The Necklace

Transcript

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Speaker 18 Tonight, on dateline, Taylor was a force to be reckoned with as a police officer and as a mother to match wits against bad guys. That is what drove her.

Speaker 19 She was missing, just off the map, correct?

Speaker 21 Something is absolutely not right. I was suspicious of everyone.

Speaker 22 Taylor's live-in girlfriend, who questioned her multiple times.

Speaker 19 She had serious issues with her ex-husband.

Speaker 25 The divorce had been pretty nasty.

Speaker 18 I wanted her to be found safe, despite all the bad stuff that had happened.

Speaker 26 I don't believe Taylor's kid married.

Speaker 25 married. She was the last person that Taylor Wright had been seen with.

Speaker 22 What can we prove? What can we disprove? There was $100,000 missing.

Speaker 27 You had to follow the money.

Speaker 28 Absolutely.

Speaker 22 We believe we would find evidence out there.

Speaker 28 The necklace, that was the key.

Speaker 29 The investigator who vanished and the mystery left behind.

Speaker 21 It's kind of like a roller coaster.

Speaker 30 You're just hanging over the edge and you're just waiting to drop.

Speaker 14 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 29 Here's Keith Morrison with the necklace.

Speaker 31 They could feel it in the heavy air.

Speaker 11 Barometer plunging, impending sky.

Speaker 35 It's so big, we would see devastating wind damage throughout the state.

Speaker 20 This one, Hurricane Irma, they'd heard, was huge.

Speaker 38 Category 5 could hit hard here in Pensacola, Florida.

Speaker 39 It was September 2017.

Speaker 42 A school administrator named Cassandra Waller went about the usual preparations.

Speaker 32 Schools would be closed for this one.

Speaker 16 And one unusual preparation.

Speaker 32 The love of her life, Taylor Wright, was moving in with her.

Speaker 33 Here in her tidy little ranch house until

Speaker 11 storm bearing bearing down, Taylor announced she was running an errand and she didn't come back.

Speaker 22 Started that way as a simple missing person case.

Speaker 33 But if you ask Chad Wilhite and Jeff Brown, then detectives and partners, they'll tell you nothing is simple in police investigations.

Speaker 53 And this one, far from it.

Speaker 50 Though at first, it didn't look like a case at all.

Speaker 33 Except maybe the case of a lover who'd changed her mind and a jilted party who'd chosen to file a police report.

Speaker 54 Still, the detective who received it followed standard procedure.

Speaker 22 He handles it like any other missing person case. He tries to reach out to the reporting person, which was Cassandra Waller, who was the girlfriend of Taylor Wright at the time.

Speaker 42 The story Cassandra told was complicated.

Speaker 50 Taylor, she told the responding officer, had just gone through a messy divorce.

Speaker 40 She'd lost custody of her child.

Speaker 56 And though she was smart and knew how to defend herself,

Speaker 57 her life, even with Cassandra, was not exactly stable.

Speaker 20 Had they been together a long time?

Speaker 22 They hadn't been together too long, maybe several months, if I remember correctly.

Speaker 59 So, a fairly new relationship?

Speaker 22 Yes, sir.

Speaker 59 Was there any indication of any trouble in that relationship?

Speaker 61 That, you know, she may have just run off somewhere.

Speaker 22 We had learned

Speaker 22 after speaking with Cassandra

Speaker 22 that there had been some infidelity issues, possibly some drug abuse issues.

Speaker 48 So, was she actually missing?

Speaker 19 Or had she simply left?

Speaker 54 Cassandra seemed worried enough.

Speaker 58 She even called Taylor's friends and family.

Speaker 21 Cassandra called me and told me, like, Taylor's missing.

Speaker 39 Barbara Evanson was one of Taylor's best friends, and she was concerned right away.

Speaker 31 If Taylor had just walked out, she, Barbara, would have heard.

Speaker 6 But Cassandra?

Speaker 46 she'd never heard of Cassandra.

Speaker 21 And I'm thinking, who the heck are you? And I was like, okay, that's nice. Who are you? And I'm like, I'm not telling you anything.

Speaker 21 So, you know, I put the brakes on it, even though I'm very concerned that Taylor's missing.

Speaker 60 Cassandra also called a woman named Nancy Murchison, who helped raise Taylor as a teenager.

Speaker 57 And she'd heard of Cassandra, knew she was a friend, but

Speaker 30 after Taylor went missing,

Speaker 30 she called me and said,

Speaker 30 you know, Taylor and I

Speaker 30 are in a relationship.

Speaker 30 I said, no, no, I didn't know that. So she didn't tell you? No, she didn't tell me.

Speaker 60 Well, I mean, when Taylor went missing, here's this person, Cassandra, she just moved in with.

Speaker 30 The more the story unfolded, I started thinking, you know, is she involved in this?

