As Darkness Fell

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Speaker 2 It was getting dark as the hunter pulled the trigger. The shape someone said looked like a bear wasn't.

Speaker 4 And I heard this god-awful scream.

Speaker 2 But was this an accident?

Speaker 3 There's absolutely no allegation of evil intent. Or something else.

Speaker 5 She says I'm worth more to her dead than I am alive.

Speaker 6 Thanks for joining us. I'm Lester Holt.
To outsiders, every marriage is a mystery, like the couple in the story you're about to see. Some saw two people in love, others a marriage in trouble.

Speaker 6 But all agreed this husband and wife did have one thing going for them. They both loved hunting.
They were also both excellent shots. So good, they rarely missed, whatever the target.

Speaker 6 Here's Keith Morrison.

Speaker 3 Twilight.

Speaker 3 The day going fast now. Night eating up the rotted track, the meadow, the wild black wood.

Speaker 3 When did she know?

Speaker 3 Now, as she steadied herself in the truck bed, was it hours ago in September sunlight? Did she know already back at the camp in the morning?

Speaker 3 Or was it later, much later, when they showed her the evidence and darkness swallowed them all?

Speaker 3 They call it the Rock, a a great, gorgeous island, with its fishing fleets, and its coves, and its mile after mile of primeval woods. A place to fall in love.

Speaker 3 A place where love can sour and turn, perhaps, to murder. Except, surely not.

Speaker 3 Not in Newfoundland, Canada, with its small, sweet towns, its hospitable people, its vast and ancient forests teeming with bear and moose and caribou, remote, quiet, not quite crime-free, but close.

Speaker 3 And so the question that arose that awful September night was this: Had crime, vicious crime, been imported to Newfoundland? Or was it no crime at all?

Speaker 3 You'll have to go to another bucolic place 1,500 miles southwest of Newfoundland in rural eastern Pennsylvania, where Mark Harshbarker met the love of his life, Mary Beth.

Speaker 7 Mark said when he saw her, he said, oh, I want to marry her.

Speaker 7 And when she saw Mark, she said, I'm going to marry that man.

Speaker 3 Mary Beth was floating on air, told her friend Madge, this is it, he's the one.

Speaker 7 So it was as if they were meant for each other, and they were very much in love, very much in love.

Speaker 3 And when Mark talked to his sister Sharon about Mary Beth, over the moon he was.

Speaker 8 He started a conversation with me a couple times and he said, did you ever just look at somebody and know that they were the right person for you?

Speaker 7 They were so suited to each other.

Speaker 3 So suited.

Speaker 3 Mark was the apple of his father's eye, Lee Harsh Barker, who knew love when he saw it.

Speaker 9 He thought that she was just what he was looking for.

Speaker 3 Mark was an expert hunter, learned at his daddy's knee, and what do you know, so was Mary Beth. Not many girls like

Speaker 9 She was very much for the outdoors too, for hunting and fishing.

Speaker 3 He was crazy about her.

Speaker 9 She was very good with the rifle.

Speaker 9 She could shoot.

Speaker 3 So she could. They celebrated their marriage.
How else? By shooting.

Speaker 3 The photos show Mary Beth still in her wedding dress and later they both joined what must surely be one of the most exclusive clubs anywhere.

Speaker 9 They shot competitively in an exclusive 1,000-yard club, club and it's very difficult to shoot at a target a thousand yards away.

Speaker 3 No kidding. Anyway, as love grew, so did the young couple's collection of precision rifles.
You got to have a very special sort of gun to do that, right?

Speaker 9 Yes, you have to have good equipment and you have to be good with that equipment. Sure.

Speaker 3 In addition to the skill, what does the equipment provide to help people see targets that far away?

Speaker 9 Well, they had very good scopes.

Speaker 3 Of course, shooting was by no means all they did. They had a couple of babies to add to the daughter Mary Beth brought into the marriage.

Speaker 7 And when Mark first became a father, I remember how happy he was as a little girl. And she was so thrilled, and he was too.
He would look at the baby in the bassinet and he could sit there for hours.

Speaker 3 Something else about Mark. He was a good provider.
His contracting job paid well enough, he was able to build a big new home for his growing family, which by 2006 included a baby boy.

Speaker 3 He enjoyed having family around too, like older brother Barry and his wife Linda.

Speaker 10 For the first time in his life, he was really

Speaker 10 happy with things.

Speaker 3 Of course, nothing is perfect. Mark's other older brother, Dean, had issues with Mary Beth.
So she hated me. Might have been mutual.

Speaker 3 Anyway, all things considered, Mark was a happy man, as he told his sister Susan.

