The Black Widow

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Speaker 3 Statements show that on March 13th, 2003,

Speaker 3 David Lee was killed by a single gunshot wound to his forehead.

Speaker 7 County 911. Help me! Help me! My husband shot himself!

Speaker 5 The report on the 9-1-1 call was that he had shot himself.

Speaker 10 Gentleman's laying in a bed, guns laying beside him.

Speaker 10 Look right here. Here's another hole.
He fires more than once. Look right above his head there.

Speaker 10 There's also a shot into the bed, which is a little suspicious in itself.

Speaker 5 There was more than one shot.

Speaker 9 And while that's not unheard of.

Speaker 5 Well, it didn't look like a suicide scene.

Speaker 4 And the state will show that the person who delivered that fatal blow was the defendant, Raynella Leif.

Speaker 5 He was shot almost in the middle of his forehead, but right above his left eye.

Speaker 3 There were no signs of forced entry. There were no signs of a struggle.
And there was no one else at the residence but the defendant.

Speaker 11 Can you connect Raynella to that weapon? Fingerprints. Anyone see or pick up the gun? No.
To any of the bullets that were used in that gun? No. That's a problem, isn't it, in this case?

Speaker 12 Everything good about this woman was twisted.

Speaker 8 Everything good about this woman was turned around to be evil. There's not any

Speaker 4 real evidence to suggest a homicide.

Speaker 7 And if I were to pull the trigger in this direction, I could strike myself the left eyebrow.

Speaker 9 Am I right?

Speaker 13 Yes, you could.

Speaker 16 There was only one person who wanted to harm David, and at that point it was David. He was acting suicidal.

Speaker 14 And he makes his decision and he takes aim.

Speaker 6 He's a great lawyer.

Speaker 5 He's super prepared. Fantastic lawyer.
Fantastic. He's a bad actor.

Speaker 17 I just tried to focus on the evidence and where that was leading me.

Speaker 18 It was hard for me to determine.

Speaker 15 You'll tell me if that's approximately one foot.

Speaker 18 Where we were going with certain things and trying to piece those things together.

Speaker 19 To decide each line is an individual stain.

Speaker 17 But you're not making a decision just by yourself. You're making a decision as a group.

Speaker 20 This is a decision never to be taken lightly and I assure you that this court takes this responsibility very seriously.

Speaker 20 As a senior judge, most every case that I try is somewhat controversial. Now in this case it's kind of simple.
If it was a homicide, did the evidence show that Raynella Leith committed the homicide?

Speaker 19 Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

Speaker 5 I really could not believe what he was saying as he said it.

Speaker 4 You're not quite sure if this is really where this is going.

Speaker 20 I personally

Speaker 20 have studied

Speaker 20 every shred of evidence or testimony just like you have.

Speaker 6 Oh, I gotta breathe.

Speaker 5 No matter where we think we're going here, that can't be how this ends.

Speaker 2 48 Hours, The Widow on Salway Road.

Speaker 22 I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God,

Speaker 22 indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Speaker 11 Inside this courthouse in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Speaker 20 Let the record reflect that all the juror laws are in the box

Speaker 20 and

Speaker 21 all parties are present.

Speaker 11 A real-life drama is taking place that rivals any southern gothic novel.

Speaker 14 I'm Josh Hedrick.

Speaker 6 We haven't met yet before, have we? No, we haven't.

Speaker 4 It's a pleasure.

Speaker 23 This is not a story that would happen in a sleepy New England town. It's too southern.

Speaker 17 She would bring her a rose once a week, and they would go out to dinner.

Speaker 23 There is the

Speaker 23 gentility.

Speaker 4 With your permission, I'll remove my coat because I had some difficulty with it previously.

Speaker 23 And underneath that very respectable surface,

Speaker 23 it seems like everything's rotting to the core.

Speaker 3 Unless you really know what's inside somebody's mind,

Speaker 14 if I were to then place it here,

Speaker 14 you don't really know why they do what they do, do you?

Speaker 11 Best-selling author Diane Fanning has written about this case and the players.

Speaker 23 This is something that a fiction writer would write about.

Speaker 14 Give us your name, please, ma'am.