Speaker 40 The question the police had to consider, too,

Speaker 17 if this Taylor person hadn't just left,

Speaker 57 then did Cassandra have something to do with whatever did happen?

Speaker 53 They went to her house, searched through Taylor's belongings, her papers.

Speaker 22 And during the search of all these files, that's when I discovered the check, the $19,000 check.

Speaker 49 A cashier's check, as good as cash.

Speaker 50 If Taylor was running away, surely she would have taken it.

Speaker 20 Police put a note in their daily report, and a local reporter noticed, called her sources.

Speaker 66 They had confirmed she was reported missing, but said there was no foul play suspected. But they did say, you know, they had reason to believe that she had left of her own accord.

Speaker 4 But Emma Kennedy, then a reporter with the Pensacola News Journal, filed a story anyway, and the paper ran it for a very particular and surprising reason.

Speaker 66 Given that she was, you know, a former police officer and a private investigator, that was obviously unusual circumstances. So we did put something out about her being missing.

Speaker 6 A former cop?

Speaker 12 A current PI?

Speaker 67 A very different sort of missing person's case.

Speaker 68 But meaning what?

Speaker 62 Taylor had been, at one time, a police officer.

Speaker 60 Did that factor into what people were thinking about in terms of this case?

Speaker 50 Like, she'd know how to handle herself.

Speaker 22 We knew that, and we knew there was a possibility that, well, if she really wanted to disappear, she could.

Speaker 22 Obviously, we knew she could physically handle herself as well if it was some kind of possible attack.

Speaker 20 What were you dealing with here?

Speaker 22 When we started looking into her phone hasn't been in use in several days, okay, then maybe there is something more to this, and

Speaker 22 we need to start digging a little bit more deeper.

Speaker 37 And so, after 10 days, police asked Cassandra to come in and talk to them at headquarters.

Speaker 32 She agreed, apparently willingly.

Speaker 54 But as she waited for the interview to start, she sat in the room alone and cried.

Speaker 12 She wouldn't be alone long.

Speaker 42 There was a lot to talk about.

Speaker 39 Questions designed, of course, to find out what happened to Taylor Wright.

Speaker 29 When we come back, tension and tears in the interrogation room.

Speaker 71 And I guess I've asked about that, like, please, like.

Speaker 71 Whatever, is it like?

Speaker 48 Was she cooperative?

Speaker 14 Very cooperative.

Speaker 29 What would Cassandra reveal?

Speaker 18 I can't help but be scared that I'm going to get in troll for something that I did when I was trying

Speaker 67 Cassandra Waller and Taylor Wright had been together less than six months.

Speaker 68 But as Cassandra told the police, when you know, you know.

Speaker 8 The question police had was, did Cassandra know something she wasn't revealing?

Speaker 22 We questioned her multiple times, actually.

Speaker 22 Went out to her house and questioned her. She came to the police department and we questioned her there at the police department.

Speaker 8 This was 10 days after Taylor disappeared.

Speaker 40 Detectives Will Haidt and Richard Gagliotti asked the questions.

Speaker 58 You're free to go whenever you want.

Speaker 73 They had asked her to bring in all her electronics, the tools that helped solve so many mysteries these days.

Speaker 48 Was she cooperative?

Speaker 22 Very cooperative. She gave us

Speaker 22 access to anything and everything

Speaker 22 we asked for, whether it be her phone,

Speaker 22 her personal laptops, her work laptops.

Speaker 20 But Cassandra didn't bring in Taylor's computer.

Speaker 50 Told them she'd already had a good look at that, snooping for clues about where she might have gone.

Speaker 45 Now, she told the detectives.

Speaker 75 I can't help but be scared that I'm going to get in trouble for something that I didn't.

Speaker 18 I was trying to help.

Speaker 76 My intention right now is not to arrest you for anything.

Speaker 22 Oh. I'm

Speaker 14 trying to find out why your girlfriend's disappeared.

Speaker 39 So they asked, what did Cassandra find in Taylor's computer?

Speaker 71 Found out she's on a lot of debt that I didn't know about.

Speaker 33 Cassandra seemed on the verge of tears again.

Speaker 77 The detectives noted that and asked her to just talk about her girlfriend.

Speaker 76 Can you tell me about her?

Speaker 78 Where did she go?

Speaker 75 What did she do?

Speaker 78 Outside of work, things that she's told you she's done in the past, places she's went.

Speaker 77 Cassandra told detectives that after Taylor got divorced in 2015, she dated both men and women.

Speaker 52 Then she met Cassandra online, and it got serious pretty quickly.

Speaker 40 Then, over that summer, Cassandra discovered Taylor was sneaking off to Mississippi to see another woman.

Speaker 40 But after five months of some serious ups and downs, the romance was very much on, and Taylor was moving in.

Speaker 42 It was Cassandra's birthday.

Speaker 71 My whole birthday weekend was moving her stuff and helping her move.