Speaker 5 If I die tomorrow, I've lived a good life.

Speaker 3 And then in the summer of 2006, Mark and Mary Beth planned the ideal vacation, ideal for them anyway, a hunting trip to one of their favorite and frequent destinations, Newfoundland.

Speaker 9 You know, the night before they left for Newfoundland, he told me,

Speaker 9 he said, you should see. Mary Beth shoot that rifle.
He said, you know, these little plastic pill bottles, she can hit hit one of those at 250 yards with the rifle. And that is pretty fine shooting.

Speaker 3 It was September 2006. They packed up the truck and capper, took their baby boy and four-year-old daughter with them, and also Mark's brother, Barry.

Speaker 3 They drove up to Nova Scotia, took the ferry seven hours across the ocean to Newfoundland.

Speaker 10 Everything was as fine as it could be.

Speaker 3 They hired a guide, shot a few caribou. Mark bagged a black bear.

Speaker 3 People at the hunting lodge noted how affectionate Mark and Mary Beth were, calling out, I love you, every time they separated, even briefly.

Speaker 10 It's a beautiful country, a beautiful trip. He was more than happy with life.

Speaker 3 Then, day six, early evening, they set out on one last hunt. Mary Beth's turned, perhaps, to bag a bear.
They dropped off Barry to hunt by himself.

Speaker 10 It was a rainy, dreary, foggy night. Wind was blowing.
It was an excellent time for game to come out and move and feed, you know, with the early darkness.

Speaker 3 Mark and the guy parked the truck in the clearing, got out and disappeared into the woods, told Mary Beth they'd scare out a bear if they saw one.

Speaker 3 And she packed the kids into the cab and climbed into the bed of the pickup, positioned herself,

Speaker 3 peered through her powerful, light-enhancing rifle scope.

Speaker 10 You still could see objects, you still could see,

Speaker 10 to an extent.

Speaker 3 Fifteen minutes passed, almost dark now. Mary Beth saw movement.
A bear? She peered through her gun scope, lined up the shot, squeezed the trigger.

Speaker 3 But it wasn't a bear.

Speaker 11 Coming up,

Speaker 2 what did Mary Beth shoot?

Speaker 4 I was looking and looking, and I fired, and I heard this god-awful scream.

Speaker 11 When date line continues.

Speaker 3 Deep in a wild wood in Newfoundland, last light fading, Mark Harshbarger and a guide headed back from their final hunt of the day.

Speaker 3 As they approached the clearing where Mark's wife Mary Beth waited in the pickup truck with the kids, the guide stopped to relieve himself.

Speaker 3 Alone now, Mark Harshbarger picked his way through the rough undergrowth, through ruts called skidders, sometimes three feet deep, and over fallen logs and through grass, which at the time was three to five feet high in front of him.

Speaker 3 About 200 feet away, his wife, Mary Beth Harshbarger, was standing in the back of a pickup truck. Could she see him this far away?

Speaker 3 That's when the guide heard the shot, stepped out of the woods, saw the body, felt for a pulse, called out to Mary Beth.

Speaker 12 I said, what did you shoot at? She said, I shot at a bear. Till I get him.
I said, no, you've got married.

Speaker 3 That was no bear she killed. It was her husband.

Speaker 3 It was pandemonium then. Kids wailing, Mary Beth sobbing, trying to go to the body.
The guide held her back, put her in the truck, drove off to find a working phone, picked up Barry on the way.

Speaker 10 And they come screaming, yelling, and Mary Beth was crying, and I didn't know what had happened. And she said, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.
There had been an accident. The guide said, we got to go.

Speaker 10 And they said, Mark was involved in an accident. I said, well, how is he? And they said, he's gone.
I said, no, he can't be gone.

Speaker 3 But Mark was gone, left dead back in the clearing. Once at the lodge, they called the police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP.

Speaker 10 Of course, they closed all the roads. They came in and did their investigating.

Speaker 3 Mary Beth was a mess, appeared to be in shock. Just past 2 a.m., the Mounties recorded her version of events.

Speaker 4 I was standing in the back of the truck with a loaded weapon, and I saw a black bear come out in the woods.

Speaker 3 Saw it first with her naked eye, she said.

Speaker 4 And I put my scope on him, and I was looking and looking, and I fired, and I heard this god-awful scream. It was horrible.

Speaker 3 The bullet hit at mid-chest. He was dead in an instant.

Speaker 4 And that was my husband.

Speaker 3 But couldn't you tell in the twilight that it was him? Wondered the Mounties.

Speaker 4 Were you able to see clearly across the cutover for a considerable distance?

Speaker 4 I thought I was. For the 50 yards I was looking at, for the bear.

