A Bathtub Drowning

45m
In September 2001, Doug Grant discovered his wife Fayleen lying unconscious in their bathtub. She couldn’t be revived at the hospital and her death was considered a drowning. But as investigators discovered Fayleen had a history of dramatic mood swings and was considered by some to be suicidal. Was her death an accident, suicide… or murder? “48 Hours" Correspondent Susan Spencer reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 6/5/2010. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.

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Runtime: 45m

Transcript

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Speaker 4 She was my best friend.

Speaker 4 Sometimes she was my only friend.

Speaker 4 I wish every single day of my life that I could have my mom back.

Speaker 4 My mom died when I was 11.

Speaker 4 Some people think it was an accident. Some people think it was a suicide.

Speaker 4 But I know it was a murder.

Speaker 4 My stepdad murdered my mom.

Speaker 5 Failing is a good person.

Speaker 5 I have never hurt anybody in my life.

Speaker 6 Ever.

Speaker 7 Doug called me very frantic.

Speaker 7 He just said he found her in the tub and that she was not responding to him.

Speaker 5 She's not responding.

Speaker 8 This wasn't working.

Speaker 4 I had my hand on the door handle to her bedroom as it was happening.

Speaker 3 Your mom drowned in her own bathtub.

Speaker 9 I've been working on this story for a number of years. By all accounts, Felene Grant is a wonderful woman, very, very close to her family and especially close to her church.

Speaker 4 This is something my mom wrote in her journal. I love my family and don't want to leave them.

Speaker 4 But it is Heavenly Father's will will that I leave this mortal spirit to fulfill a mission on the other side of the veil.

Speaker 4 She also wrote, I must have faith in Doug's vision. He dreams it every night now, that I will get to go to the celestial kingdom.

Speaker 10 Douglas Grant used organized religion in killing Feline Grant.

Speaker 10 The motive in this case is a married man wanting to be with a younger woman.

Speaker 6 I'm the lucky one.

Speaker 6 Think what you want to think. That's fine.

Speaker 12 Have there been other women in his life?

Speaker 12 Yes, but he's not a murderer.

Speaker 13 I know that my brother Doug is innocent. I mean, if you saw the volumes of letters that she wrote, her journals, it's bizarre.

Speaker 12 Here is a woman who has talked to God. God has told her that she's going to die.

Speaker 10 She did not want to die, but it was Mr. Grant's vision that she would,

Speaker 10 and and she accepted the death sentence that was meted out by her husband.

Speaker 5 I didn't kill my wife,

Speaker 11 didn't have her in a million years.

Speaker 9 This one is a classic. It's got this epic sweep of sex and drugs and religion, homicide, suicide, or accident.
Was there even a murder here?

Speaker 2 Deadly prophecy.

Speaker 4 Things I want to have in a spouse.

Speaker 4 Loves the beauty of the earth.

Speaker 6 Sunrise,

Speaker 4 sunset.

Speaker 4 I will be with you always.

Speaker 4 Failing.

Speaker 3 It sounds very poetic.

Speaker 5 Watching sunsets. you've just made all the difference in the world.

Speaker 3 But eight years after Felene Grant's death...

Speaker 10 Objection relevance?

Speaker 3 Her husband, Doug Grant, is fighting for his future.

Speaker 14 Sir, is that a yes or no?

Speaker 3 On trial for her murder.

Speaker 14 You had visions in church, right?

Speaker 10 No. So she's a liar.
Isn't it true that you were there to snoop?

Speaker 6 No, absolutely not.

Speaker 3 You knew he was another woman's husband.

Speaker 6 Yes, I did.

Speaker 10 She wanted these letters to be rid of, right?

Speaker 14 Objection asking answered.

Speaker 11 Sorry, I'm confused.

Speaker 3 Sorry, confused. And he swears not guilty.

Speaker 5 I was just yelling, Feline.

Speaker 3 Failing?

Speaker 10 Objection relevance. This has nothing to do with Fayline.

Speaker 15 He just wants to tell a story.

Speaker 3 Indeed, he does want to tell his story. A story that begins in 1993.

Speaker 3 The second he laid eyes on a striking 27-year-old single mother named Failene Eaves at his gym near Phoenix.

Speaker 5 She's a great person.

Speaker 3 Loved life.

Speaker 5 Loved her family.

Speaker 3 Just another day at the office for Doug Grant. Doug is uniquely qualified.
At the time, Doug Grant was a 27-year-old divorcee, single dad.

