Defending Mrs. Shelton

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Speaker 5 A special 48 Hours Mystery.

Speaker 6 She was a lot of fun when she wasn't trying to kill me.

Speaker 5 Strange things have happened to the men in Catherine Shelton's life.

Speaker 8 It was god-awful.

Speaker 5 His apartment was set on fire.

Speaker 10 It's the worst thing I've ever been through.

Speaker 5 Another ex was found beaten to death. She says she's not to blame.

Speaker 11 Do you hurt other people?

Speaker 7 Well, I don't intend to.

Speaker 13 But Catherine Shelton admits she did shoot this boyfriend.

Speaker 6 That bitch shot me. She really, she shot me.

Speaker 5 Did we mention she's a criminal defense lawyer?

Speaker 7 What I try to do is get justice for the people who come to me.

Speaker 5 Richard Schlesinger on a story of murder and betrayal. It's Texas justice.
You've got to see to believe.

Speaker 15 I wonder what it is about you, though, that men you've been in relationships with have ended up dead or shot at.

Speaker 5 48 Hours Investigates.

Speaker 18 She's a bitch.

Speaker 5 18K, The Law and Mrs. Shelton.

Speaker 20 Welcome to tonight's 48 Hours Mystery. I'm Leslie Stahl.
Just say the name Catherine Shelton to anyone who knows her and watch out. We can't even repeat some of the words people use to describe her.

Speaker 20 One thing almost everyone agrees on is that she is a shrewd Texas lawyer who knows the law inside and out. Through three decades of controversy, she's always managed to come out clean.

Speaker 20 But is her past about to catch up to her? Richard Schlesinger went looking for the truth about Catherine Shelton, and nearly everywhere he went, there was bad blood.

Speaker 26 It was this shooting outside Dallas that opened the latest act in a long-running melodrama of death and betrayal.

Speaker 21 It was the loudest sound I'd ever heard because it was so close.

Speaker 22 Marisa and Michael Hiero were shot at outside their home.

Speaker 11 Michael died at the scene, but Marisa lived and says she still remembers what one of her assailants said that night.

Speaker 21 She screamed, shoot her, shoot her again.

Speaker 35 Who screamed that? Catherine.

Speaker 21 Catherine Shelton.

Speaker 36 Catherine Mahaffey Shelton is Marisa's former boss.

Speaker 37 She's a criminal defense attorney in Dallas.

Speaker 7 That's with almost no makeup on there.

Speaker 29 It's been more than four years since the heroes were ambushed, and Catherine has never been charged with the crime.

Speaker 11 She says that's because she didn't do it.

Speaker 7 I've never killed anybody.

Speaker 39 You are telling me right now that this is

Speaker 13 absolutely involved.

Speaker 7 I don't know anything about it. Absolutely no way.

Speaker 21 She thinks she's untouchable. And she has a right to think that now because she's done it again.

Speaker 22 Catherine Mahaffey Shelton was reluctant to talk about her past, but her life story is a Texas-size saga that spans 30 years with accusations involving, among other things, pantyhose.

Speaker 15 This is pantyhose. A pistol, and a port-a-potty.

Speaker 7 I don't ever look back at anything. Why would I?

Speaker 7 I think about what's going to happen next. I mean, life is an adventure.

Speaker 42 Life has certainly been an adventure for for some of the men in this lawyer's life.

Speaker 8 Back in the 70s, one of her former boyfriends was bludgeoned to death.

Speaker 38 She shot another ex-boyfriend in the back.

Speaker 27 Still, another ex-s' apartment burned down.

Speaker 38 A man named with Catherine in a lawsuit was found with a bullet in his head.

Speaker 23 And a former client who accidentally hanged himself was found in Catherine's house, dead.

Speaker 8 and naked.

Speaker 15 Do you have the sense of yourself in the middle of this sort of storm that seems to always be brewing around you?

Speaker 7 I'm in the middle of life and I'm supposed to work through this and work these things out. Do the best I can.
It's not for me to reason why.

Speaker 8 She was raised in a middle-class family and a friend says her mother called her Annie Oakley.

Speaker 45 I think anyone that has any connection with her needs to be afraid of her.

Speaker 8 Do you have reason to be afraid?

Speaker 45 I

Speaker 45 think I could, yes.

Speaker 8 Catherine Mahaffey was just beginning to make a name for herself when private investigator Kent Ferguson first heard of her.

Speaker 8 In 1979, Ferguson was hired by the family of a Houston doctor named George Tedesco to investigate his murder.

Speaker 45 He was beaten to death violently in his garage. His body was left there.

Speaker 48 Catherine had dated the doctor shortly after she started practicing law.