Speaker 7 Rainella Leith.

Speaker 11 Rainella Leith, a 68-year-old grandmother, is at the center of this extraordinary tale.

Speaker 19 Have you decided whether or not you wish to testify in your trial?

Speaker 16 I do not wish to testify.

Speaker 7 Very well.

Speaker 23 You've got an unbelievable character. There were people she knew in college who said,

Speaker 11 well, she was great.

Speaker 23 She was a lot of fun. As long as you didn't cross her.

Speaker 11 And ever since 2003, the former nurse has been the prime suspect in the death of her second husband, David Leith.

Speaker 7 Help me.

Speaker 22 Help me.

Speaker 22 My husband thought himself.

Speaker 11 It was Raynella's 911 call on the morning of March 13th, 2003, that sent police rushing to the Leith home

Speaker 10 this is Detective Morians for the Sheriff's Department we're out on a

Speaker 10 possible suicide gunshot wound

Speaker 11 these are audio and video recordings made by police at the scene no sign of a nose or anything laying around anywhere

Speaker 11 Listen to investigators as they begin wondering about that death called in as a suicide.

Speaker 10 The guns laying next to his left hand, which is curled underneath me.

Speaker 10 We got three fired rounds. What I have a problem with is one is where the round's at and the way he's laying.

Speaker 10 I'm not saying it stinks, I'm just saying it's strange.

Speaker 11 Detectives wanted to establish where Raynella had been all morning, and she agreed to talk the only time she's spoken on the record.

Speaker 11 She remembers watching television with her husband, David, that morning before leaving his breakfast on the nightstand.

Speaker 22 kissed me goodbye

Speaker 22 and he said,

Speaker 22 if I'm not here when you get back, I'll be at the wire.

Speaker 22 I said, okay.

Speaker 11 It was close to 9.30, she says, when she headed to the hospital to visit her mother-in-law.

Speaker 22 Just call fourth floor. They can tell you more about my career.

Speaker 11 When she arrived home shortly after 11, she found her husband laying in a bloody bed with a gunshot to his head.

Speaker 22 I could tell something was wrong when I looked at him. I mean,

Speaker 22 I've worked in an emergency room for,

Speaker 22 I know. What did he keep it going?

Speaker 22 I don't know where that gun is from. I've never seen that gun in my whole life.

Speaker 11 The gun was believed to have belonged to David's parents.

Speaker 11 David's sudden death left Raynella a grieving widow. for the second time.
Her first husband, Ed Dossett, had died 11 years earlier.

Speaker 11 Raynella and Ed met at East Tennessee State University, where she was on the rifle team and studying to be a nurse. He planned to go to law school.
What drew those two together?

Speaker 23 Raynella was such a confident woman. She had presence.
And I think that Ed was really drawn to that.

Speaker 11 They married and moved to Ed's 165-acre family farm in the tight-knit community of Solway, just outside Knoxville, where they raised cattle

Speaker 11 and three children, Maggie, Eddie Jr., and Katie.

Speaker 23 Raynella was extremely protective of her children.

Speaker 11 They became the power couple in town when Ed was elected Knox County District Attorney General. Raynella was director of nursing at Park West Hospital.

Speaker 11 But their lives took a tragic turn when at the age of 43, Ed was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Nine months later, he died, not from his illness, but in a freak farming accident.

Speaker 11 But Raynella wasn't a widow for long. Six months later, she shot friends and family when she remarried.
David Leith was a local barber and Ed Dossett's best friend and neighbor.

Speaker 25 She fixed his food and started his car in the morning, and she just treated him like a king.

Speaker 11 David's daughter, Cindy Wilkerson, and his cousin, Beth Roberts, say the whirlwind romance was all the talk in Salway. What do you think he saw in Raynella?

Speaker 24 She's charming. I said to my mother I thought he had hit the jackpot with this girl because she was so pretty and so interesting.
I just thought this is going to be a great fit.

Speaker 11 But Raynella's newfound happiness was short-lived. Less than two years after she remarried, her 11-year-old son was killed in a car crash.

Speaker 25 She was very sad and very, very heartbroken.