Speaker 5 There was a lot of confusion in the market.

Speaker 3 And a rising star in the world of nutrition.

Speaker 6 Doug, what's the difference of real food and drunk food?

Speaker 5 The cat is the real food, right?

Speaker 3 With a growing list of celebrity clients. Barkley the assistant.
Like Charles Barkley and Danny Ainge of the Phoenix Sun.

Speaker 9 Doug gives good counsel to the players.

Speaker 5 But what we're trying to do is focus in on their immune system.

Speaker 3 He remembered Failene from high school. She'd recently divorced and had two kids, Austin and Jenna.

Speaker 4 My mom is the type of of lady you meet and you're like, wow, I want to be friends with her. I came home one day and I had a new CD

Speaker 4 and it was that song Ain't No Mountain High.

Speaker 4 I grabbed the shampoo bottle. She had like the telephone and we're jumping up and down on the couch playing the song over and over again and just singing.
That's my mom. Oh, there's Doug and Faylene.

Speaker 3 At first, Doug's sister Tammy Fuentes says it seemed a perfect match.

Speaker 13 Faylene is a lot like Doug.

Speaker 3 Especially since they were both Mormons.

Speaker 13 She also loved nutrition and helping others.

Speaker 3 They married just four months after their first date.

Speaker 16 She's a good person and brought out the good in Doug.

Speaker 3 However, Jenna worried Doug wasn't bringing out the good in her mother.

Speaker 4 He's the man of the house and she listens to what he says.

Speaker 3 So there was never any question who was ruling the roost here.

Speaker 4 It was always stood.

Speaker 3 Doug needed to guide Faylene, says Tammy, who was becoming alarmed by her new sister-in-law's mood swings.

Speaker 17 She was either really up, really happy, or she was really, really sad or depressed, but would never admit she needed help.

Speaker 13 I would go to their house and she would be in her bedroom with the door locked. And the children would just be there.

Speaker 13 And I would want to see her and they would say, no, no, don't bother her.

Speaker 3 She says Failene spent much time alone, writing in her journal, not uncommon in the Mormon faith,

Speaker 3 or praying at the temple, sometimes for hours.

Speaker 13 I do feel it was fanatical.

Speaker 3 To the point, Tammy says that by the late 90s, Faylene had lost touch with reality.

Speaker 13 She said, I've been to the temple

Speaker 13 and God has told me that I need to divorce Doug.

Speaker 3 Tammy remembers Faylene even said God had told her why.

Speaker 3 Doug had a girlfriend.

Speaker 3 Failene had no proof of an affair, but God's word was enough. She filed for divorce.

Speaker 13 He was devastated.

Speaker 13 He is truly a family man.

Speaker 3 She thought you were having an affair.

Speaker 11 Yes.

Speaker 3 Was that true?

Speaker 5 Not at the time.

Speaker 3 Maybe not right then, but Doug had had affairs,

Speaker 3 including one with a Louisiana beauty queen.

Speaker 3 And then in 2000, in the midst of his divorce,

Speaker 3 along came more temptation.

Speaker 5 Vibrant, bubbly.

Speaker 5 Great person for the job.

Speaker 3 And a great person to later feature in his promotional materials.

Speaker 5 Real yogurt's a fun and healthy snack.

Speaker 3 A new receptionist and fellow Mormon, Hillary DeWitt, age 19.

Speaker 3 Doug Grant fell hard.

Speaker 5 I became romantically involved with Hillary right at the divorce of Faylene.

Speaker 3 Not before. Oh no.

Speaker 3 In fact, after his divorce from Falene, Doug says he had cleaned up his act, gone through church counseling, and planned to marry Hillary.

Speaker 6 I don't know that I can express my love, my devotion. I'm in awe of him, to be honest.

Speaker 3 In August of 2001, though, those plans hit a snag.

Speaker 3 A big snag.

Speaker 13 Failene had had revelation in the temple from God

Speaker 13 that she needed to put her family back together.

Speaker 3 For the children's sake, God now was telling Felene to to marry Doug all over again. Doug claims nobody was more surprised than he was.

Speaker 3 But the divorce hadn't been his idea after all, and he says he wanted to believe.

Speaker 5 I knew I had to give it a shot.

Speaker 3 You certainly did a 180 on this, didn't you? You ended up not only marrying again, but marrying the person that you had divorced.

Speaker 5 Did I have the chance to be able to try to make things right and get back with her?

Speaker 3 Absolutely.