Speaker 28 When they broke up, she sued him for divorce, claiming to be his common law wife.

Speaker 15 How long had they known each other?

Speaker 45 According to my investigation, they dated approximately three to four months. You say dated.
Dated. I found no one who ever said that they lived together.

Speaker 26 Around the time Catherine's divorce case was filed, Tedesco reported someone had come into his townhouse and taken some property.

Speaker 49 Did he have any suspects in mind?

Speaker 45 Catherine Mahavey.

Speaker 27 He named her? Yes.

Speaker 15 Catherine Catherine admitted taking things from Tedesco's house, but called it community property.

Speaker 25 Then, about a year later, on the very day her divorce case was to be heard, Tedesco's battered body was found in his garage.

Speaker 8 The divorce was no longer an issue, but Catherine now claimed to be a common-law widow and went after the estate.

Speaker 28 She lost.

Speaker 13 That case was closed, but the murder murder case wasn't.

Speaker 8 No one has ever been charged.

Speaker 45 Personally, I doubt if it'll ever be solved.

Speaker 15 Tedesco's family did file a wrongful death suit against Catherine and one of her clients, Thomas Bell.

Speaker 8 Bell had been caught with some of Tedesco's property.

Speaker 51 The lawsuit never made it to court, and neither did Thomas Bell.

Speaker 45 He was found shot in the head by 357 Magnum. Police ruled it as a suicide as a result of playing Russian roulette.

Speaker 46 It was one more death of one more man associated with Catherine.

Speaker 8 She was never implicated in Bell's death, but it added to her reputation as a woman with a past.

Speaker 11 I've read all this stuff about you.

Speaker 7 I've read it myself. It's interesting.
I wonder who is this person.

Speaker 7 Boy, what an exciting life.

Speaker 14 Even before she began making headlines, Catherine was making a lasting impression on on some of the men she dated.

Speaker 9 It was God-awful.

Speaker 10 It's the worst thing I've ever been through.

Speaker 29 Attorney Ferris Bond briefly dated her in the early 70s.

Speaker 8 He says when it came to Catherine, breaking up was very hard to do.

Speaker 10 Probably the worst thing was burning my apartment, all my possessions. She stole my automobile, shot at me with a shotgun.

Speaker 38 Catherine has denied doing anything wrong to Ferris Bond. Bond says he finally got away from her by joining the Marines.

Speaker 10 Frankly, I didn't think that there was any way she'd follow me into the Marine Corps.

Speaker 8 Catherine didn't want to talk about Bond or Tedesco.

Speaker 7 There are some sorts of men who are really, really offended by me.

Speaker 23 But she admits she may be too much for some men to handle.

Speaker 7 I think it's my propensity to probably say exactly what I think to them at a certain point when

Speaker 7 I just can't hold it in any longer.

Speaker 29 Do you like that about yourself?

Speaker 7 No, because you're not supposed to do that. And hurting other people is

Speaker 7 there's nothing to be gained from that.

Speaker 32 Do you hurt other people?

Speaker 7 Well, I don't intend to.

Speaker 11 But just a year after Dr.

Speaker 8 Tedesco's murder, Catherine did hurt one man.

Speaker 6 I was looking for a little excitement in my life.

Speaker 11 And not just emotionally.

Speaker 6 I mean, she was a lot of fun

Speaker 6 when she wasn't trying to kill me.

Speaker 7 I've got a little hearing at 10 o'clock.

Speaker 51 Texas attorney Catherine Mahaffey Shelton began practicing law in the 70s.

Speaker 7 It was great to be a new new lawyer and be going to work and having my own business.

Speaker 38 She caught the attention of fellow defense attorneys.

Speaker 55 At that time, I dare say, probably the prettiest criminal defense lawyer in the Harris County courts.

Speaker 55 When she walks, you know, those little bitty whirlwinds that go off the wings of airplanes, she has that kind of effect upon people.

Speaker 27 In 1979, when her ex-boyfriend was murdered, she attracted even more attention.

Speaker 6 Good shot.

Speaker 38 Particularly from one member of the press.

Speaker 6 Time to get serious here.

Speaker 51 Houston reporter Gary Taylor.

Speaker 6 She was a hot item at the courthouse.

Speaker 6 She was intriguing because of the mystery of her past and the danger, the danger that seemed to be lurking underneath.

Speaker 47 Catherine doesn't care to remember Taylor.

Speaker 7 I don't consider him a relationship or anything. He's nothing.
All right.

Speaker 38 But Taylor finds Catherine

Speaker 11 unforgettable.

Speaker 6 It was like playing with fire.