Speaker 11 Cindy says she began seeing changes in Raynella and her father's relationship.

Speaker 25 They didn't seem as happy as they were when they first got married.

Speaker 11 Five years later, more heartbreak. David was hospitalized.
He began seeing a neurologist for signs of dementia and depression.

Speaker 11 In early 2003, Raynella says David's behavior became more erratic. Concerned, she began making notes in a private journal.
On January 19th, she wrote, Dave hateful today. I cried and cried.

Speaker 11 Three days later, things hadn't improved. Dave hateful, controlling, his way or no way.
I cried. Seven weeks after writing those words, David was dead.

Speaker 11 What did you think had happened to your dad?

Speaker 25 Somebody had shot him, but I knew that he didn't do it.

Speaker 11 Do you miss your dad?

Speaker 25 Every day.

Speaker 11 Every haircut, every styling in the middle chair at this Knoxville barbershop reminds Cindy Wilkerson of her father, David Leith.

Speaker 11 It's the same chair he used for 39 years.

Speaker 25 My dad was fun, loving, caring,

Speaker 25 and it's a joy to use the same chair he did.

Speaker 11 Cindy inherited the chair in 2000 when her father suddenly retired at the age of 54.

Speaker 11 What he kept secret were all those visits to the neurologist. If he was suicidal over dementia, Cindy never saw it.

Speaker 11 When Raynella said, your dad committed suicide, did you initially think, well, well, maybe he did, but it's just hard to believe?

Speaker 25 No, I never did think that my dad was scared to death of guns, and I knew that he couldn't have done that.

Speaker 11 And Cindy questioned why her right-handed father would have used his left hand to shoot himself above his left eye.

Speaker 25 He was totally blind out of that eye.

Speaker 11 As her doubt soared, so did her suspicions about her stepmother's role. And she wasn't alone.
Within 24 hours, Dr.

Speaker 11 Darinka Malucenik, the Knox County medical examiner, discounted Raynella's claim of suicide and ruled David Lee's death a homicide. Raynella became the focus of attention.

Speaker 11 It was clear to David's family what should happen next.

Speaker 24 Investigation, indictment,

Speaker 13 trial.

Speaker 11 But it doesn't.

Speaker 24 No, not even close.

Speaker 11 Remember, Rainella was the widow of a district attorney general. Crime writer and 48 Hours consultant Diane Fanning says that was the problem.

Speaker 23 Almost everybody working in that office either worked with Ed, knew Ed, or knew Ranella. There was a conflict of interest.

Speaker 11 Finding an outside prosecutor to take the Leth case dragged on, making things more difficult, no one could figure out the motive.

Speaker 23 Murder doesn't always make sense.

Speaker 23 Cindy was becoming more and more frustrated. She wanted something to be done about her father's murder.

Speaker 11 With the criminal case stalled, in March 2006, Cindy filed a civil suit against Raynella to stop her from inheriting David's estate. Prosecutors took notice.

Speaker 11 Three and a half years after David Lee's death, Raynella was charged with his murder. And that's when old suspicions surfaced about the death of her first husband.

Speaker 11 Ed Dossett had been found in a field in July 1992, surrounded by his cattle. He had apparently been trampled to death.
Did anyone wonder about how Ed Dossett died?

Speaker 6 Yes, the reports were an agricultural accident.

Speaker 24 But some folks in the community had a problem with that scenario.

Speaker 8 Ed grew up on a farm.

Speaker 24 For him to have been trampled by his own cattle, That just didn't make sense.

Speaker 11 What's more, folks wondered how Ed, weak with cancer and heavily medicated, even managed to get all the way from his house to the cattle.

Speaker 23 He died in a way that almost sounded like something you'd hear on a soap opera.

Speaker 11 Diane Fanning says there had been a theory going around Salway that Dossett's death was actually about insurance.

Speaker 11 Raynella and the kids would get a bigger payout if it was an accident instead of cancer. It might have even even been Ed Dossett's idea himself, couldn't it have been?

Speaker 23 It could have been Ed Dossett's idea, and that's what stopped some of the other people from wanting to pursue it.

Speaker 23 Because if Ed knew he was about to die, but he wanted his family to be more secure financially, he might have said, take me out there.