Speaker 3 To celebrate their new beginning, the Grants vacationed here in the Tippanogos National Park in Utah. And Doug says they were hiking on September 24th, 2001.

Speaker 3 According to him, when Faylin reached roughly this spot, she had some sort of vision. She saw something off in the distance.
So what did she do?

Speaker 3 Incredibly, she climbed over this rock wall down to that tiny ledge to get a a better view.

Speaker 3 According to Doug, this picture was taken just seconds before disaster struck.

Speaker 5 She looked up and she could kind of see the image of Jesus in the clouds and said, come out here.

Speaker 5 So I start going over that wall to go out there and

Speaker 5 she fell.

Speaker 3 It was a 60-foot drop.

Speaker 3 Doug Grant says he was sure his wife was dead.

Speaker 5 I yelled, yelled, I screamed,

Speaker 5 and she said, shut up. I mean, that was her exact word, shut up.

Speaker 3 So you knew she was okay?

Speaker 5 I knew she was alive.

Speaker 3 Doug took Felene to a nearby hospital, very banged up, but alive.

Speaker 3 Given how far she supposedly fell, that makes no sense at all to Chief Ranger Michael Gossi.

Speaker 14 The height of that fall, the jaggedness of the rocks below, a fall of that serious nature, a person would have some severe injuries from.

Speaker 5 She definitely thought she was going to die young, but it was an accident. It was an accident.

Speaker 3 But as Doug's sister Tammy was about to discover, it may have been no accident at all.

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Speaker 13 I got a phone call from Doug from the hospital. And he told me that Faining had fallen.

Speaker 3 When she heard about Failene's close call in Utah, Tammy Fuentes immediately went to the Grants home to get it ready for their return. You have no idea that you're going to find what you find.
No.

Speaker 3 She got the shock of her life.

Speaker 17 She had prepared her house as if she was not coming home.

Speaker 3 Tammy says Felene had left notes of Mormon scripture everywhere. plus bags of personal items, clothing, pictures, with instructions to give them all away.
Failene's fall now made perfect sense to her.

Speaker 13 She thought that she was going to die on that mountain.

Speaker 13 She tried to kill herself. I know she did.
And I knew then that I wanted to confront Failene about it.

Speaker 13 And I was going to confront her about it.

Speaker 3 But when Failene came home two days later, it didn't seem like the time.

Speaker 13 Failene was real sore. She had been injured, you know, in the fall.

Speaker 3 She was hurt.

Speaker 5 She was hurting pretty bad.

Speaker 3 Doug had asked his friend, physician's assistant Chad White, to examine Falene at home.

Speaker 7 She seemed happy to me, regardless of all of her injuries.

Speaker 3 She had no broken bones, but still she was in pain and couldn't sleep.

Speaker 3 So White prescribed a muscle relaxant and the sleep aid ambien, recording in his notes that he specifically told Doug not to fill the ambien prescription without calling him first.

Speaker 7 I just simply didn't want her taking the two together.

Speaker 3 White next heard from Doug just after 7:30 the following morning.

Speaker 7 He was very alarmed, very panicked. He told me that he had gone in to take a bath, that he was laying on the bed and had fallen asleep.

Speaker 3 When he woke up, Doug said he found Feline unconscious in the tub, her head underwater. What did you do when you found her?

Speaker 3 Cut her out,

Speaker 5 put her on the bed,

Speaker 5 Started CPR. You knew CPR? I know CPR.

Speaker 7 I asked if he'd called 911. What did he say? He informed me that he had not called 911.
I asked him why, and he relayed to me that he was afraid.

Speaker 3 White jumped in the car and called 911 himself.

Speaker 3 Meanwhile, at the house, Feline's daughter Jenna says her stepfather was freaking out.

Speaker 4 I hear Doug and he's he's screaming. He's panting and he's having a hard time.
It looks like he's bracing himself. And then he told me to take my little brothers to the next door.

Speaker 3 She ran to the home of Andrea Rogers, who raced to the Grants to see if she could help.

Speaker 6 Doug came flying to the door so upset, my whole body just reacted to the terror in his eyes.

Speaker 3 Chad White showed up minutes later and took over.

Speaker 7 He had obviously pulled her from the tub and she was laying there unresponsive. She did not have any vital signs.

Speaker 3 With Doug looking on, White tried CPR until the paramedics arrived.

Speaker 7 He was crying. He's bawling.
He was yelling out, please help her, please help her.

Speaker 3 The paramedics got her heart going again and rushed her to the hospital where Jenna remembers a bizarre scene.