Speaker 27 Have fun, get drunk.

Speaker 56 That's what it's all about.

Speaker 8 They started dating, and he says it was fun

Speaker 36 at first.

Speaker 49 When did you start seeing another side to her?

Speaker 6 Within weeks.

Speaker 6 She has a temper that comes out and she can't always control it.

Speaker 43 And he says she kept talking about the unsolved murder of George Tedesco, her ex-boyfriend, who was beaten to death.

Speaker 6 I heard her say this to several people. You better do what I say.
You know what happened to George.

Speaker 15 Taylor went to his friends at the Houston District Attorney's Office who were still investigating the Tedesco case.

Speaker 15 He suggested he and his roommate could secretly record Catherine on the telephone, and the DAs agreed. One tape became notorious when Taylor's roommate played it in the courthouse press room.

Speaker 24 He needs to beg for my mercy before this is over with.

Speaker 8 Catherine is heard demanding that Taylor stop talking to the DA. He's got to beg for my mercy!

Speaker 8 I've never killed anybody in my life. I've never really wanted to, but he's doing so much to me.

Speaker 6 The tape was always known in the press room as the exorcist tape.

Speaker 28 Taylor says Catherine was furious.

Speaker 6 She was very dramatic. She liked to tell me that I had entered the arena of death and that.

Speaker 11 Is that a quote?

Speaker 6 That's a direct quote.

Speaker 8 What was your response?

Speaker 6 I kind of laughed about it. I mean, I wasn't sure whether she was for real or not.

Speaker 42 Then, strange things started happening to Taylor.

Speaker 36 Like Tedesco, he discovered his home was burglarized.

Speaker 27 Catherine, he says, offered to help get back his belongings.

Speaker 6 She insisted that I come over to her place and that she would have the stolen goods delivered over there.

Speaker 23 He says when he got to Catherine's she told him to look for his things in the bedroom closet.

Speaker 6 It was so outrageous, but I did it. I went back and I got in the closet.
As soon as I got in the closet, the lights went out and I heard a gun click.

Speaker 42 He says he turned around

Speaker 42 and saw Catherine.

Speaker 6 She took a policeman's position like this. There was like a hazy look in her eye.
It was a pretty spooky look. And she started telling me about how this was it.
This was how it was going to end.

Speaker 38 Taylor says he tried to defend himself with the only thing available, a chair.

Speaker 6 I went straight at her with the chair like a lion tamer. She fired off around.

Speaker 6 The bullet came through the chair and nicked me. I threw the chair at her.
I ran down the hallway.

Speaker 38 He believed he was running for his life as he bolted for the front door.

Speaker 6 I opened the door and that's when I felt the shot in the back. She blew me out through the door and I can remember laying there on the ground.
thinking, that bitch shot me. She really, she shot me.

Speaker 29 He got up, he says, and started running again.

Speaker 50 Taylor ran three blocks before he got help.

Speaker 22 How badly were you hurt?

Speaker 6 The ER doctor kept saying, I can't understand why you're not dead. The bullet stopped a centimeter from my heart,

Speaker 6 but I was fine.

Speaker 55 I was sleeping in this front room here and I heard the shots.

Speaker 37 Ralph Bile was Catherine's next-door neighbor.

Speaker 57 She looked like Farah Fawcett.

Speaker 6 She's very attractive.

Speaker 57 Did you like her?

Speaker 36 Yeah.

Speaker 16 For how long?

Speaker 49 Until she

Speaker 57 happened to shoot this reporter.

Speaker 15 Catherine was arrested and for the first time found herself facing a serious charge, attempted murder. The fiery defense lawyer now needed her own attorney.

Speaker 23 At her trial in 1980, they argued she shot Taylor in self-defense, and they said Taylor was a snake for making those secret tapes.

Speaker 8 Catherine never took the stand, and the jury deadlocked.

Speaker 15 But at her second trial, Catherine testified.

Speaker 11 And the jury got an earful.

Speaker 55 Catherine's uncontrollable. And you asked Catherine the question, there's no telling what's going to come out of her mouth.

Speaker 42 Jim Skelton was an attorney in the case.

Speaker 36 Her attorney.

Speaker 55 One time I beat my head on the table. I bent over and was banging my head on the table.

Speaker 49 Why did you bang your head against the table?

Speaker 52 To try to shut her up.

Speaker 11 Catherine claimed Taylor held a gun on her and said she was trying to get away from him, even though Taylor ended up getting shot in the back.

Speaker 7 He knows what happened over there and what I said on the witness stand was true.

Speaker 14 Did you have a gun?

Speaker 6 No, I did not have a gun.

Speaker 46 The jury reached its verdict in a little over an hour.