Speaker 4 I saw a clear bear. What you're telling me is that you saw a bear in your scope?

Speaker 4 And with my naked eye. I saw the movement with naked eye, but my scope magnifies it, and I looked, and it was a bear.

Speaker 3 And then she said, a little late for this conclusion,

Speaker 4 I think it was too dark to shoot.

Speaker 4 I thought I had a clear picture, but obviously not.

Speaker 3 So now the questions veered into territory all too familiar to cops everywhere.

Speaker 4 Mary Beth,

Speaker 4 have you and Mark ever had any marital issues or problems?

Speaker 4 We had the perfect life, the perfect marriage, the perfect family.

Speaker 4 I loved him so much.

Speaker 4 He was my everything. I couldn't wait for him to go home from work.

Speaker 4 That's what I live for.

Speaker 4 We had a great life, and we had so much in common.

Speaker 4 Okay. I don't know how to go without him.

Speaker 4 Okay, I think we're done the interview right now.

Speaker 3 Investigators left Mary Beth to grieve, and of course, to call the family with the awful news. Mary Beth's first call was to her friend, Madge.

Speaker 7 She said, oh, Mark is dead. He was shot.

Speaker 7 And I asked her, who shot him?

Speaker 7 And she said, I did.

Speaker 7 And she was crying so hard it was difficult to make out what she was saying. I said, have you told anyone? No, I'm calling you first.

Speaker 3 Barry got on the phone, too. Not to his father or his brother or sisters.
He called his wife, Linda, asked her to deliver the news.

Speaker 8 Linda called me and said, Mark is gone. And I said, what do you mean, Mark's gone? And she said, Mary Beth shot him.
She thought he was a bear, and she shot him.

Speaker 3 And then Sharon had to tell their father, Lee.

Speaker 9 I'll never forget the look on her face when she came in, and right away it was Mark.

Speaker 9 Mark's gone.

Speaker 14 Just like that.

Speaker 9 Yeah and that was the most devastating thing that ever happened to me in my life.

Speaker 3 Mark was his baby, his hunting buddy, the son most like him.

Speaker 3 Back in Newfoundland the Maudis asked Mary Beth would she mind staying another day or so while they sorted things out? And of course she said yes, though neither she nor Barry slept at all that night.

Speaker 10 I cried all night and threw up all night.

Speaker 10 It's a tragic experience to ever have to go through.

Speaker 3 At first light, the Mounties headed back to the clearing to collect Mark's body and document what they saw on video. All very sad.

Speaker 3 In Newfoundland, as in many places, hunting accidents are, if not exactly common, an unfortunate reality. Chalk up another one.

Speaker 3 Then the cops got back to headquarters. And all hell broke loose.

Speaker 3 They're getting bombarded and so on by the phone calls. That is, calls from Mark's family, Dean mostly, demanding the police do something.
So many calls. They asked Barry to tell them to stop.

Speaker 10 They handed me a satellite phone.

Speaker 3 They said, our office can hardly perform their duties. There was, of course, a reason for all those calls.
And everybody would find out about that soon enough.

Speaker 11 Coming up.

Speaker 8 Immediately, we had that instinct that this wasn't an accident.

Speaker 11 Wendateline Dateline continues.

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Speaker 3 On September 17, 2006, less than 72 hours after Mary Beth Harshparker said she mistook her husband for a bear, she left Newfoundland for the long, sad drive back to Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3 Her children and brother-in-law Barry with her. And Mark, his body was shipped back in a casket.

Speaker 4 I don't know how to go without him.

Speaker 3 And a few days after that tear-stained statement in the interview with the Mounties, she pulled up in Pennsylvania with some trophies in the truck.

Speaker 3 A few caribou carcasses promptly carved up for stakes, and that dead bear, the one Mark shot before she shot him.

Speaker 3 The bear she had stuffed and mounted, a way to honor her husband, she said, his last kill and all.

Speaker 3 But Mary Beth's in-laws, already demanding the Mounties open an investigation, now added to their complaints what they saw as appalling bad taste and an uncaring attitude. Mark's sister Susan.

Speaker 5 If I would have killed someone, I would have been, you'd have had to put me under sedation. I mean, I cannot even imagine taking a life like that and being able to function.

Speaker 3 Was she calm? Was she very calm?

Speaker 14 I wasn't agitated or over the top at all.

Speaker 17 Eerily calm.

Speaker 5 I did not want to believe that she did it on purpose. I gave her every opportunity to tell me that she was sorry,

Speaker 5 and it never happened. And there was no tears.

Speaker 17 There was no,

Speaker 17 no, I'm sorry. No,

Speaker 5 oh my God, what have I done? Nothing.