Speaker 4 As my mom is laying in a bed, unconscious, with tubes running through her nose in her arms, Doug takes me out into the hallway and he tells me, If your mom wakes up, she might say weird things.

Speaker 3 Jenna says Doug seemed too eager to accept the possibility that Felene might not wake up.

Speaker 4 Do not tell me my mom is going to die.

Speaker 3 But as she watched her mother's heart rate on the monitor, she knew Felene wasn't coming back.

Speaker 6 I kept looking at the screen and just kept going down and down from 100, 75, 50.

Speaker 3 And then I realized what was happening.

Speaker 6 She was dying.

Speaker 3 Soon, doctors said brain activity had ceased, and Doug authorized taking her off life support.

Speaker 3 At 4.37 p.m. on September 27th, 2001, Feline Grant was pronounced dead.
Official cause, drowning. But tests showed a whopping 50 milligrams of ambien in her system.

Speaker 3 Clearly, Doug had ignored Chad White's orders.

Speaker 3 You didn't call him when you chose to fill the prescription.

Speaker 5 I didn't feel I needed to call to fill the prescription.

Speaker 3 Still, investigators seemed unconcerned. In this bathroom and out here in Falene's bedroom, they shot just five photos.

Speaker 3 In coming days, they would fail to interview key witnesses. They even lost evidence, including the pill bottles.
Then again, they had ruled this death an accident the very day Felene was found.

Speaker 3 Failene's family was upset. It took months of pressure from them before police started taking a closer look at Doug Grant.

Speaker 3 And that's when Detective Cy Ray got the case.

Speaker 21 I felt there was a lot of unanswered questions, so I primarily focused on just trying to answer some of the real basic questions.

Speaker 21 The first thing we looked at that helped us do that was the phone records.

Speaker 3 Ray found a slew of calls from the months before Felene died between Doug's phones and Hillary DeWitt's.

Speaker 3 Prosecutor Juan Martinez says authorities became even more intrigued at reports that Doug and Hillary had met in a park only hours after Felene's death.

Speaker 10 When he saw her, he grabbed her around the hip area. pulled her towards him and said, ooh, I missed these.

Speaker 3 That scenario is chilling.

Speaker 10 Well, it is chilling, and it isn't a scenario, it's something that happened.

Speaker 3 Hillary admitted meeting Doug in the park, but she wasn't sure when, and she adamantly denied any conversation about her hips. But nobody denies what happened a few weeks later.

Speaker 5 We got married soon.

Speaker 3 You got married really soon, absolutely.

Speaker 3 In fact, less than a month after Feline's death, Doug and Hillary became man and wife.

Speaker 6 I know how people feel about us getting married so quick. I don't care what people perceive about me.
I am who I am and that's my life.

Speaker 3 Doug and Hillary had started a new life, but Cy Ray had no intention of moving on.

Speaker 21 I had a lot of concerns about the way he reported things happening, just some real common sense things that I felt just didn't quite fit in.

Speaker 3 Chief among them, Ray says he just couldn't get over that Doug never had called 911.

Speaker 5 know with every fiber of my being that I called them. You called? I called 911.

Speaker 3 Phoenix area records show no such call. Still, Ray didn't have enough for an arrest until the sudden appearance of a new witness, a reluctant witness.

Speaker 11 I didn't want to get involved because I knew what was going to happen once my name hit the papers.

Speaker 3 Caught on tape. with a story about what Doug Grant told him really happened the day Feline died.

Speaker 21 It's the missing piece piece of evidence that we're looking for.

Speaker 3 After Falene's death, Jenna and her brother Austin went to live with their biological father.

Speaker 3 While Doug

Speaker 3 and his new wife, Hilary,

Speaker 3 settled into life with a blended family.

Speaker 3 Four children from various marriages, including a daughter of their own.

Speaker 6 Nevea, try to land your front flip.

Speaker 3 Nevea. There you go.
That's heaven spelled backwards.

Speaker 3 Oh, look at that one. Despite such wholesome appearances,

Speaker 3 Detective Cy Ray remained convinced Doug Grant was a killer, but...

Speaker 21 Nothing really jumped out and said this is what happened.

Speaker 6 She's right here.

Speaker 3 Failing's sisters always suspected it was Doug. He didn't call 911.
He didn't call 911.

Speaker 6 He married Hillary three weeks later.

Speaker 3 Three years passed. Then one day, Falene's sister Shirlene called Ray with explosive news.
An old friend of Doug's was claiming Doug had confessed to killing Falene.

