of this tragedy,

Speaker 6 a glimmer of hope.

Speaker 35 Their daughter is living her best fun preteen life down in Florida with her Aunt Lisa.

Speaker 36 And I'm going to make sure she has everything that she needs. And she's like a daughter to me.

Speaker 17 She's super smart, just like Angela was.

Speaker 17 She says she's doing extremely well in school, straight A student, coping well.

Speaker 6 Do you like the kids at school?

Speaker 13 Yeah, they're nice.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I had a chance to spend some time with Alana in New York City recently. She told me about her life as a cheerleader.
She's now in seventh grade.

Speaker 6 In spite of all of that loss, remarkably, she's thriving.

Speaker 36 Angela loved her so much.

Speaker 36 Angela and I used to talk about cardinals, like red birds, all the time.

Speaker 13 And whenever I think of her,

Speaker 34 one always appears outside of my kitchen window.

Speaker 6 Do you find yourself talking to Angie?

Speaker 6 In your thoughts and your prayers?

Speaker 13 in my dreams

Speaker 13 I do

Speaker 30 I had a dream that she grabbed my hand I grabbed her hand and I said Angie Angie don't go

Speaker 30 and she said

Speaker 13 she said I got to go I can't stay

Speaker 30 and she floated on away

Speaker 6 As I sat there with that family, there was so much emotion, but there could be a bit of closure coming for them, David.

Speaker 5 I know the prosecutor has told you that she hopes the judge will still hear the victim impact statements, and of course, we'll stay on this. That is our program for tonight.

Speaker 34 I'm David Muir.

Speaker 6 And I'm Deborah Roberts from All of Us here at 2020 and ABC News.

Speaker 37 Good night.

Speaker 45 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 49 I know there's going to be a twist, won't they? A massive twist. At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover-up in this case.

Speaker 45 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.