Speaker 3 Of course, methods of grief are as varied and personal as there are grievers.

Speaker 3 Not really the in-laws' business to judge Mary Beth's method, perhaps. But as you'll hear, They didn't seem to believe Mary Beth was grieving.

Speaker 3 And though they were all shocked by Mark's killing, they said they they weren't really surprised.

Speaker 8 We all knew that something like that could happen.

Speaker 3 Knew that this could happen? How?

Speaker 3 Well, for one thing, the Harshbargers knew very well that Mary Beth was a crack shot, that she was equipped in Newfoundland with a sophisticated light-enhancing rifle scope.

Speaker 3 So, really, at about 200 feet. How could she have mistaken her own husband for a bear?

Speaker 8 The fact that it was only 60 meters in an open area, I mean, right immediately had the instinct that this wasn't an accident. Just

Speaker 8 didn't make any sense.

Speaker 3 No, the Harshburgers suspected the worst sort of foul play, a calculated deliberate killing by a woman they did not like or trust, not one bit. Especially Dean.

Speaker 3 His eyes were opened a few years earlier, said Dean, when he lived briefly with Mark and Mary Beth. Didn't end well.

Speaker 13 I fell in bad favor with Mary Beth because she couldn't control me. It got really intense.

Speaker 13 She was so dominating in her

Speaker 13 manners.

Speaker 3 Dean claimed he saw disturbing things during his short unhappy stay with the couple.

Speaker 13 Mary Beth would fly off the handle. I saw her slapping Mark and so on just violently.

Speaker 3 Slapping him.

Speaker 13 Slapping him until his lips were bleeding. I often asked him why he wasn't afraid that she'd follow through sometime and

Speaker 13 shoot him or kill him. Yeah, and

Speaker 13 he said

Speaker 13 our love for each other is so strong that she'd never do it. And he says if she did, she'd be losing the best thing ever happened to her.

Speaker 3 Dean said he thought his little brother was crazy to stay with Mary Beth. But Mark loved her and defended her even when, according to the family, she acted up or got riled up.

Speaker 13 He would take her for a ride in the Jeep and come back and everything would be fine.

Speaker 9 Well, he seemed to be able to control her.

Speaker 3 Of course, Dean wasn't alone, not for long. Early on, the rest of the family saw the very same signs of trouble.

Speaker 5 She never allowed him really to be with any of us alone.

Speaker 3 She was always there.

Speaker 17 She was controlling. It was like he was brainwashed.

Speaker 3 As the news of Mark's death came crashing in on them, so did a seven years-long backlog of grievances against Mary Beth.

Speaker 3 As they saw it, there'd been tempered tantrums and wild spending sprees, disappearing acts. They said they'd put up with it because they loved Mark and they wanted to keep the family together.

Speaker 3 They knew something something else too. They knew Mary Beth had been diagnosed as being bipolar

Speaker 3 and when she didn't take her medication like when she was pregnant.

Speaker 5 Everyone was really afraid and uncomfortable to be around her.

Speaker 8 I told him he needed to think of the safety of himself and those children that she needed to get the appropriate treatment and

Speaker 8 He was always concerned about if she was admitted somewhere, she wouldn't be allowed to hunt and that's what they lived for and he didn't want her to lose her gun privileges.

Speaker 3 But eventually, Mary Best's mood became so severe, said the family, she agreed to let Mark take her to a psychiatric hospital just over a year before the hunting trip.

Speaker 3 The family says she signed the papers herself, a way to keep her hunting privileges. But she certainly did not like the place.

Speaker 9 Oh, no, she said nobody will ever put me in this place again when she got out of that.

Speaker 3 And claimed the harsh barger, she blamed Mark for putting her there.

Speaker 14 But did she ever forgive him for putting her into a second?

Speaker 13 I think that's what brought this about, personally.

Speaker 3 We've all thought that. And so, when they heard about the accident, their minds went to that and also some practical things.
Mark had always been a good provider.

Speaker 3 He'd worked hard to pay for that big new house as it was being built. And just five months earlier, he and Mary Beth increased his life insurance by half a million.

Speaker 5 She says I'm worth more to her dead than I am alive.

Speaker 3 It was a joke at the time, said Susan, but it was certainly in their minds when Dean and his family made all those phone calls to the RCMP right after the shooting.

Speaker 9 I wanted to talk to the commander of the mounted police,

Speaker 9 and I did.

Speaker 3 But the Maudies, said the harsh parkers, didn't seem to share their suspicions.

Speaker 8 They had made the comments, how could we be questioning this?

Speaker 13 And I stressed it to the point when I had

Speaker 13 one of the sergeants in the CMP, actually says, nobody tells me how to run our investigations.