Speaker 3 The friend's name was Jim McIlyer.

Speaker 11 He told me that she was ready to go to heaven.

Speaker 11 He said, I put her in the bathtub

Speaker 11 until she

Speaker 11 was underwater.

Speaker 3 But there was a problem with Jim McIlier's story.

Speaker 3 Before he'd tell it to the cops, he wanted money from Felene's family. And how much money does he want?

Speaker 21 He's asking for $10,000.

Speaker 5 $10,000.

Speaker 21 He's very clear that it's a loan.

Speaker 3 You buy this?

Speaker 21 I have a hard time buying a lot of things that Jim said, but at that point, we were obligated to see it it through to see what this information is and see if there's any validity to it.

Speaker 3 So Cy Ray set McIlier up.

Speaker 3 He told Shirlene to arrange a meeting in a Walmart parking lot.

Speaker 3 Hi, how are we doing?

Speaker 3 With hidden cameras rolling.

Speaker 3 All right back there Jim? Yeah.

Speaker 3 When the money changed hands,

Speaker 3 Ray moved in and told McAlier he could charge him with extortion. Instead, he got McAlier to agree to help get a confession out of Doug on tape.

Speaker 21 The plan at that point is to bring Jim and have him confront Doug on this information while wearing a wire.

Speaker 3 McAlier did just that.

Speaker 3 Later that day, wired for sound,

Speaker 3 he met Doug and told him police were asking him questions.

Speaker 22 They're threatening to arrest me because they think I have information.

Speaker 3 And he needed to know exactly what happened to Failene.

Speaker 22 I don't know what you want me to say.

Speaker 11 I believe his initial response was, I did help her into the bathtub.

Speaker 22 She fell asleep in the tub. She had had so much of those painkillers and stuff.

Speaker 3 Doug admitted nothing directly. But when McAlier tried to leave, he kept saying, tell me what you're going to say.

Speaker 22 What are you going to say?

Speaker 11 Saying how damaging it sounded.

Speaker 22 If they have anybody said that Doug Grant put her in in the tub and put her to sleep, then it told me.

Speaker 11 Trying to get me to reword it.

Speaker 22 If it was me, I would say, yeah, we were good friends and you're there to console me and you don't remember. It's been years ago.

Speaker 3 It was hardly a full confession.

Speaker 22 End of story, get out of my face.

Speaker 3 But to Cy Ray, it was more than enough.

Speaker 3 So in the summer of 2005, police arrested Doug Grant for the murder of his wife, Faylene.

Speaker 3 Doug immediately made bail and soon returned home.

Speaker 12 He is not guilty.

Speaker 12 There was no crime.

Speaker 3 Doug's lawyer Mel McDonald says there's no evidence Doug even wanted Failene to die. Just the opposite.

Speaker 12 When you look at Doug's efforts after her fall, crying for help, running to her rescue, taking her to a hospital, leaving her alone with people, that is hardly the evidence of a murder.

Speaker 21 Doug had been here.

Speaker 3 As far as Detective Cy Ray is concerned, though, it was all part of an act.

Speaker 21 Their version of the story is just nonsense. I think something happened to her while they were here.
I don't know what.

Speaker 12 So, what do you do when there's no evidence? Let's throw in the infidelity. Let's throw in the younger woman.

Speaker 12 It's got nothing to do with the question of homicide, but let's just throw the dirt on the wall. Maybe it will stick.

Speaker 3 What the defense wants to stick is that Felene Grant's death was not a murder, murder, but rather an accident or a suicide.

Speaker 4 If you doubt it, they say, I can't tell you how devastated I feel.

Speaker 3 Just listen to Felene's own words from those astonishing journals.

Speaker 4 I am choosing to give up the life I have.

Speaker 3 Jenna still reads them today.

Speaker 4 I can't tell you how devastated I feel. And that I'm suicidal.
And that I think of crazy things to do to myself.

Speaker 3 It's right there in the writings, repeated references to her upcoming death.

Speaker 4 I felt like I should just drive off a cliff and quit wasting space and air on this planet.

Speaker 3 But daughter Jenna can't seem to reconcile the words in those letters and journals with the mother she knew.

Speaker 4 She would have never committed suicide. If you only read a small portion of something taken out of context, it's not going to be what the writer intended.
My mom didn't want to die.

Speaker 4 She was a happy lady. She was a great mom, a great wife.
I don't think that points to someone that's suicidal.