Speaker 23 Let the cows tromp on me.

Speaker 11 Nearly a year after Raynella was charged with David Lees' murder, the same medical examiner who ruled that death a homicide reviewed Ed Dossett's file. Dr.

Speaker 11 Malucenik determined it wasn't cattle that killed him, it was a morphine overdose.

Speaker 11 It was a huge story. The widow of a district attorney general was now charged with murdering two husbands.

Speaker 23 Rainella was now being described as a black widow.

Speaker 11 Even though she had never gone to trial on any death.

Speaker 23 No, it was just suspicions were gathering around her.

Speaker 11 Which is why Diane Fanning called her book, Her Deadly Web.

Speaker 11 Is it possible that Raynella Leith is just a very unlucky woman?

Speaker 27 Yeah,

Speaker 23 but coincidence makes me itchy.

Speaker 11 Prosecutors decide to try her for David Leith's murder first. In 2009, six years after his death, Rainella finally went on trial.
But it turns out that was only the beginning. The jury deadlocked.

Speaker 24 11 to 1.

Speaker 11 11 to 1 to convict. The judge was forced to declare a mistrial.

Speaker 24 It was here in Knox County, so it wasn't shocking to me.

Speaker 11 A year later, Raynella was back in court for trial number two.

Speaker 11 The case was the same,

Speaker 11 but this time jurors were unanimous. Rainella was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Speaker 25 I felt like justice had been served and

Speaker 25 I was happy.

Speaker 11 So were prosecutors.

Speaker 11 With Raynella behind bars, They dropped the murder charges for the death of her first husband, Ed Dossett, never expecting what came next.

Speaker 24 I would describe her as lucky.

Speaker 24 Very lucky.

Speaker 11 After she served six years, Raynella's conviction was tossed out.

Speaker 11 The reason? The trial judge had been seriously impaired with a drug addiction and was kicked off the bench. What was your reaction when you heard the verdict had been overturned?

Speaker 25 I was devastated.

Speaker 25 Couldn't believe it.

Speaker 11 14 years after the death of David Leith.

Speaker 20 Call the jury in, please.

Speaker 11 It's now trial number three.

Speaker 3 Status showed it on March.

Speaker 11 And prosecutor Steve Crump's turn to try Raynella Leith. Is there a way to describe this case?

Speaker 5 Snake bit,

Speaker 5 because what can go wrong will go wrong.

Speaker 11 It's May 2017.

Speaker 11 Everyone is ready.

Speaker 11 The trial, one of the last of senior judge Paul Summers' career,

Speaker 11 is set to begin.

Speaker 11 First to present, District Attorney General Steve Crump, in what all sides hope will be the last trial in this case.

Speaker 4 The person who delivered that fatal blow was the defendant, Raynella Leaf.

Speaker 11 He argues Raynella's murderous plan unraveled the moment she fired that first shot and missed.

Speaker 5 Once she missed, it changed the whole dynamic. She ended his life with that second shot and then in an attempt to cover up, she fired that third shot to get gunshot residue on him.

Speaker 11 You're describing a pretty cold-blooded killer.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 5 That's what I think she is.

Speaker 28 We'll show you what's been marked previously as Exhibit 36 and ask if you can identify that.

Speaker 11 For the prosecution, the gun, a Colt 38 police special revolver, reveals some of the most important clues.

Speaker 28 May I step down?

Speaker 11 Don Carmen is a former Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent.

Speaker 4 Like I say, it's a very old, simple, farm, however, very effective.

Speaker 11 This picture of the cylinder was taken at the scene. The three fired rounds have small indentations or hammer strikes in the center of the casing.
The unfired rounds do not.

Speaker 28 For each particular shot, it goes to the next chamber.

Speaker 20 As you look at it right now, it's going clockwise.

Speaker 5 Yes, Your Honor.

Speaker 11 Prosecutors say that clockwise rotation of the cylinder tells the order of the shots.

Speaker 28 The first cartridge fired would be this one. The second

Speaker 28 would be this one.

Speaker 28 And the third would be this one.