Speaker 14 But I didn't mind because it was like, you know, I brought me a business with her.

Speaker 45 Taylor was happy too, she said, but stressed, very stressed.

Speaker 33 She was facing a big court date.

Speaker 79 It was four days away.

Speaker 50 Arguments over money and child support for her seven-year-old son had not been settled.

Speaker 39 That day she disappeared, Taylor had gone to run some errands with an ex-law enforcement buddy named Ashley MacArthur.

Speaker 56 Ashley had been a CSI investigator.

Speaker 17 for the local sheriff's office.

Speaker 56 After they left, mid-morning, said Cassandra, she texted Taylor.

Speaker 80 Everything good?

Speaker 80 And Taylor responded, I'll tell you about it when I get home.

Speaker 39 A few hours later, Cassandra texted again.

Speaker 9 Are you okay? Could you reply?

Speaker 52 No answer.

Speaker 24 And then, a little later, Ashley called, worried, said, They'd gone riding just to get her mind off her troubles.

Speaker 75 She was like, you know, Taylor broke down and cried twice today.

Speaker 52 Whatever it was, Taylor apparently needed time to think about it, said Cassandra.

Speaker 38 And she went to some bar after she left Ashley's place, thus not turning up in time for a planned dinner.

Speaker 24 By 7.30 p.m., Cassandra was really getting angry.

Speaker 33 And then finally a message from Taylor.

Speaker 6 I'll call you later.

Speaker 55 I'm not angry with you, and I should have called, but I just needed to think.

Speaker 37 I am trying to get my life organized and on track.

Speaker 45 That was just too bizarre, said Cassandra.

Speaker 49 Why would Taylor say that?

Speaker 82 The weekend she was moving in.

Speaker 71 And like I kept texting her about like, please, like

Speaker 71 whatever, is it like?

Speaker 71 So I text Ash and I was like, listen, if you hear anything, like, let me know.

Speaker 69 And close to midnight, Ashley said she finally did.

Speaker 71 Ash text me a screenshot of what Taylor just sent her. She said, hey, Taylor just sent me this.

Speaker 40 The text from Taylor to Ashley said, I'm okay.

Speaker 39 I just need some time to think.

Speaker 40 The move and court is very stressful.

Speaker 33 I need a few days to myself.

Speaker 40 Everything is okay.

Speaker 37 I'm not doing anything bad.

Speaker 70 Well, that angered Cassandra even more.

Speaker 40 Cassandra texted Taylor.

Speaker 55 I'm saddened that you can text Ash, but not me.

Speaker 24 You need some days to yourself?

Speaker 77 What is this all about, Taylor?

Speaker 49 Which led to this uncomfortable question for Cassandra.

Speaker 48 But do we ever really know the secret places in the lives of our friends?

Speaker 6 And if we do, would we ever reveal them?

Speaker 33 So detectives decided to push Cassandra.

Speaker 48 Was there something she wasn't telling?

Speaker 83 Coming up.

Speaker 84 She let me borrow a revolver?

Speaker 71 Well, like, because I was afraid of her.

Speaker 29 A gun with one bullet missing.

Speaker 64 If she was dead right now and you knew, would you tell us?

Speaker 64 Did you harm her?

Speaker 29 When dateline continues.

Speaker 56 No secrets in a murder investigation.

Speaker 55 Yes, Taylor Wright was moving in with her girlfriend, Cassandra Waller.

Speaker 33 But their romance was nearly derailed a few months after it started when Taylor started sneaking off to see an old girlfriend.

Speaker 52 So now that Taylor was gone somewhere, all kinds of possibilities.

Speaker 22 The concern for Cassandra was that

Speaker 22 Taylor may have ran off with another woman.

Speaker 59 A woman she had met and had had a dalliance with.

Speaker 74 Correct.

Speaker 53 So this is kind of a personal life blowing apart here.

Speaker 73 Could be.

Speaker 70 And in fact, said Cassandra to the police.

Speaker 71 Yeah, I told Taylor to get all my life and everything, and she kept begging to text me, please. Is like hearing me out, meet me at Ashley's house.

Speaker 68 Ashley's house?

Speaker 17 Why?

Speaker 52 She was hurt, of course, and angry, she said, but she agreed.

Speaker 24 And once she was there, she realized Taylor had asked Ashley to mediate. Taylor called it an honesty night and said she'd confess everything to Cassandra and Ashley, too.

Speaker 71 Ashley's being defensive of me and like explaining to Taylor, like, can you see why Cass feels this way? Like, do you understand this?

Speaker 71 Like, clearly, Cass loves you tremendously, otherwise she wouldn't be here listening to you.

Speaker 67 Infidelity wasn't the only issue, said Cassandra.

Speaker 24 She suspected Taylor may have used drugs, something that could jeopardize Cassandra's job in the school system. So Taylor,

Speaker 24 what about cocaine?