Speaker 16 Guilty.

Speaker 15 Catherine was sentenced to 10 years, but she never served one day. Her conviction was overturned on appeal.

Speaker 25 And rather than go through a third trial, she pled guilty to aggravated assault.

Speaker 48 She got probation, and she was temporarily barred from practicing law.

Speaker 46 Did you want her to go go to prison?

Speaker 6 I didn't really care. I actually thought she would be in more agony if

Speaker 6 she couldn't practice law because she reveled in this.

Speaker 46 Taylor still works as a reporter and has not seen Catherine for more than 20 years.

Speaker 25 She is out of his life, but still on his mind.

Speaker 32 So Taylor has put private investigator Kent Ferguson on a most unusual retainer.

Speaker 6 Basically, I've retained him to investigate my murder, should it happen.

Speaker 15 Why have you retained him to investigate your murder?

Speaker 6 In case it happens.

Speaker 44 Catherine says Taylor recovered quickly.

Speaker 7 While I regret the incident and I don't go around shooting people,

Speaker 7 it was in the nature of a minor traffic accident.

Speaker 8 She still stands by her testimony, but doesn't care to discuss the details.

Speaker 46 How did you end up shooting him?

Speaker 7 Well, I'd rather not go into that because I really can't even remember, to tell you the truth.

Speaker 38 She is far more interested in a more recent shooting

Speaker 47 and the man who's serving life for it.

Speaker 7 I'm here to try to do the right thing for somebody who deserves it, and that's the only reason I'm doing this. He's one of the people who are close to me, whom I care for, and whom I love.

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Speaker 32 Catherine Shelton is annoyed that the man she shot 24 years ago

Speaker 43 is still talking about it.

Speaker 7 He just milked it for all it was worth.

Speaker 7 And I mean, if somebody had shot at me in their own home, which is really a violation of hospitality, I'd wonder what kind of a guest I was to merit that kind of behavior.

Speaker 8 And she bristles at the notion that her relationships have eerie endings.

Speaker 15 I wonder what it is about you, though, that men you've been in relationships with have ended up dead or shot at.

Speaker 7 I've never been in a relationship with anyone who died while I was in a relationship with them. Both of my husbands are still alive.

Speaker 7 They were very normal people when I married them, and they're, except for one of them, the situation they're in now, they're in normal situations.

Speaker 48 This is the husband in an abnormal situation, Clint Shelton, her current one.

Speaker 48 He's doing life for a murder he says he didn't commit. Did you expect to be

Speaker 48 well? I mean, did you expect to be arrested?

Speaker 58 No, didn't expect to be accused, charged, or arrested.

Speaker 33 How that happened is a long story.

Speaker 8 It begins in Mullen, Texas, the quiet town where Clint Clint grew up.

Speaker 22 You don't have no red lights.

Speaker 12 Not a one.

Speaker 48 His father, Richard, still runs the family store, mostly hardware and feed these days.

Speaker 33 But it once was also a thriving gun shop.

Speaker 18 There were showcases through here.

Speaker 22 Run by Clint.

Speaker 18 I won't say every day, but... Almost every day he was selling guns.

Speaker 8 Then, one day in 1981, Catherine walked into Clint's store and into his life.

Speaker 7 I had taken a shotgun in to be repaired.

Speaker 36 And one thing led to another?

Speaker 39 Was it love at first sight?

Speaker 36 Well, I don't know about love, but lust at first sight?

Speaker 13 I don't know about that either.

Speaker 58 But what was it? One thing led to another. We got married.

Speaker 7 And he just seemed like a, you know, kind of a man of the West type person.

Speaker 7 And this is such a hackneyed phrase. He was there for me.
How is he there for you? He was there for me because it was when this shooting of the reporter thing in Houston was all going on.

Speaker 23 What attracted you to her?

Speaker 13 She was

Speaker 58 brighter than most of the folks around, well, brighter than just about everyone that lived where I was raised.

Speaker 18 She's intelligent. Don't think she's not intelligent.
And she's mean to go with it.

Speaker 16 Richard Shelton never warmed to his daughter-in-law.

Speaker 18 She's a bitch.

Speaker 19 18K.

Speaker 4 Clint and Catherine settled in Dallas.

Speaker 30 He found work where he could, sometimes working for the local constable.

Speaker 38 Catherine knew the rules.

Speaker 8 She convinced a judge to allow her conviction for shooting Gary Taylor to be set aside.

Speaker 48 No longer a felon, she went back to practicing law.

Speaker 7 What I try to do is get justice for the people who come to me.

Speaker 38 Michael Harrow came to Catherine as a client when he was charged with robbery.