Speaker 11 The first two cartridges are from Silver Remington bullets. Fragments of those were found in the wall and David Leith's head.
But the third is different.

Speaker 11 It's a gold Winchester found shot through the mattress.

Speaker 11 If that gold bullet was fired last, as the prosecution believes, that means it came after David Leith was already shot in the head, severing his brainstem.

Speaker 11 Knox County Medical Examiner, Dr. Darinka Malucenik.

Speaker 3 Was David Leith

Speaker 4 in any way capable of any sort of voluntary movement after that bullet transected his brain?

Speaker 29 None whatsoever.

Speaker 11 Next, prosecutors turn to the blood spatter. These round drops of blood on the wall tell investigators that David's head had to be raised nearly a foot above the mattress when the bullet was fired.

Speaker 5 The only way that all of this works together is that if Renella Leith is standing at the side of the bed and she misses with that first shot, and we know that the first shot was the one that went into the headboard, he raises up.

Speaker 5 The second shot occurs and he falls straight back down to where he was found.

Speaker 3 You cannot lay in this bed and face that direction and get that blood spatter on the wall.

Speaker 7 Blood doesn't turn corners.

Speaker 11 But the defense insists that the same evidence points to David Leith as the shooter.

Speaker 14 Multiple shock suicides

Speaker 13 are not impossible.

Speaker 8 They happen.

Speaker 11 Rainoa's team consists of Knoxville criminal attorney Josh Hedrick, along with Rebecca Legrand, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer with a background in science.

Speaker 16 She was taking care of a sick husband who she loved, and for that to get twisted into what it did is upsetting.

Speaker 16 She's got hope that the justice system isn't so broken that it won't eventually realize the truth, which is that she's an innocent woman.

Speaker 11 With no clear motive presented by the state, the defense starts with those three shots.

Speaker 14 Each and every one of these shots could have been accomplished by David Leith himself.

Speaker 11 And then raises doubts to Don Carmen about the order of those three shots.

Speaker 14 You don't know for certain whether the gun was opened or the cartridges manipulated prior to that photo being taken.

Speaker 6 I do not. And as a result, you're unable to say with any degree of scientific certainty what order the shots were fired in.

Speaker 28 That's correct, because in my discipline, they would be not testable.

Speaker 11 But even if the prosecution's order of shots is correct, Kentucky State Medical Examiner and defense consultant Dr. Greg Davis says David Leith still could have been the shooter.

Speaker 12 I'll give it to you. It's unusual.
But to say because of that, it has to be a homicide, I just can't can't go that far. There is a phenomenon called cadaveric spasm where a person can actually,

Speaker 12 their hands can squeeze immediately upon death.

Speaker 11 What would you have ruled this?

Speaker 12 I would have ruled this undetermined.

Speaker 11 Which is what he believes Dr. Malucinik should have done in this case.
Remember, within 24 hours of David Lee's death, Dr. Malucinik called it a homicide.

Speaker 11 She had not yet seen records from his neurologist or received a complete medical history.

Speaker 4 Didn't have toxicology, didn't have ballistics, didn't have medical records.

Speaker 8 It went from,

Speaker 4 can we figure out what happened, to can we prove this was a homicide.

Speaker 11 In a previous trial, Dr. Malucinik testified that medications found in David's system would have rendered him, and I quote, incapacitated.
In other words, he would have been unable to kill himself.

Speaker 11 But in trial number three, Dr. Malucinik did not repeat that claim.

Speaker 16 I'm glad that she reassessed and didn't try to make the same claims about toxicology at the third trial, but it's six years too late for my client.

Speaker 11 Dr. Malucinik declined 48 Hours' requests for an interview.
But in Raynella's third trial, she stands firm that David Lee's death was a homicide.

Speaker 30 I was very confident, and 14 years later, I'm even more so confident, yes.

Speaker 11 Dr. Davis, can you say unequivocally that she didn't kill her husband?

Speaker 12 No, I cannot.

Speaker 11 But there's not enough evidence to say she did.

Speaker 13 Right.

Speaker 12 As a forensic pathologist, at least on the evidence that I've been privy to, there's no way on earth I think she's guilty.

Speaker 11 But there is information Dr. Davis was not privy to.