Speaker 71 And Taylor said, she paused and she was like, yeah,

Speaker 71 I've done it three times though. That's it.
She goes, I swear you can test me whatever you want. It's not an addiction.

Speaker 71 She goes, I just, I was going through a lot and I was fighting depression and I just, like, I need it to just be up.

Speaker 39 Honesty night, revelations for Cassandra.

Speaker 20 But now, three months later, Taylor had left or something.

Speaker 41 And Cassandra was angry, very angry, and texted Taylor.

Speaker 37 Right now, I don't want you at my house. You have lied and lied again.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 61 what would you say your potential suspect list was early on when you realized that there was some serious problem here?

Speaker 22 Obviously, it would be Cassandra Waller because they're in the relationship.

Speaker 16 They searched Cassandra's house and found a gun, a six-shot revolver with one bullet missing.

Speaker 11 But Cassandra told them it wasn't her gun.

Speaker 9 She got it from a friend after Taylor left or vanished or whatever it was.

Speaker 84 She let me borrow a revolver?

Speaker 71 Well, like that I was afraid at first, so I was like, okay, well, like I'm alone myself.

Speaker 72 And then things changed dramatically in the interview room.

Speaker 20 Cassandra had reported a missing girlfriend.

Speaker 31 The detectives asked her if it was something worse than that.

Speaker 54 This was a woman shaken, not just from being questioned and being looked at as a possible suspect, but quite apparently also with the loss of the woman she'd fallen in love with.

Speaker 78 We're not trying to upset you. That's fine.

Speaker 14 It's just like the fact that I'm even in a position that she put me in a position where I'm being asked these things.

Speaker 61 She may not have meant to cause this harm on me, but she did.

Speaker 61 It hurts because I loved her.

Speaker 57 So they sent Cassandra home, checked her alibis.

Speaker 48 looked through her phone records.

Speaker 17 And eventually they decided Cassandra had nothing whatever to to do with what happened.

Speaker 42 Just wasn't a viable suspect.

Speaker 22 Cassandra wasn't trying to hide anything.

Speaker 40 So she was eventually cleared.

Speaker 17 And later she talked about her grilling by police.

Speaker 75 I mean, it's like rapid fire. They're like going really quick.
Did you kill Taylor Wright?

Speaker 75 You know, they asked, and I lost it.

Speaker 75 At that point, I broke down and I cried. I maintained my innocence in this entire thing.

Speaker 40 After hours of talking to detectives, she said the whole experience left her shaken to the core.

Speaker 75 It's one thing to worry about where your loved one is, but then when you're looked at, it's scary.

Speaker 64 Did you learn that?

Speaker 68 Yes, her chat with detectives may have seemed harsh at times, but still, the detectives learned things, things Cassandra may not have felt were important at the time.

Speaker 67 They'd keep that to themselves for now and dig deeper into the background of the missing young private investigator's life.

Speaker 23 A backstory or a series of rabbit holes?

Speaker 88 I posted that one of our investigators, Taylor Wright, was missing. Within a couple days, calls were flooding in.

Speaker 29 Could Taylor's boss help this case?

Speaker 90 If she wanted to disappear, she could do that at a moment's notice. She knew what people would look for.

Speaker 20 Cassandra Waller knew all too well that her girlfriend, Taylor Wright, had unresolved issues,

Speaker 73 and she shared them with detectives.

Speaker 75 I just laid everything on the line with them. I said, Look, she's just gotten divorced, there's a child involved.

Speaker 17 Nobody's past is perfect.

Speaker 33 And Taylor's

Speaker 50 well, there was plenty of baggage, yes.

Speaker 16 But somehow, magically, wonderfully, it was going to work out after all.

Speaker 75 I was so excited about Taylor moving into my house. We decided that we were in a monogamous relationship.
It was like, yeah,

Speaker 16 this is it.

Speaker 63 Except, maybe, it wasn't.

Speaker 42 Cassandra went over it and over it.

Speaker 46 What happened that last day?

Speaker 75 Taylor gave me a hug and a kiss, and I said, well, you guys have a good day.

Speaker 50 That's what Taylor and her friend Ashley went off to do their errands.

Speaker 75 Ashley was one of Taylor's like number one friends, and they both were in law enforcement before. They were close friends.

Speaker 67 Everybody seemed happy.

Speaker 4 Nothing amiss.

Speaker 27 But later that day, said Cassandra, the mood got heavy, uncertain.

Speaker 75 It was probably about five. I'm starting to get a little frustrated.
I text Taylor and I get nothing and call Taylor and I get nothing.

Speaker 40 And when she texted Ashley, an hour or two later, where was Taylor?

Speaker 69 She was shocked at the answer.

Speaker 75 This was probably

Speaker 75 six, maybe seven o'clock at night. She goes, what do you mean she's not home?