Speaker 50 His wife, Marisa, went to work for Catherine and soon became the office star.

Speaker 7 She was simply indispensable. She would do everything for you that you needed done, whatever it was.

Speaker 38 She also took on a lot of immigration cases. But then, seven months after Marisa began working for Catherine, she left.

Speaker 49 Under what circumstances did she leave?

Speaker 7 I came back from the courthouse one day, and she and all of the staff were gone.

Speaker 15 Marisa opened her own immigration consulting business here in downtown Dallas. Soon she and Catherine were accusing each other of scamming their clients and things between them got downright nasty.

Speaker 21 She was threatening me. She was screaming at me.

Speaker 7 It was something from a bad dream, being tormented in a high school by some horrible

Speaker 7 person from a girl gang or something.

Speaker 21 She told me that I wouldn't live to see Christmas.

Speaker 48 Catherine denies she ever threatened Marisa, but someone was out to get the Heroes.

Speaker 14 On the night of December 20th, 1999,

Speaker 8 Michael and Marisa drove up to their new home in Rowlette, a Dallas suburb.

Speaker 45 Michael stepped out of the car and into an ambush.

Speaker 21 It just happened. He tells me, go run.
I don't even know how the door opened.

Speaker 56 This is the weapon that was used to kill Michael Hero.

Speaker 59 Detective Supervisor David Naber says after shooting Michael Hero, the masked gunman took aim at Marisa as she ran.

Speaker 56 He got a live round in there, closed the shotgun, and then fired at her.

Speaker 21 It's like a fire leaving a gun.

Speaker 56 Striking her in the arm and upper chest and a couple of pellets in the face.

Speaker 38 Marisa says as she lay playing dead, she heard a familiar voice coming from a second masked figure, urging the gunman to shoot again.

Speaker 21 She said, don't be a pussy.

Speaker 60 Do it.

Speaker 21 And he's told her, I did. I shot her.

Speaker 44 When they left, she says she stumbled to a neighbor's for help.

Speaker 21 When the police get on the scene, the first things I say, Catherine, Catherine Shelton.

Speaker 37 Marisa eventually said it was Clint who pulled the trigger, but Catherine was calling the shots.

Speaker 49 She was wearing a mask. You didn't see her face.
Why are you so certain it was Catherine Shelton?

Speaker 21 Because she spoke. She said it.
I heard her voice. I heard her.

Speaker 46 A lot of other people thought the Sheltons were were involved, and many of them called the police when news of the shooting got out.

Speaker 46 How many calls did you get implicating the Sheltons?

Speaker 56 I was in the vicinity of 20 that evening.

Speaker 25 But there was one call that quickly proved to be the most important.

Speaker 16 It was the call of nature.

Speaker 8 An officer felt the need to answer it and visited a nearby porta potty.

Speaker 56 I shined his flashlight inside the portal and discovered a mask and two latex gloves.

Speaker 8 The mask was made of panty hose with a hole cut out for the eyes.

Speaker 56 Now this area was cut out by the lab to do DNA work.

Speaker 42 There were telltale hairs and saliva on it.

Speaker 61 The DNA went to astronomical numbers.

Speaker 48 Prosecutor Toby Schook had all he needed to indict Clint Shelton.

Speaker 61 The scientists said it was him, no doubt about it.

Speaker 21 Was your wife involved in any way, sir?

Speaker 27 But Catherine has never been charged.

Speaker 7 I didn't understand why they didn't arrest me because, remember, she was saying that I I did it.

Speaker 16 Still during Clint's trial her name and her feud with Marisa came up a lot.

Speaker 61 Catherine Shelton's name came up because that was what the motive was.

Speaker 15 Clint Shelton never denied putting the mask and gloves in the port-a-potty but says he did it the night before the murder.

Speaker 8 His explanation is a little complicated, but here it is.

Speaker 15 He says he was planning to divorce Catherine and wanted to call Marisa as a witness in his case.

Speaker 43 He says he was lurking around here outside her house to make sure this is where she really lived.

Speaker 15 I mean, why did that seem like a good idea?

Speaker 58 To put on the mask and gloves? I didn't want her to be able to identify me. That's why I was wearing the mask.

Speaker 28 He said he wore the gloves in case he got too close to the house.

Speaker 58 I was going to touch the house possibly as I walked along it or the cars. I didn't want to leave any fingerprints.

Speaker 8 I mean, does that sound believable to you?

Speaker 7 You have to know him. You have to know him.
You know, he's an odd man. He's his own man.
He'll do it his way.