Speaker 3 So it was upsetting, said the harsh bargers, but what could they do? The Mounties apparently ruled out murder or any crime when they sent Marybeth home with the bear and the caribou and the kids.

Speaker 3 Barry.

Speaker 3 The funeral was, to say the least, awkward, tense.

Speaker 10 It was almost as if you drew a line down to the middle of the building.

Speaker 10 Some stayed over here, some stayed on that side.

Speaker 9 I don't even know where his ashes were scattered. I don't know that.

Speaker 3 Well, they may not have been scattered at all, actually. There was an urn right on a shelf in the house Mark built for Mary Beth.

Speaker 3 And that might have been the end of it, really. Except, of course, for the deep freeze that now split the family.
But it wasn't the end of it.

Speaker 3 Because not long after, said Dean, a strange thing happened. Two of Mark's friends came forward, claimed Mark once made an unsettling prediction.

Speaker 13 I think she's going to shoot me. He said Mark hesitated and then added, and she won't miss.

Speaker 3 And yet another funny thing, they were stacking up now. Oh boy, were they ever.
This time, it was Barry.

Speaker 3 Suddenly, Barry's 20-year marriage ended.

Speaker 3 And as for what he did next, well,

Speaker 3 what in the world was happening?

Speaker 11 Coming up.

Speaker 2 Perhaps Mary Beth wasn't fighting with everyone in her husband's family.

Speaker 3 Did you ever have a moment when you thought, I'm trespassing on my brother's life?

Speaker 11 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 3 In those sad, dark days after Mark Harshberger's death, his family suspicion solidified into a determined accusation.

Speaker 3 His wife, Mary Beth, they were convinced, had murdered Mark, their son and brother. And they told whoever would listen, she knew she wasn't shooting any bear up in the Newfoundland woods.

Speaker 7 His family was terribly upset. Of course, then they started blaming her.
They wanted a reason, and they wanted a...

Speaker 7 a person who would be responsible. Well, she was responsible and she said she was and she felt horrible.

Speaker 7 But they wanted more, I guess, you know, more than just saying, yes, I did it, and I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 3 Of all the harsh bargers, only Barry stood by Mary Beth. Barry, who expressed disgust at Brother Dean's accusation that she'd killed Mark out of revenge or maybe to collect insurance money.

Speaker 3 Dean just hated her, that's all, said Barry.

Speaker 10 I feel it was a game.

Speaker 10 Just playing a game. And persuaded everybody else to feel the same that he could, you know.

Speaker 3 Meanwhile, Barry did his best to comfort Mary Beth.

Speaker 10 Crying and crying and days at a time, I mean nights without sleep. Who did she have? I mean nobody really helped out.
They say they offered to and so on, but nobody was here.

Speaker 10 Yeah, but you were here as much as possible.

Speaker 3 So much so that Barry's wife of 20 years walked out. And then in what seemed to the rest of the family indecent haste, Barry moved in with Mary Beth.

Speaker 5 He swore to me and broke down crying and put on such a good front. And he said, the only reason he's there is because of those kids.
And he swore to me that that was the only thing that was going on.

Speaker 13 Everybody in town knew there were a couple.

Speaker 5 I still don't want to believe that. I've lost two brothers.
I have lost two brothers, not one.

Speaker 10 I just can't believe that these people think that they have a right to judge me. do I judge them of who they live with or who they sleep with?

Speaker 3 Did you ever have a moment when you thought

Speaker 3 I'm trespassing on my brother's life?

Speaker 10 My brother's gone. It's no longer his life.

Speaker 10 I don't feel that way.

Speaker 10 Trespassing? No.

Speaker 10 I never looked at it that way. No.

Speaker 3 By this time, family relationships were very sour.

Speaker 9 Yes, they were.

Speaker 14 Because what?

Speaker 3 They knew you suspected her.

Speaker 9 Well, they knew that I couldn't accept the fact that

Speaker 9 things happened the way they did. It was just an accident.
I couldn't accept that.

Speaker 3 Which is why, since the Mounties didn't seem too interested, the Harshbargers took their suspicions to a police force closer to home.

Speaker 13 I called the Pennsylvania State Police, and they in turn took it to the Wyoming County District Attorney's Office. And the detective there, he relayed it to the Mounties in Canada.

Speaker 3 It was Dean who called the cops in Pennsylvania, Dean who'd pestered the Mounties right after the shooting, and Dean who learned that up in Newfoundland, investigators went out to the very spot in the brush where Mary Beth shot Mark and conducted a reenactment.

Speaker 3 The results?