Speaker 59 Ashley said Taylor left her house around five, took an Uber downtown for a drink, saying she was stressed out.

Speaker 27 No idea where she went or how to find her.

Speaker 37 So Cassandra stayed home, waited, half annoyed, half concerned.

Speaker 51 And on into the evening, her phone chirped with that text message, the one that was very confusing to Cassandra.

Speaker 75 I get a text from Taylor saying, hey, I just,

Speaker 75 I need some time to get my head clear. Like, I need a few days.

Speaker 16 A few days?

Speaker 57 But that was it.

Speaker 67 No explanation.

Speaker 8 It was infuriating.

Speaker 24 Taylor's boss at the investigations firm, Brian Mulbach, said Taylor was one of the best investigators he had and knew all the tricks of finding people or making herself disappear.

Speaker 88 If you were looking for somebody that didn't want to be found, Taylor was the person to find you.

Speaker 90 If she wanted to disappear, she could do that at a moment's notice. She knew what people would look for.

Speaker 17 But once the detectives had talked to Cassandra, they knew whatever had happened, this was going to be a case for them.

Speaker 65 Especially with how bad things got between Taylor and her ex-husband.

Speaker 32 Yes, they heard a lot about that from Cassandra, too.

Speaker 12 In fact, police suggested she phone the ex-husband in North Carolina.

Speaker 75 So I called Jeff, and I told Jeff what was going on.

Speaker 46 Jeff was Jeff Wright, Taylor's ex.

Speaker 55 They'd been married 10 years.

Speaker 55 Jeff was a Marine at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and because their son Drake lived with him, Cassandra offered Jeff a warning.

Speaker 75 She could be going and trying to kidnap the son because she doesn't have custody and then they could disappear off the face of this earth.

Speaker 27 Meanwhile, word was spreading around Pensacola.

Speaker 88 I got on my business Facebook page and I posted that one of our investigators, Taylor Wright, was missing. Within a couple days, calls were flooding in.
But most of it was just theories.

Speaker 39 Theories like maybe some target of one of her investigations harbored a grudge and took revenge.

Speaker 22 If there was somebody...

Speaker 22 potentially mad at her because of private investigations issues, but we found nothing in there that would lead us that way.

Speaker 40 And these are some of the things.

Speaker 86 So then the detectives dug into Taylor's background and learned that her story was unusual.

Speaker 56 Taylor had a rough start.

Speaker 39 At 13, she was in foster care,

Speaker 37 but then had been taken in by a neighborhood family that truly cared for her.

Speaker 30 And she was just so pathetic looking. She had this wet, stringy hair and was

Speaker 30 small anyway, but she looked so frail and I don't know what it was about her but I just said you can come stay with us.

Speaker 60 Like a little lost soul who had to be rescued huh?

Speaker 30 She moved in and immediately became part of the family.

Speaker 58 Taylor lived with Nancy Murchison and her sons for most of her teen years and stayed close.

Speaker 82 Nancy saw her a week before she disappeared, hadn't heard from her since.

Speaker 30 She would come and sit in my lap and put her head on my shoulder and say, I love you.

Speaker 30 Just so sweet. But, you know, to so many others, she was, you know,

Speaker 30 she was tough.

Speaker 20 Tough indeed.

Speaker 42 Wore a necklace with a bullet on it.

Speaker 11 Back when she and Jeff Wright were married, she did more than just keep things together when he was away on his many combat tours with the Marines.

Speaker 20 She was out patrolling the streets of Jacksonville, North Carolina, as a police officer, and she was good at it.

Speaker 21 I thought thought she was an absolutely amazing person.

Speaker 12 Barbara Evanson, Taylor's friend, remember, was also a cop.

Speaker 50 In fact, was Taylor's superior officer.

Speaker 63 Was she friendly?

Speaker 14 Oh,

Speaker 21 that's an understatement.

Speaker 21 Taylor was one of those people that she wanted to be friends with everybody.

Speaker 31 Taylor was on the small side.

Speaker 6 But, said Barbara, she could and did handle big, bad guys with the plom.

Speaker 61 Being a police officer, you need to know how to sort of exert quiet control, right?

Speaker 48 How did she do that?

Speaker 66 She did a very good job at that.

Speaker 21 I don't think that anybody really wanted to know whether they were going to get, you know, handcuffed and thrown in the back of a car by 120-pound woman or not.

Speaker 40 And now, in the middle of some big life changes, she was suddenly gone.

Speaker 69 Well, what did you think when you saw that Taylor had sent a text to Cassandra saying, I just need to be alone for a while?

Speaker 21 That's not, Taylor. Something is absolutely not right.
She would never say, I need to be alone. If anything, she would have called Nancy and said, mommy, I need you.

Speaker 48 But there was no call to Nancy.