Speaker 8 Clint was contradicted by the port-a-potty cleaner, who testified that he cleaned the port-a-potty just hours before the murder, the day after Clint said he discarded his mask and gloves.

Speaker 61 It was just a ridiculous story, and it was just an attempt for him to cover up his guilt.

Speaker 38 It took the jury about three and a half hours to pronounce Clint Shelton guilty.

Speaker 61 What we told the jury in this case is when we have enough evidence to charge anyone else involved with this offense, we would do so.

Speaker 11 But Catherine is pushing to get the case back in court now in her own way.

Speaker 49 What's at stake in this trial for you?

Speaker 20 Well,

Speaker 7 what isn't?

Speaker 31 And she intends to name the person she says was really behind the murder.

Speaker 7 The person who is responsible for Michael Tiger's death is still walking around.

Speaker 20 To say that Catherine Shelton has had a stormy life doesn't really do her justice. A number of the men in her past, linked to her romantically or otherwise, have turned up dead.

Speaker 20 Still others have suffered bizarre mishaps and misfortune. But now, this Texas lawyer is on the defensive again, suspected of helping to murder the husband of a former employee.

Speaker 20 Catherine's own husband was convicted of pulling the trigger. As you might expect, Mrs.
Shelton is fighting back, using the law to her advantage. Here again is Richard Schlesinger.

Speaker 44 It's been nearly four years since Clint Shelton was sentenced to life for gunning down Michael and Marissa Hiero.

Speaker 15 Were you there that night?

Speaker 9 No, sir.

Speaker 38 Clint has never wavered.

Speaker 8 He's always insisted that he was home at the time of the murder.

Speaker 23 And despite what the prosecutors say, so is is his wife, Catherine.

Speaker 58 I believe that they were after Catherine. I guess they thought that I would lie to them and tell them what they wanted to hear about Catherine.

Speaker 15 You don't have any animosity toward her.

Speaker 10 Why should I?

Speaker 9 She's not the reason I'm here.

Speaker 7 He is a man. He is a decent man, and he's not going to lie to get himself out of prison if it means putting the person in there who doesn't belong there.

Speaker 23 But Marisa Hiero says that's exactly where Catherine belongs.

Speaker 21 Am I mad that she's not arrested? Yes.

Speaker 23 She says that's why she sued Catherine for the wrongful death of her husband, Michael.

Speaker 21 She was there, and she knows she was there.

Speaker 37 But Marisa's lawsuit didn't get very far.

Speaker 38 When Catherine and her lawyers began barraging Marisa with almost 200 requests for information, Marisa dropped the suit.

Speaker 13 Did you feel threatened?

Speaker 21 Yes.

Speaker 8 Marisa's case was dead.

Speaker 8 But Catherine couldn't couldn't let it rest.

Speaker 7 I'm not going to put up with any more of it. These are the master's courts.

Speaker 37 She counter-sued Marisa for malicious prosecution and libel.

Speaker 7 I know that this creature, this Marissa, has ranted on for years, and she knows I wasn't there that night.

Speaker 38 Marissa cast blame on her, Catherine says, to divert attention away from the real killer.

Speaker 7 It is my considered opinion. that Marissa is directly responsible for the death of Michael Hiero.

Speaker 14 Catherine claims the whole thing, the ambush and the shooting, was orchestrated by Marisa.

Speaker 46 Did you set up the murder of your husband?

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 21 No, and that's actually, that's actually sick.

Speaker 43 Remember, Marisa was shot in the arm and seriously wounded.

Speaker 21 I was shot in the forearm here. They've pretty much had to rebuild my hand.

Speaker 27 But James Murphy, Catherine's attorney, believes that can be explained easily.

Speaker 19 I think she was accidentally injured by a gunshot wound that was not intended for her.

Speaker 8 Murphy says Marisa had been making big money defrauding immigrants who wanted green cards, and Michael knew too much about it.

Speaker 57 I believe that Michael Hiero was intended to die that night because he was going to blow the whistle on Marissa Hiero's immigration scam.

Speaker 49 Were you promising people green cards, promising to help them get their green cards, charging them thousands of dollars for that?

Speaker 21 No.

Speaker 23 But documents obtained by 48 Hours show Marisa did charge high fees, and attorneys who represented several of her former clients told us she did little or nothing for the money.

Speaker 15 In fact, when a lawyer's group asked her if she was practicing law without a license, Marisa says she told them she'd shut the business down.

Speaker 23 And that was just days before the murder.

Speaker 49 If you were defrauding aliens, that might be a motive for somebody else to take a shot at you.

Speaker 48 Well, somebody besides Catherine.

Speaker 15 Is it possible

Speaker 49 that a disgruntled client

Speaker 49 took a shot at you and your husband that night?