Speaker 3 And if the writing suggests otherwise, she says it can only be because Doug

Speaker 3 planted the idea.

Speaker 4 Her husband, who obviously she trusted, who she remarried, is telling her she's going to die.

Speaker 5 I never encouraged it, nor did I ever dream it, nor did I ever say it.

Speaker 3 Just as hard to fathom is Feline's relationship with Hillary, a rival whom you'd think she might hate. Far from it.
Remarkably, Felene's journals show that the two became fast friends.

Speaker 6 Failene, she filled voids in my life at a time period where I needed it. And

Speaker 6 she's part of this family.

Speaker 4 I'm so thankful Hillary is able to share her feelings with me and me with her. I want so much for her to know of my love and respect for her.

Speaker 3 So much does she love her that Felene names Hillary the perfect new wife for Doug Grant.

Speaker 4 This desire for you to be married immediately and to see you sitting together as husband and wife at my funeral has been so strong.

Speaker 3 And even the perfect new mother for her children.

Speaker 4 I have asked Hillary to sit at the table as your mother while I'm away. Treat Hillary with the utmost love and respect and you will always make me very happy.

Speaker 6 I think Faylene was right. These kids needed a mom.

Speaker 3 So just what was Faylene really saying? What do these bewildering entries tell us about her,

Speaker 3 about how she died?

Speaker 1 All rise for the jury.

Speaker 3 As the trial begins, how the jury answers those questions may well determine Doug Grant's fate. What role did you have in in Failene's death?

Speaker 5 Herbadessa.

Speaker 10 Is that a yes or a no, sir?

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Speaker 16 All rise for the jury.

Speaker 3 On day one of Doug Grant's trial for first-degree murder, please receive everyone,

Speaker 3 Prosecutor Juan Martinez highlights what he says was Doug's heartless manipulation of his wife.

Speaker 14 He's telling her that he's had visions, that she's going to die.

Speaker 3 He will try to convince the jury that Doug's obsessive communications with Hillary, then at 12.13 a 16-minute call, then at 12.15 a 12-minute call. And his failure to make the call that counted most.

Speaker 10 Doesn't call 911.

Speaker 3 reveal a plot to kill the woman he'd married twice so he could marry the woman he really loved.

Speaker 10 He had told Hillary that they were going to be together and that they were going to be married.

Speaker 3 But defense lawyer Mel McDonald argues however Failene died, Doug didn't kill her.

Speaker 25 She writes, I am choosing to give up the life I have that is perfectly the way I want it.

Speaker 25 She is choosing, ladies and gentlemen, to give up her life.

Speaker 9 I can see under one theory that Doug did just what Juan Martinez accused him of doing.

Speaker 3 After years covering the Grant case, reporter Paul Rubin says no one theory fully explains what happened to Felene.

Speaker 9 I also can see it being a terrible, tragic accident, and I also can see suicide.

Speaker 3 But if this was murder, what was the motive? Money? Well, Felene did have a hefty new life insurance policy, but it hadn't kicked in yet. If Doug were after the money, why wouldn't he wait?

Speaker 3 As for love, even if Doug desperately wanted to marry Hillary, he didn't have to kill Felene to do it. They could have simply divorced.
After all, they'd already done it once.

Speaker 15 Mr. Martinez's statement called his first witness.

Speaker 3 Prosecutor Martinez ignores the motive question for now, beginning with his star witness, Felene's daughter, Jenna, who remembers being unable to get into the bedroom that horrible morning.

Speaker 15 I grabbed the door handle.

Speaker 4 Take old day and it was locked.

Speaker 3 The bedroom door was locked, says Prosecutor Martinez, because a killer was at work on the other side.

Speaker 3 The locked door is a crucial point, and curiously, something Jenna never once mentioned in two interviews with police.

Speaker 4 I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to think about it, but it's part of the story.

Speaker 3 She was 11 at the time.

Speaker 10 She was, that doesn't mean she doesn't remember exactly what happened.

Speaker 3 and I'll have you swarm.

Speaker 6 I was definitely still in love with Doug, absolutely.

Speaker 3 Later, Martinez tries to get Hillary to admit she knows more than she's letting on. You knew that if she died, there would be a chance for you and the man that you loved, right?

Speaker 10 Mr.

Speaker 6 Martinez, that is... Yes or no? No.

Speaker 3 Your case certainly wasn't hurt by being able to paint this guy as a really sleazy womanizer.