Speaker 55 Taylor even stopped calling Drake up in North Carolina with his dad.

Speaker 28 She always talked to him and then just suddenly stopped one day.

Speaker 58 Detective Jeff Brown.

Speaker 28 Made it even more concerning.

Speaker 49 So they circled back to that last day Taylor was seen.

Speaker 50 The day her friend Ashley MacArthur said she'd been so tense, skittish.

Speaker 40 Time to talk to Ashley.

Speaker 53 And now, Taylor's story would get a lot more complicated.

Speaker 26 I don't believe Taylor's been harmed. I think Taylor's doing what Taylor does.

Speaker 29 Questions for Ashley. Very personal questions.

Speaker 61 Has she ever come on to you?

Speaker 26 Taylor asked me one time if I would have a briefing with her and some guy.

Speaker 56 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 58 There's a time when a person goes missing the brain says something bad has happened.

Speaker 31 The heart says keep looking

Speaker 55 Going on two weeks after Taylor vanished, The detectives were following this very slim thread of hope.

Speaker 40 She knew how to disappear.

Speaker 22 I think as time progressed and we started learning she hasn't contacted her kid, okay, there's probably something more to it.

Speaker 9 As a basic rule, talk to the person who last saw her alive and well.

Speaker 40 And that would be her friend, Ashley MacArthur.

Speaker 22 They were very close friends. They would go hang out, grab a beer, go to dinner.

Speaker 28 They went out of town to, you know, college football games together.

Speaker 28 Very good friends.

Speaker 40 They had been introduced by Ashley's husband, Zach, who worked with Taylor in the investigations firm.

Speaker 58 Zach was ex-police too, a former sheriff's deputy.

Speaker 42 So three veterans of law enforcement who all spoke the same language in a way, and soon Taylor and Ashley were great pals, even though their lives were quite different.

Speaker 22 Ashley also has this Pensacola automatic amusement business that her and her parents run.

Speaker 24 A well-known and successful business that supplied pool tables and jukeboxes and such to local bars.

Speaker 39 So while Taylor was still struggling to find her footing, Ashley was an established, married mother of one juggling family in a small company.

Speaker 8 But she always seemed to have time for Taylor.

Speaker 39 And now for the effort to find her.

Speaker 78 So let's start that day from the beginning.

Speaker 56 Where did she go that last day Ashley saw her?

Speaker 75 She wanted to go.

Speaker 56 Ashley confirmed what Cassandra told them.

Speaker 37 She and Taylor spent that day running errands.

Speaker 69 First to Ashley's office, then, briefly, back to Cassandra's place.

Speaker 23 I think when she got her other bag, so she went and got a bag. What was in the bag?

Speaker 46 No idea.

Speaker 86 And she never asked.

Speaker 39 At any rate, Taylor was fine, same as ever.

Speaker 6 Until she asked Ashley to stop and run into a convenience store and and buy her a mid-morning beer.

Speaker 6 That was odd behavior.

Speaker 26 And in fact, I said something to her. I was like, beater at this time of the morning.

Speaker 84 She was like, well, it's five o'clock somewhere. I'm like,

Speaker 78 it's a perfect response.

Speaker 69 But Ashley decided to shrug it off.

Speaker 41 She said she could see that Taylor was pretty stressed about an upcoming court appearance with her ex-husband.

Speaker 69 I mean, she was upset about the job situation.

Speaker 9 So, Ashley said she suggested they go ride horses for a while for therapy.

Speaker 22 Ultimately, they made it out to a family farm in Milton, Florida. How far away is that? It was probably close to 45 minutes to an hour.

Speaker 56 By 4.30 p.m., they were back at Ashley's place, and Taylor got ready to leave.

Speaker 14 Kind of described to me what the mood was like conversation was like. She was fine.

Speaker 26 She just said that she wanted to go have a beer and that she was going to get an Uber to take her to go have a beer.

Speaker 49 Ashley said she didn't exactly see Taylor get into the Uber,

Speaker 16 but...

Speaker 26 I didn't think anything of it because, like I said, she had been drinking all day and was kind of like, you know, just in one of those moods.

Speaker 24 And to Ashley, that slim thread that Taylor was alive was not slim at all.

Speaker 15 The Taylors she knew, she could handle herself just fine.

Speaker 26 I don't believe Taylor's been harmed. I think Taylor's doing what Taylor does.

Speaker 26 But I don't know. You know, know,

Speaker 26 the only thing that I can think, Taylor is a very tough person. You know, she's always carrying weapons, whether it's knives or guns or whatever.

Speaker 26 She's not an easy target.

Speaker 69 Why would she be a target?

Speaker 46 Ashley said she didn't know what was in that bag Taylor picked up.

Speaker 32 Money?

Speaker 16 Gun?

Speaker 14 Drugs?

Speaker 20 Maybe.