Speaker 27 Well,

Speaker 21 I'll say that her husband's serving life in prison plus 20 years for shooting my husband and shooting me.

Speaker 8 These days, Marisa says she's hiding from Catherine.

Speaker 38 She wouldn't even tell us where she lives, but she talked to us at a hotel outside Texas.

Speaker 21 I'm not comfortable with traveling to Texas

Speaker 21 because then I put myself in Catherine's playground.

Speaker 51 Catherine says she will press her case against Marisa even if she doesn't show up.

Speaker 8 Because Catherine wants to prove to anyone who will listen that she and Clint had nothing to do with shooting the heroes.

Speaker 7 I've had enough of all of this silliness, and it's beyond silliness, it's meanness.

Speaker 8 catherine and her lawyer insist clint was railroaded with flimsy evidence

Speaker 19 like when that porta potty near the hero home was really clean that testimony from the porta pot driver who testified he cleaned out that can is suspect it's suspect says murphy because the porta potty cleaner ended up getting fired three years after the murder for falsifying his records.

Speaker 8 If the porta potty was not cleaned the day of the shooting, Murphy says Clint could have left his mask and gloves there the night before the murder, just as he testified.

Speaker 40 It's an awfully unlucky coincidence for Clint.

Speaker 19 It sure is. That poor fella is,

Speaker 19 he is, he is a victim of circumstance.

Speaker 38 As for Catherine, Murphy says there is evidence that all but exonerates her.

Speaker 57 She wasn't and couldn't have been there that night. Why couldn't she have been there?

Speaker 8 Because of her phone records.

Speaker 27 Those phone records show Catherine's mother called her house around the time of the murder.

Speaker 58 All right, bye-bye.

Speaker 23 Prosecutor Toby Shook.

Speaker 15 Clearly, Catherine's mother was talking to somebody for a good length of time that night.

Speaker 38 Do you think it was Catherine?

Speaker 61 I don't know who it was.

Speaker 61 Investigators were unable to determine that for sure.

Speaker 11 Shook stands by his case and believes to this day Marisa had nothing to do with the crime.

Speaker 15 Did she seem too eager to implicate Catherine Shelton in this shooting?

Speaker 61 No.

Speaker 61 If she was that type of witness who would have made something up, she would have simply said these people didn't have masks on or they pulled their mask off and were talking to each other and I recognized their faces.

Speaker 38 But Catherine says Shook recognized an opportunity in Marisa's story to get Catherine and get headlines.

Speaker 7 I'm the answer. to the prosecutor's dream, me.

Speaker 7 Think of what he could, the mileage he can get out of me.

Speaker 23 Why could he get so much mileage out of you?

Speaker 7 I'm a lawyer.

Speaker 7 Controversy has swirled around me for 25 years.

Speaker 7 I sell papers.

Speaker 57 Your Honor, our next witness will be Catherine Shelton.

Speaker 8 She says she was nothing but a convenient patsy for Marissa.

Speaker 7 There was a time when if Marissa here had walked through that door, I would have thrashed her like a bad little fat girl that I beat up one time in the fourth grade.

Speaker 11 Now she says she's ready to duke it out in court.

Speaker 7 If she has something to say beyond, oh, oh, I'm so afraid of Catherine, oh, then let's hear it.

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Speaker 7 It gives me pleasure to say that for her, the party's over.

Speaker 11 Two years ago, Catherine Shelton was slapped with a lawsuit by her former employee, Marisa Hierrow.

Speaker 7 This started out to be a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Marissa against me for killing her husband. It has turned into something else.

Speaker 8 Marissa dropped her suit.

Speaker 25 But today in this Dallas courthouse, Catherine is turning the tables.

Speaker 13 She's suing Marisa, saying Marisa has falsely blamed her and her husband Clint for the crime.

Speaker 15 Catherine wants justice and money, lots and lots of money.

Speaker 7 She needs to find a job. And we hope she'll stay at it for at least 30 or 40 years, because that's how long it's going to take to pay for all this.

Speaker 16 It's an unusual trial.

Speaker 13 There's no jury, only a judge.

Speaker 57 Marissa Hierrero versus Catherine Shelton.

Speaker 8 And no defendant, since Marisa is a no-show.

Speaker 57 Were you expecting him to be here?

Speaker 56 No, sir.

Speaker 38 No, sir.

Speaker 8 In fact, Catherine's lawyer, James Murphy, could have declared victory right after he got here.

Speaker 19 He struck her pleadings and entered a default judgment.

Speaker 9 Motions are granted.

Speaker 15 And in plain English, that means you won the big battle just by virtue of the fact that this chair remained empty.