Speaker 24 If anybody has any doubts as to whether David was murdered by Ranella, maybe they need to talk to Steve Walker.

Speaker 9 Well, I see a killer because she tried to kill me.

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Speaker 11 In a final and dramatic attempt to convince a jury of suicide, the defense brings the blood-stained bed to the courtroom, still preserved.

Speaker 33 If the record could reflect, I'm pointing to the hole in the middle of the headboard.

Speaker 11 Defense forensic expert Celia Hartnett

Speaker 11 shows jurors how David Leith could have fired all three shots.

Speaker 7 If I were to lie in bed and I were to aim at my head and pull the trigger and miss hide

Speaker 7 and create this.

Speaker 29 Yes.

Speaker 1 And then, frustrated that I've missed,

Speaker 33 sat up

Speaker 20 and pulled the trigger.

Speaker 6 It would enter my head here.

Speaker 29 Yes.

Speaker 28 And then if I fell

Speaker 14 and my hand squeezed again,

Speaker 7 it would be consistent with this direction.

Speaker 11 Not just with the direction, but also with the distance.

Speaker 16 We're not saying we know exactly what happened. We're just saying we know there are multiple ways that all of this makes sense that don't have anything to do with a homicide.

Speaker 16 There was only one person who wanted to harm David and at that point it was David. He was acting with his physicians

Speaker 16 suicidal.

Speaker 11 He's becoming useless.

Speaker 3 And a proud man doesn't want to be useless.

Speaker 11 But for the prosecution, the most incriminating evidence isn't at the crime scene.

Speaker 11 It's at the barber shop, where Raynella called Cindy Wilkerson on the morning of the shooting.

Speaker 11 Raynella had already left David at home. She made the call from Park West Hospital, where she was visiting David's mother.

Speaker 25 She asked me if I had seen my dad and that he had went to work out on an empty stomach.

Speaker 11 Was that normal?

Speaker 25 No, she never called me at work.

Speaker 3 That was the first indication on March 13th, 2003,

Speaker 3 that anything was unusual about David Lee.

Speaker 11 the prosecution says the call was part of raynella's elaborate alibi to prove she wasn't at home with david but they say she miscalculated

Speaker 11 remember raynella told police she put breakfast by the bed and left the house around 9 30.

Speaker 11 she made the call to cindy just 20 minutes later

Speaker 5 There would have been no reason to say, have you seen him? There would have been no reason to ask if he'd worked out.

Speaker 5 And there certainly would have been no reason to say he didn't eat his breakfast because there's no way she could have known that unless she'd been there and unless the only reason she knew he hadn't eaten breakfast was because he was dead.

Speaker 3 Have you seen your father today?

Speaker 11 That's the question the prosecution once burned into jurors' minds as both sides make their final case.

Speaker 3 It's the only explanation. Ranella Lee is guilty of the first-degree premeditated homicide of David Lee.

Speaker 7 We can't say that the facts exclude the theory that David Leith shot himself as I demonstrated for you.

Speaker 14 Be as diligent as you have been since we started and to return a verdict of not guilty, murder David Leith.

Speaker 11 As all eyes turn to the jury, there are things about Raynella Leith they'll never hear.

Speaker 11 They don't know about Ed Dossett. And they don't know about Steve Walker.

Speaker 27 I'm a crouton on a real big salad here, here, and this is a big salad in this town.

Speaker 11 Steve Walker's ex-wife was Ed Dossett's secretary. Their relationship, as it turns out, was more than just professional.

Speaker 11 In 1995, three years after Ed's death, Steve found out during divorce proceedings that the son he raised was actually Ed Dossett's biological child. It came as a terrible shock to Steve and Raynella.

Speaker 11 I mean, in some ways, you felt that you were on her side.

Speaker 27 Raynella's, yes, I thought we were on the same team.

Speaker 11 He could not have been more wrong. According to a police report filed by Raynella, on the morning of May 26th of that year, she found Steve, quote, acting psychotic near Ed's grave on the farm.

Speaker 11 She told police she began firing warning shots into the ground to chase him away and that Steve then took the weapon and fled on foot.

Speaker 11 But when Steve filed his own report, he told a very different story.