Speaker 85 Ashley said she knew Taylor had been using, and she was concerned about the dangers that might pose.

Speaker 26 If I didn't know about the drug situation, I wouldn't be worried about her. I would say Taylor's doing what Taylor does.

Speaker 26 But then that lifestyle

Speaker 26 becomes

Speaker 26 a different group of people,

Speaker 26 which is what I worry about with her.

Speaker 12 And one more thing.

Speaker 17 Ashley said it was a little strange.

Speaker 46 That last day, she noticed Taylor had two cell phones.

Speaker 12 She didn't know why or what that second number was.

Speaker 71 Do you think that she could have possibly have contacted you from that other number?

Speaker 32 It's possible.

Speaker 78 Would you mind if we dumped the phone?

Speaker 42 Forensically examine your phone because we're trying to find Taylor.

Speaker 23 Oh, yeah, I don't mind.

Speaker 80 No problem, said Ashley.

Speaker 37 She turned it over.

Speaker 39 And detectives moved on to more sensitive questions.

Speaker 78 Has she expressed any interest in leaving Cass at any time?

Speaker 78 She just just...

Speaker 78 Was it a happy year?

Speaker 23 I don't think Taylor was 100%.

Speaker 77 Not quite sure, said Ashley, because she seemed to be interested in other women.

Speaker 17 In fact.

Speaker 78 Had she ever come on to you or...

Speaker 26 Taylor asked me one time if I would have a threesome with her and some guy. And I'm like, no, thank you.

Speaker 10 So, this question.

Speaker 6 If someone was gonna hurt her, who who do you think would do it? Or who do you think would have done it?

Speaker 26 I don't know anybody that would want to hurt her.

Speaker 75 He didn't have the most agony of this mode of doing it.

Speaker 26 I mean, obviously, Jeff is the only person, really, that has any real interest in.

Speaker 69 I mean, that's the battle that she was going through.

Speaker 17 Taylor's ex-husband.

Speaker 5 Detectives already knew a little about that battle.

Speaker 57 Time for a deeper look into Taylor's marriage and that ex-husband.

Speaker 30 I've never seen her like that before.

Speaker 61 So angry.

Speaker 30 She was so hurt.

Speaker 29 A surprising confrontation leads to an ugly battle.

Speaker 30 He kept saying, I'm videoing you, I'm taping this. And he called the police.

Speaker 55 Homicide detectives here in Pensacola couldn't miss it. It was obvious in every conversation.

Speaker 6 When Taylor and Jeff Wright split up, it got ugly.

Speaker 21 In any relationship where someone just outright says, I want a divorce, and you're not really sure why that mudslinging is going to begin.

Speaker 45 So, more history lessons. And given its divorce we're talking about, had to be two versions of history.

Speaker 3 Nancy Murchison said things really began to go sour when the military transferred Jeff to Florida.

Speaker 50 There was a silver lining, though.

Speaker 3 Taylor wasn't a cop anymore, but.

Speaker 30 It was an opportunity for her to stay at home, be a mom. That was a good period.
I think she made the best of it then, you know, getting to stay at home with Drake.

Speaker 56 As Nancy saw it, Taylor took on all family responsibilities when Jeff was away for training or on assignment somewhere.

Speaker 30 Her be-all and end-all was Jeff.

Speaker 30 Everything Jeff did and said,

Speaker 30 she supported. She handled everything while he was deployed.

Speaker 56 And then, according to Nancy, on their 10th wedding anniversary, no less, it all came apart.

Speaker 37 As Nancy heard it, Taylor got all dressed up for a fancy dinner and he, total surprise, told her he wanted a divorce.

Speaker 30 You know, she was betrayed.

Speaker 53 Betrayed how?

Speaker 30 He had promised her that if she would move to Pensacola area,

Speaker 30 that there would be no more deploying. He would be home all the time.
And instead,

Speaker 30 he asked for a divorce.

Speaker 48 Nancy's son, Daniel Westbrook, who'd spent his teens with Taylor, could see how upset she was.

Speaker 92 I think what was most disappointing was she thought that they would all be together finally and

Speaker 92 live the typical

Speaker 38 American dream.

Speaker 93 You won the wish! Now you have to make a wish.

Speaker 50 Initially, Taylor shared custody of their son, said Nancy.

Speaker 93 Did you make your wish?

Speaker 17 But without a steady job and a stable place to live, she eventually agreed reluctantly that the boy would have a better home with Jeff.

Speaker 48 And Taylor seemed to fill the emptiness in her life with a series of relationships, both male and female, and a vow to get even with Jeff.

Speaker 30 I've never seen her like that before.

Speaker 61 So angry.

Speaker 30 So angry. But, you know, I think it was she was so hurt.

Speaker 67 The hurt culminated at Jeff's house, she said.

Speaker 20 when Taylor got frustrated.