Speaker 13 Absolutely.

Speaker 33 Absolutely.

Speaker 11 But the trial, such as it is, will go on even though there's only one lawyer instead of the customary two any objections murphy claims it all boils down to marisa's accusations the woman doesn't have any credibility and that's basically all the state has to implicate catherine shelton in this case what is plaintiff's exhibit number four number four investigator paula cook says she's found marisa used two different social security numbers and she says Marisa seems to have married Michael Hiero before she was divorced from another man.

Speaker 16 But Marisa is not only a liar, says Murphy.

Speaker 24 She said it somewhere down the way her husband's been shot.

Speaker 13 Murphy argues she actually set up her husband's murder. We believe that she knew who it was that killed her husband.

Speaker 8 Because he knew too much about her immigration scam.

Speaker 57 The second shot was fired to make it look like that she was also an intended victim.

Speaker 29 Murphy calls several witnesses

Speaker 25 to testify without worrying about cross-examination. But he saves the best for last

Speaker 46 as Catherine Mahaffey Shelton makes an entrance like the star witness she is.

Speaker 53 Thomas, where the testimony you're about to give in this case be the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Step you got?

Speaker 7 Somebody got it.

Speaker 51 Under oath, Catherine has to face part of her own past, at least the part that involves Gary Taylor.

Speaker 7 There were some contra-tomps with with a reporter,

Speaker 40 some way.

Speaker 7 Contra-tomps. He came to my home to confront me, and just, I've got to put it very bluntly, I shot the man.

Speaker 8 She also takes a few verbal shots at the witnesses against her husband at his trial.

Speaker 7 I mean, just a crew of gypsies, tramps, and thieves got on that witness stand.

Speaker 8 It's an impassioned defense of an imprisoned husband.

Speaker 7 My worldly purpose is to

Speaker 7 take him out of where he doesn't belong. He was always in the outside, always the outdoors.
The change of the seasons comes and goes.

Speaker 36 Catherine is on a roll.

Speaker 7 I just try to keep going.

Speaker 8 Setting the record straight about some of the nasty things Marisa has said about her.

Speaker 7 And the worst thing she says in here.

Speaker 17 This

Speaker 20 thing says, I'm a coward.

Speaker 7 Well, let me ask you.

Speaker 12 My father wasn't a coward. My mother wasn't a coward.

Speaker 57 We rest.

Speaker 29 The judge is impressed with everything he's heard, even though he's only heard from one side.

Speaker 9 I think it was a very well-tried case. Makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 29 It's a big win for Catherine. The judge rules Marisa libeled Catherine by accusing her of murder.

Speaker 26 Then he awards Catherine $5 million in damages and says that based upon the evidence presented, Catherine Mahaffey Shelton is actually innocent of the allegations of murder and assault.

Speaker 7 Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

Speaker 19 Thank you.

Speaker 15 A judge in Dallas signed an order saying Catherine Mahaffey Shelton is actually innocent.

Speaker 14 It means nothing.

Speaker 29 Detective David Nabers says despite Catherine's victory in civil court, she could still face criminal charges.

Speaker 56 We haven't been able to eliminate her as a suspect.

Speaker 30 And prosecutors say Catherine's case will have no effect on Clint's life sentence.

Speaker 26 Marisa Harrow wouldn't meet with us again, but through email she vehemently sticks to her story and vows Catherine will not get away with her husband's murder.

Speaker 7 I'm almost there.

Speaker 36 Catherine Mahaffey Shelton is still practicing law after weathering all the storms and suspicions that have battered her for the past 30 years.

Speaker 52 It's a career, she says, that is more than a profession, almost a calling.

Speaker 7 When I was little, five or six years old, I wanted to become a priest. I just loved the idea of confession: whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven.

Speaker 7 I liked that idea of being able to help somebody to get back on track.

Speaker 7 As time went on, I realized I couldn't become a priest, but I became a lawyer. I try to fix lives that have gone awry.

Speaker 20 With her career on the line, can Catherine Sheldon fix her latest legal mess?

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Speaker 20 Katherine Shelton was in jeopardy of losing her law license when the Texas bar leveled more than 20 counts of professional misconduct against her.

Speaker 20 The charges included false advertising and overcharging clients. Shelton settled the case by agreeing to a fine and a three-month suspension of her license.

Speaker 20 Now she's on probation and back in business. Given all that's gone on in her past, about the only prediction anyone can make about Catherine Shelton is that we haven't heard the last of her yet.

Speaker 64 In 2007, Catherine Shelton was disbarred from practicing law in Texas for violations of professional and ethical conduct.

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