Speaker 11 He says that same morning, Raynella picked him up at the auto shop where he works and drove him to the farm to talk about the affair.

Speaker 6 Till I seen the gun, we was as friendly as me and you right now.

Speaker 11 When they got to Raynella's barn, Steve says she suddenly pulled out a revolver. In a police interview, Steve told investigators Raynella then said, I'll kill you, you son of a bitch.

Speaker 11 Then I'll raise the sun.

Speaker 6 She had a tail around her hands, and she comes up with it and starts shooting.

Speaker 11 But the former marksman missed.

Speaker 11 Steve started running, but tripped and fell.

Speaker 27 I'm defenseless.

Speaker 6 She said, I used to be a better shot there, but I can hit you from here.

Speaker 6 And she aimed that gun, and I closed my eyes.

Speaker 27 She pulled the trigger.

Speaker 6 I knew I was gone.

Speaker 11 But the gun

Speaker 11 was out of bullets.

Speaker 27 There's no doubt in my mind.

Speaker 6 If she hadn't run out of bullets, I'd be dead.

Speaker 11 The police believed Steve Walker's story, and Raynella was arrested and charged with attempted murder. But she took a deal and pled guilty to a lesser charge of assault.

Speaker 11 After six years, her record was cleared. Why would she plead guilty?

Speaker 16 It's the same thing I would have told her.

Speaker 23 Is

Speaker 16 this a plea that will get expunged? There is no jail time. Take this deal and walk away.

Speaker 11 Raynella Leith did walk away.

Speaker 3 And I thank you for your time and attention.

Speaker 14 And Ms. Leith thanks you for your time and attention.

Speaker 11 22 years later, she's hoping to walk away again.

Speaker 11 But as the jurors are ready to have their voices heard, as jurors, you are the ones that will decide the case.

Speaker 11 Something happens that no one sees coming.

Speaker 17 If you can picture, like, a cartoon, you know, of someone's jaw hitting the floor.

Speaker 20 Thank you.

Speaker 17 I really, really tried to pay attention and took notes, so I was really looking forward to deliberating.

Speaker 11 With her daughter by her side, Raynella Leith arrives at court for the final time.

Speaker 20 Let the record reflect that all parties are present in the courtroom, including the defendant.

Speaker 11 Before the jurors can decide her fate,

Speaker 11 there's just one more piece of business. If it pleased the court.
It's a defense motion called a Rule 29.

Speaker 14 Pursuant to Rule 29.

Speaker 11 A routine request made in nearly every trial to throw out the case for lack of evidence. In most cases, the judge simply denies the motion and gives the jurors the case.

Speaker 21 Only two words are required, either motion granted or motion denied.

Speaker 11 But then, like so many times in the story of Raynella Leith,

Speaker 11 something completely unexpected happens.

Speaker 20 In short, the state has failed to meet their burden. The defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal is granted.
The defendant, Raynella Leith, is not guilty.

Speaker 20 The case against Raynella Leith is dismissed.

Speaker 11 Not guilty.

Speaker 11 The judge on his own acquits Raynella Leith of murder. After 14 years of suspicion, six years behind bars, and three hard-fought trials just like that.

Speaker 11 It's all over

Speaker 11 as the defense celebrates. She's free.

Speaker 20 She's done.

Speaker 13 The end.

Speaker 11 David Lee's daughter, Cindy, sits stunned. The prosecution does too.

Speaker 5 I don't understand it. I don't have an explanation.

Speaker 11 And under Tennessee law, there's no appeal either because the judge made his extremely rare decision before the jury began deliberations.

Speaker 11 These jurors, initially shocked,

Speaker 11 become angry.

Speaker 5 We were just used.

Speaker 19 I mean, they just used us as set pieces pretty much.

Speaker 12 If Judge Summers was so convinced that he was right about the evidence, why not let us deliberate it?

Speaker 11 And how do you explain that?

Speaker 20 I can't.

Speaker 17 Only Judge Summers can.

Speaker 11 So we asked Judge Summers, now retired, to make his case to 48 hours. And he agreed.