Speaker 3 Inconclusive. It was possible, at least, that in high grass and low light, Mary Beth could have mistaken Mark for a bear.
Though, of course, another conclusion was also possible.

Speaker 3 By this time, with some help from the Harshbarkers, Pennsylvania media had gotten wind of Mark's death and local gossip feasted on what was a juicy story, accident or not.

Speaker 9 It would be pretty hard to mistake a human for a bear.

Speaker 3 And Mary Beth, she kept her mouth shut, at least in public.

Speaker 3 Though she did fight hard, eventually successfully, to pry the very substantial insurance money from firms which first refused to pay, she started competing again in local shooting contests.

Speaker 3 And when it came to the kids, Mary Beth claimed the Harshbarkers never asked to see them, but Lee Harshbarker told us she prevented any contact with those grandchildren of his.

Speaker 3 And you lost two grandchildren.

Speaker 9 Yes, it's sad. It's a sad situation.

Speaker 3 Then, finally, on the one-year anniversary of Mark's death, Mary Beth called the local NBC station, WBRE, to talk about a bench she'd put on her property.

Speaker 14 What was the purpose for Gaynor's bench here, Mary Bethany? I see candles here also. What is this for?

Speaker 19 It's a memorial to Mark, my husband,

Speaker 19 for the children because Mark was cremated.

Speaker 14 What do you want them to know about you and Mark?

Speaker 19 I love my husband very, very, very much. And he loved me.

Speaker 14 What do you think he would say about all some of this information that's going and rumors that are flying around out there? What do you think he would say?

Speaker 19 I wouldn't be really happy at all.

Speaker 14 What do you see in your future?

Speaker 19 It's unclear at this time. I live, Dave, today.

Speaker 3 As unclear as the result of the Mounties' second shooting recreation was,

Speaker 3 still, local cops at the request of the Mounties were trying to put a case together.

Speaker 3 And by September 2007, the Pennsylvania cops had dug up enough, mostly material from Mary Beth's past, to lure two Mounties down to the U.S.

Speaker 9 They were surprised that she did have a troubled past and a lot of things that I didn't know about.

Speaker 3 There was, for example, an incident back in 1992. Mary Beth was convicted of assault, did a day in jail, a stretch of probation.

Speaker 3 The Mounties accepted a stack of investigative material from the Pennsylvania investigators.

Speaker 9 They would take that back and they determined what would be the proper charge to charge her with.

Speaker 3 Still, months went by as Mary Beth awaited her fate.

Speaker 7 It has taken quite a toll on her to know that his family

Speaker 7 feels she is totally and completely responsible for Mark's death.

Speaker 3 And then in 2008, the news. The Mounties were filing charges.
She fought the expedition for two long years.

Speaker 3 But May 2010, almost four years after she shot what wasn't a bear, it was decided.

Speaker 3 Mary Beth Harshbarker would go on trial in Newfoundland, where a very curious thing would happen on the way to justice.

Speaker 11 Coming up,

Speaker 11 Mary Beth's remarkable memory.

Speaker 20 She knew the numbers off the top of her head.

Speaker 3 That seems a little weird, doesn't it?

Speaker 20 It did raise eyebrows.

Speaker 11 When dateline continues.

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Speaker 3 The summer of 2010, cool toward toward an early autumn in Grand Falls, Newfoundland. Mary Beth Harshbarger was by now 45 years old.

Speaker 3 She'd been in the local jail awaiting trial for almost five months, while her live-in boyfriend and brother-in-law Barry, the only Harshbarger on her side, supervised the babysitter watching the kids back in Pennsylvania.

Speaker 17 It's been almost exactly four years since Mary Beth Harshbarger shot and killed her husband Mark.

Speaker 3 Mary Beth's story had by then ginned up quite a lot of public opinion, one way or the other.

Speaker 3 The question that drove the debate seemed maddeningly difficult to answer. Was it a simple hunting accident?

Speaker 3 Or did Mary Beth, a competition-level sharpshooter, put that hole in her husband's chest on purpose?

Speaker 20 This was a case that raised a lot of questions for people.

Speaker 20 They'd asked themselves, what if?

Speaker 3 Canadian press reporter Sue Bailey covered the story and the trial.

Speaker 20 For people who believe Mary Beth Harshbarger, this was a horrible, tragic accident. And for people who don't believe her, they would say, well, if this was deliberate, how would you ever prove it?

Speaker 3 And that's just the thing. For all the public chatter, murder was never on the table.
The Mounties did not allege murder. It was not the charge against Mary Beth Harshbarger.