Speaker 10 I didn't paint the defendant as a sleazy womanizer. That's what the facts showed.

Speaker 3 Exhibit A, he says, are the phone records. Hundreds of calls from Doug's phones to Hillary's.
But Doug's lawyer claims that many of them weren't made by Doug at all.

Speaker 25 It was Felene that was making the calls.

Speaker 3 Remember, the defense says the two women were friends.

Speaker 25 The contacts that were going on during this period of time was Felene preparing Hillary to take her place.

Speaker 12 State caused our case mostly.

Speaker 3 Doug's case case gets another boost when prosecutor Juan Martinez calls the medical examiner.

Speaker 9 I have no evidence to support this being a homicide.

Speaker 3 Just as the defense has claimed all along, there was no crime.

Speaker 3 Also helping the defense, raise your right hand, Cy Ray, who spearheaded the case against Doug Grant, has to admit that on many important points, there's also no evidence.

Speaker 25 Where's the sheets?

Speaker 21 We do not have the sheets.

Speaker 25 Where were the pill containers found?

Speaker 9 We don't know.

Speaker 3 Where's her underclothing?

Speaker 21 I don't know.

Speaker 25 Detective, the evidence at the scene is gone, isn't it?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 21 Not all of the evidence at the scene is gone.

Speaker 3 As for the ambient, when, how, and how much Failene took, a toxicologist says the evidence is totally inconclusive.

Speaker 9 We just don't know.

Speaker 3 As the months drag on and the defense picks up steam, which is your home?

Speaker 3 Prosecutor Martinez voices objections.

Speaker 10 Objection, non-responsive.

Speaker 3 Over.

Speaker 10 Objection, leading, speculative.

Speaker 3 And over.

Speaker 10 Objection, leading, and hearsay.

Speaker 3 And over.

Speaker 25 Objection, leading.

Speaker 3 Sustained.

Speaker 14 You objected, by our count,

Speaker 3 more than 100 times one day. Objection, leading.

Speaker 15 Sustained. Non-leading questions, please, Mr.
McDonald.

Speaker 3 I assume that's part of the tactic.

Speaker 10 No, it was not a tactic to throw him off his game.

Speaker 3 A hundred times in a day?

Speaker 10 200 if necessary.

Speaker 3 In closing arguments, Martinez outdoes himself with another carefully calculated move, finally spelling out exactly what the state thinks Doug Grant did to Failene. It's a stunner.

Speaker 10 What he did is he dragged her over there and then he placed her hand inside the tub and began to hold her down.

Speaker 3 Failene never was actually in the bathtub, he says. Her injuries and water stains at the the scene prove it.

Speaker 10 There is no doubt that Douglas Grant killed Feline Grant.

Speaker 3 But just in case the jurors don't buy that, Martinez reminds them they still can punish Doug without convicting him of first-degree murder.

Speaker 10 There are lesser included offenses, second-degree murder and manslaughter.

Speaker 3 Doug Grant doesn't testify, and his lawyer bids the jury a fond, if unorthodox, farewell.

Speaker 25 Thank you so much for your commitment and your time.

Speaker 25 May God bless you. It's going to preach.

Speaker 25 May God bless you. It's not pandering.

Speaker 12 I will be devastated if this is not an acquittal.

Speaker 3 And he is not the only one.

Speaker 5 Every time the phone rings, you know, wondering if it's the last time you're going to see your family, you know, in person.

Speaker 5 It's real tough.

Speaker 6 This is our life, and I believe with every fiber of my being, Doug will continue it with us.

Speaker 9 This is a case that took on a life of its own. It's an unlikely arrest followed by an unlikely prosecution followed by,

Speaker 9 we'll see.

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Speaker 3 While the jury is out, Doug Grant retreats to his home in Pima, Arizona.

Speaker 5 There's only a few things that keep you sane. You know, out doing yard work with the family brings a little bit of normalcy to life.

Speaker 3 Savoring whatever time he has left with Hillary and his kids. Oh, look at that one.

Speaker 6 The thought of Doug being taken away and having to go to jail for something that he didn't do is crippling.

Speaker 6 I don't wish that upon anybody.

Speaker 3 Faced with months of evidence, jury deliberations drag on. for three agonizing weeks.

Speaker 22 While we're waiting, it's tough.

Speaker 5 You just don't know where they're going to go with it.

Speaker 6 Very few people could go through what he's had to go through. Okay, come here, brave.

Speaker 5 It's tough from nine to four while the jury's deliberating. Pins and needles, you know.