Speaker 20 Strictly based on the evidence that I heard on both sides, but particularly on the state side, if I'd have been the district attorney general, I would not have brought the case to trial.

Speaker 11 Did you choose to do this to end this case, to finally end this case? Yes.

Speaker 6 You did.

Speaker 13 I did.

Speaker 20 When I realized the evidence was legally insufficient, I decided to end this case by doing my job. and granting the motion for judgment of acquittal.

Speaker 11 Judge Summers believed that there was enough evidence for the jury to decide a homicide may have occurred, but he was convinced the prosecution didn't meet its burden to prove that Raynella Leith had the time or the opportunity to commit it.

Speaker 21 There was no gunshot residue found on her clothes or around her.

Speaker 20 She had an alibi that the state could not prove the time of death. The evidence was clearly insufficient to show that she was the perpetrator of the crime.
And finally,

Speaker 20 there was no evidence to show that she was even the last person ever to see David Leith alive.

Speaker 11 If you were so sure that there wasn't enough evidence for the jury to convict her beyond a reasonable doubt, wouldn't the jury have come to the same conclusion?

Speaker 20 I was simply doing my job, not trying to pass the book to the jury.

Speaker 11 Judges sometimes make these extraordinary decisions when they fear jurors might be swayed by emotion and not evidence. And that may have been a factor in this case.

Speaker 11 While we will never know for sure what the whole jury would have done,

Speaker 6 we have a clue.

Speaker 11 If you had gotten to vote, how would you have voted?

Speaker 6 Guilty.

Speaker 11 How would you have voted? Guilty. How would you have voted?

Speaker 21 Guilty.

Speaker 11 Do you feel Raynella Leith got away with murder?

Speaker 18 I absolutely feel she got away with murder.

Speaker 11 For William McMichael, Jesse Capps, and Michael Persicano, it was the gun that pointed to Raynella as the killer.

Speaker 17 There's no way David Leith fired that third shot.

Speaker 11 And you don't believe the defense witness who said, well, you can have this spasm after death that pulled the trigger the third time?

Speaker 12 That's fantasy.

Speaker 11 What most convinced you, Jesse, that this wasn't just a murder, but that Raynella Leith was the one who killed her husband.

Speaker 34 When Joshua Hedrick was sitting on that bed and he was twirling that cylinder on that gun,

Speaker 34 a burden to my family. It was just so corny.

Speaker 3 A proud man doesn't want to be a burden.

Speaker 12 It was fake.

Speaker 34 He was trying so hard.

Speaker 6 After that, I was like, all right,

Speaker 34 they're trying so hard that it's so obvious now.

Speaker 11 It wasn't just these three. They say shortly after the judge's decision, a majority of jurors gathered near the courthouse and came to the same conclusion.

Speaker 11 Admittedly, they did not deliberate, but they would have found her guilty.

Speaker 11 Does that make it worse?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I guess so in some ways, but in another sense, it tells me I did the right thing.

Speaker 9 And more importantly, our work as trial attorneys was spot on.

Speaker 11 For David Lee's family, it's little consolation.

Speaker 24 He stole that verdict from the family, from the prosecution, from the jury. It was a theft.

Speaker 11 Some in this town will always call her a black widow. But for Raynella Leith, none of that matters.

Speaker 26 How do you feel?

Speaker 29 Raynella, how do you feel? Do you want to talk to us?

Speaker 11 Because as she leaves courtroom number two.

Speaker 11 How are you doing, Raynella?

Speaker 25 You guys weren't worried about her before, so leave her alone now.

Speaker 11 She walks away a free woman.

Speaker 33 Do you have anything to say? Please leave them all alone.

Speaker 11 Did it cross your mind you might be letting a killer go free?

Speaker 20 You know, there's a difference between being not guilty and being innocent. If the state does not prove its case, they are found not guilty.
It doesn't say that they're innocent.

Speaker 11 So, you're not saying that Raynella Leith is innocent. You're saying

Speaker 11 not guilty.

Speaker 20 There are two entities of which I'm aware

Speaker 20 that know the answer to that question:

Speaker 21 one

Speaker 6 is the good Lord above,

Speaker 20 and the other one is the defendant Raynella Leith.

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