Speaker 3 Even though, as Mary Beth's Canadian Attorney Carl Inder complained about the media, they were reporting on this as if it were

Speaker 3 a murder charge or a manslaughter charge. When the actual charge was criminal negligence causing death.
Big difference, very big difference. And yet.

Speaker 3 You know, it was like there was a disconnect in some way between the charge that was being tried in the court and the

Speaker 3 charge of public opinion. Read the criminal code.
There is absolutely no allegation of evil intent. Yes, really, agreed Crown Attorney Karen O'Reilly.

Speaker 8 And the criminal negligence charge meant it was a non-intentional shooting.

Speaker 3 The charge, in its simplest terms, that Mary Beth was criminally irresponsible when she squeezed the trigger in the gathering dark that awful night. A big deal, nonetheless, in Canadian law.

Speaker 3 Severe penalties for that sort of thing there. A maximum life sentence, in fact.

Speaker 3 It was big news, too, when Mary Beth's in-laws, the Harsh Barkers, made their somber presence known, with a pilgrimage to the lonely stand of brush where Mary Beth's bullet found her mark.

Speaker 3 And when on September 13th, 2010, four years to the week after the incident in the brush, Mary Beth was led into the courthouse for trial.

Speaker 3 In fact, the public fascination with the case was sufficiently intense that her attorney advised her to elect to be tried by a judge alone. Oh, it would have been foolish to bring this to a jury.

Speaker 3 Why do you say that? I was just afraid that

Speaker 3 a jury might think, well, okay, she's an American, you know, years and I've gone. Maybe she didn't intend to kill.

Speaker 3 So in front of a judge, but no cameras, no jury, the hunting guide recalled the fateful moment.

Speaker 12 I said, why did you shoot at him? She said, I shot at a bear. Did I get him? I said, no, you got married.

Speaker 3 The Maudis told about their inconclusive recreations, about the twilight, the brush, the tall grass in which Mary Beth claimed she saw a bear.

Speaker 12 It was very rugged terrain. There was a lot of tree stumps and fallen trees.
Very poor footing, as I recall. And as you entered the scene, the grass was fairly tall as you went in and got taller.

Speaker 3 But the star witness was Mary Beth herself, the audiotape version. That is, the recorded story she told the Mounties right after shooting her husband.

Speaker 4 It was low to the ground. It looked to be about this big and black and rounded at the back and the head of a bear.
Yes. Yes.
Do you know now what it was that you fired?

Speaker 4 Yep.

Speaker 4 So it wasn't.

Speaker 4 I didn't see him in the scope. I didn't see him with my eye.
Okay. I didn't see him at all.

Speaker 4 But he's dead.

Speaker 3 And then some evidence that Mary Beth's in-laws believed to be particularly incriminating. During her recorded chat with the Mounties, Mary Beth was asked if there was life insurance.

Speaker 4 Yes, on both of us. He has won through work.
I don't know what that's worth. Probably a year's pay, $60,000.

Speaker 4 We have one through New York Life

Speaker 4 that's worth $100,000.

Speaker 4 And then we just got some through State Farm in May, and that's worth $500,000

Speaker 3 on him.

Speaker 3 A big brand new life insurance policy on Mark. And listen to what happens when the policeman asks this apparently horrified and heartbroken woman for details.

Speaker 4 Would you be able to provide me?

Speaker 4 I don't expect you to do it now, but phone numbers of those. I can give it to you now, I think.
Okay. State Farm is

Speaker 4 area code 570. yes 836

Speaker 4 you know new york um my representative is a good friend her number is 570-836

Speaker 3 she knew the numbers off the you know top of her head that seems a little weird isn't it i'd have to look up the number but it did raise eyebrows But as for the Harshbarger's allegations that Mary Beth was a dangerous loose cannon that Mark may have feared for his own safety, those allegations did not make it into the trial because the Crown Attorney didn't allege even for a minute that Mary Beth intended to kill her husband.

Speaker 3 So for the prosecution, the Harshbarger's accusations were irrelevant and the case was about criminal carelessness only.

Speaker 20 When you look at the evidence that the prosecution did introduce, the points that were stressed were that Mary Beth Harshbarger is an experienced hunter. She herself describes herself as a good shot.

Speaker 20 And yet, that night she fired on a target that she hadn't identified before.

Speaker 3 And Mary Best Defense? For one thing, the owner of the hunting lodge said, maybe Mark did look like a bear that night.

Speaker 12 They were dressed in these navy blue coveralls, two or three day beard,

Speaker 3 a real dark,

Speaker 12 real dark complexion.

Speaker 3 How many bears do you estimate you've seen in the wild?

Speaker 12 Maybe a couple hundred.

Speaker 3 Describe how they look.