Speaker 3 And then,

Speaker 3 finally,

Speaker 3 a verdict.

Speaker 27 We, the jury, do find the defendant Douglas D. Grant as to count one first degree murder unable to agree

Speaker 27 On the lesser included offense of second degree murder, unable to agree.

Speaker 27 On the lesser included offense of manslaughter, guilty.

Speaker 3 Guilty, but only of manslaughter, the least serious charge Doug faced.

Speaker 14 Doug Grant was taken out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

Speaker 3 It's a hollow victory for the state and for Feline's family. I'm glad it's over and that we can go on.

Speaker 3 A crushing blow for Doug and the defense.

Speaker 12 Probably the most devastating result in any case I've ever tried.

Speaker 3 Jurors say though they thought Doug did something, they just couldn't agree that it was murder.

Speaker 9 Nothing was proven, but it was just a gut feeling.

Speaker 3 So they compromised.

Speaker 4 Manslaughter was a fallback.

Speaker 3 Despite their strong feelings about the man on trial, we thought he was pretty much a scotch bag.

Speaker 3 How have you managed to hold it together all this time, Hillary?

Speaker 4 It's easy when you know he's innocent.

Speaker 3 Doug's supporters aren't giving up. Manslaughter means he could face up to 12 and a half years in prison, or he could get no time at all, just probation.

Speaker 16 There's a community that will suffer a great loss if he is in for very long at all because he is a good man.

Speaker 3 It may have been too risky to put Grant on the stand before the verdict, but as the court considers sentencing a few days later,

Speaker 3 Doug's lawyer bets that an emotional plea from his client now just might work.

Speaker 12 Would you please state your name for the record?

Speaker 5 Doug Vas Dewey Grant.

Speaker 3 And Doug is on the edge. After his first weekend behind bars, he's on suicide watch.

Speaker 12 He looked like Jack Nicholson in the shiny.

Speaker 5 I was yelling, Feline. Failing.

Speaker 3 He did cry.

Speaker 10 Well, it looked like he attempted to cry.

Speaker 3 Does he turn the tears on and off?

Speaker 10 It appears that he does, doesn't it?

Speaker 3 Feline was

Speaker 3 someone that always made me feel larger than life.

Speaker 3 Failene's family takes the stand to argue for the longest sentence possible.

Speaker 6 All that I have left is memories because he took her from me.

Speaker 3 The usually stoic Hillary now pleads with the judge not to take Doug from her.

Speaker 6 If Doug received probation, he would still be allowed to pay a debt to society and continue to provide for us as his family.

Speaker 3 Doug and Feline's own sons, Marley, 12.

Speaker 11 I'm here because I know my dad is since it.

Speaker 3 I want my dad back home. And Braven, 11.

Speaker 3 I miss my mom.

Speaker 3 Tell the judge that losing one parent is enough.

Speaker 6 But taking my dad away isn't going to bring her back.

Speaker 3 The appeals seem to hit home.

Speaker 15 Sujm sentence of the court to defendant be in prison for the presumptive term of five years.

Speaker 3 Five years. With good behavior, Doug Grant will be out in three.
The prosecutor puts on a brave face.

Speaker 10 Justice, I believe, was served. It took a while, but we finally got there.

Speaker 14 Where do you go from here?

Speaker 22 What do you do?

Speaker 6 On with my family.

Speaker 3 Hillary is loyal to the end,

Speaker 3 saying it's just what her dear friend Feline would have wanted.

Speaker 6 They're always going to mourn the death of their mother, always.

Speaker 6 This is what she would want.

Speaker 6 I mean, that's just how I feel.

Speaker 3 Jenna has trouble accepting the verdict, let alone the sentence.

Speaker 4 A man took away someone else's life, and he's going to be in prison half a decade.

Speaker 4 You're telling me that's justice?

Speaker 3 But she vows not to let the past destroy her future.

Speaker 4 I'm going to be okay. I've been been okay the past seven or eight years.

Speaker 3 And she takes comfort in Faylene's journals.

Speaker 4 This will be such a blessing as I go into the next world.

Speaker 3 In those haunting reflections, not just about dying, but also about living life with zest every day, which is how she wants to remember her mother.

Speaker 4 Love means never having to say goodbye.

Speaker 4 I will be with you always. I love you, Felene.

Speaker 9 Jenna Stradling and her three brothers received $2 million to settle a wrongful death suit against Jenna's stepfather, Doug Grant. In 2013, Grant was released from prison after serving five years.

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