Speaker 12 They'll just stand on their hind legs and sniff and sniff and probably walk toward you a bit. They will go from one side to the next.

Speaker 3 He was walking in a rolling motion downhill, watching his step in diminishing light. He unknowingly exhibited the characteristics of a bear.
For the Harsh Barger family, the trial was not easy.

Speaker 8 I wanted and waited four years, so it came with a lot of mixed emotions in that courtroom.

Speaker 3 And then the judge adjourned the case for a week to ruminate about his verdict. A criminal negligence negligence conviction would send Mary Beth to prison in Canada for years,

Speaker 3 possibly even for life.

Speaker 3 So, what would it be?

Speaker 11 Coming up,

Speaker 3 the verdict.

Speaker 18 She was visibly shaking, waiting for the judge to trembling. Trembling, she was just shaking.

Speaker 11 When dateline continues,

Speaker 3 It would not be accurate to say the Harshbarker family was satisfied with the Canadian case against their in-law Mary Beth.

Speaker 3 They believe Mary Beth committed murder when she shot Mark Harshbarker, then claimed she thought he was a bear.

Speaker 3 Still, criminal negligence causing death, the actual charge against Mary Beth could bring a long sentence, even life in prison.

Speaker 3 And on October 1st, 2010, four years after the shooting, justice was about to be served.

Speaker 3 Again, a very nervous Mary Beth was led into the courtroom in Grand Falls, watched by Sue Bailey of the Canadian Press News Agency.

Speaker 18 She was visibly shaking, waiting for the judge to...

Speaker 3 Trembling.

Speaker 18 Trembling. She was just shaking.

Speaker 3 Carl Inder, Mary Beth's attorney, had the jitters too. I was nervous.
It was a cliffhanger. He kept us all in suspense for the...

Speaker 3 the bulk of his decision. In suspense, because the judge read from a 35-page decision he'd written.
It went on for quite some time.

Speaker 23 What she shot at was what she hit.

Speaker 3 And then finally, I think about halfway through page 30 of the 35-page decision, he showed his hand.

Speaker 23 People cannot always act perfectly. And even when people act reasonably, accidents, unfortunately, can occur.
The charge of criminal negligence against Mrs. Harshbarker is dismissed.

Speaker 3 And that was that. Not guilty of any crime at all.
Mary Beth Harshbarker was free to go.

Speaker 18 She burst into tears and was let out.

Speaker 20 And you could hear her sobbing as she was taken into the back room.

Speaker 3 It was a great relief. I was glad for my client.
It was a lot of work.

Speaker 3 And it turned out, they don't always turn out, Keith.

Speaker 3 Mary Beth left the courthouse with her attorney.

Speaker 3 and departed for Pennsylvania the very next day, free to return to the kids and Barry and her lovely big house and her Porsche and her Hummer and what was left of the $600,000 plus insurance settlement and furious relatives.

Speaker 13 She knows what she did.

Speaker 13 In my opinion, she killed Mark intentionally. She's getting away with murder.

Speaker 9 It was unbelievable that they would let her off with no consequences, no penalty whatsoever.

Speaker 13 Are you happy, Miss Mary Beth?

Speaker 3 And Mary Beth might have expected a sunny sort of reception upon her return home to her big farmhouse. But there was a bit of a shake-up back at the homestead.
Barry had run off with the babysitter.

Speaker 3 They'd moved out, got married. You might wonder what Mary Beth thought about it all.
The shooting, the in-laws, the accusations, the trial, Barry.

Speaker 3 Well, of course we did too. We met with Mary Beth as she went about rebuilding life with the kids after spending all those months in jail awaiting trial.

Speaker 3 She told us she avoids contact with the Harsh Bargers now, and for that matter, just about everybody in the little towns around her where the gossip churns as usual.

Speaker 3 We made a date for an on-camera interview so she could tell her side of the story, and then as the date approached, she changed her mind. Won't do it, she said.

Speaker 3 Don't care what anybody thinks about me, especially the Harsh Bargers, who are left now with only memories.

Speaker 9 The only thing we have left to remind us of Mark is the family pictures, and of course, those two grandchildren, Mark's children.

Speaker 3 Lee Harshbarger walks the forests he taught his son to love and that his son so loved to hunt.

Speaker 9 He had a favorite saying, well, Dad, that was another fine day afield.

Speaker 9 That was very, very rewarding.

Speaker 3 And Mary Beth? Probably the gift she sent her attorney. is as heartfelt a comment as we'll get.

Speaker 3 Well, she sent me a little token of her appreciation, a bumper sticker that read, it is as bad as it gets, and they are out to get you. I thought that was pretty fitting.

Speaker 6 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News.
Thanks for joining us.

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