Speaker 30 He kept saying, I'm videoing you, I'm taping this, you know, I've got proof that you're acting this way. And she had gone up to him, I think, and

Speaker 30 poked him in the chest

Speaker 30 and said,

Speaker 30 good, video this too.

Speaker 30 And then she left.

Speaker 30 He called the police.

Speaker 58 Taylor was arrested on battery charges.

Speaker 52 Jeff dropped the charges, but the damage was done.

Speaker 30 You can't be a cop after that. You can't be.

Speaker 30 They don't hire you.

Speaker 37 It was now all out war, especially played out when dividing marital assets.

Speaker 57 And Taylor dug herself into a foxhole over one issue in particular, which was this.

Speaker 37 When they got married, They combined their money, his and hers, and invested it.

Speaker 52 But a big chunk of it came from a large insurance settlement Taylor got after a bad car accident.

Speaker 30 She was awarded $100,000 from that accident. And then when she and Jeff got married, they said, we'll put our monies in there with

Speaker 30 my fund. Well, in the state of Florida, it then becomes marital assets.

Speaker 6 But Taylor didn't agree with that. Okay.

Speaker 40 She believed that before their money was added up and split down the middle, she was entitled to take out her insurance settlement, the $100,000.

Speaker 28 It was just kind of that little tug-of-war, I guess you could say, you know, for what percentage goes to Jeff, what percentage goes to Taylor.

Speaker 24 And meanwhile, the judge froze the accounts, meaning neither Taylor nor Jeff was to touch a cent of it.

Speaker 31 But somehow, Taylor managed to withdraw that disputed $100,000 from the account.

Speaker 32 Jeff was furious.

Speaker 50 So was the judge.

Speaker 21 Money can make even the most godliest of people turn bad. And I think that, you know, Taylor felt betrayed.
I think that Jeff felt betrayed.

Speaker 50 The judge ordered Taylor to bring $25,000 to the next hearing or face a contempt charge, possible arrest.

Speaker 31 Taylor vanished four days before that court date.

Speaker 17 Was she hiding?

Speaker 32 Hiding the money and herself from that court order?

Speaker 61 Was it clear what she had done with this $100,000? Where she put it?

Speaker 69 Was she hiding it?

Speaker 60 What?

Speaker 77 Not till we got the bank records back.

Speaker 58 Which told only part of the story.

Speaker 82 What role did that money play in Taylor's disappearance?

Speaker 56 Maybe the ex-husband, Jeff, could help them with that.

Speaker 18 She was very directly saying, I want this marriage to be over.

Speaker 29 Jeff Wright tells a very different story story about his marriage and his ex-wife, Taylor.

Speaker 19 Did you ever feel threatened by her?

Speaker 74 Yes.

Speaker 18 She was hostile with a very specific intent. And the intent was to get full custody of Drake.

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Speaker 6 Once upon a time, Jeff and Taylor Wright were made for each other, both smart and strong, both committed to public service, and they shared a son.

Speaker 51 But time and circumstance, and marital battle, when Taylor seemed to vanish from the face of the earth, Nancy must have been one of the first to think the obvious.

Speaker 61 Were you a little suspicious of Jeff?

Speaker 30 Of course.

Speaker 30 Absolutely. I I didn't know anyone that wasn't suspicious of Jeff.

Speaker 39 So how did something that started out so

Speaker 32 good

Speaker 50 end up so bad?

Speaker 42 Jeff's version?

Speaker 41 Way back at the beginning, when he first saw her, he was bowled over.

Speaker 18 Our first date ended up with us throwing knives at a dartboard. She liked to lift weights and to flex her guns, you know.

Speaker 16 Okay,

Speaker 95 we're getting ready to start the engine.

Speaker 19 She was different.

Speaker 16 Here we go.

Speaker 66 Let's do it.

Speaker 27 Smart.

Speaker 56 Taylor's batting indiscretions. Take three.

Speaker 17 Competitive. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 23 Nikula.

Speaker 48 Never dull.

Speaker 28 She could wear a dress and look very pretty.

Speaker 18 But don't bite off on that as for who she was. This was a card that she could play.
She was hot and she knew it.

Speaker 42 But the quality that that really attracted him?

Speaker 7 Strength.

Speaker 39 The strength of her personality.

Speaker 27 I respected her ability to handle herself.

Speaker 18 I respected her drive.

Speaker 65 That drive turned into an ambition to join the Marines.

Speaker 7 Jeff made a career out of it.

Speaker 59 Taylor couldn't after that auto accident left her with severe injuries.

Speaker 33 But when Jeff was stationed at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, Taylor found her own way.

Speaker 18 Since the time she was a very young girl, she knew that she wanted to be a police officer.

Speaker 19 Did she like it as much as she thought she might?

Speaker 18 What sustained her was the ability to match wits against bad guys.

Speaker 56 Matching wits.

Speaker 23 She loved poker, he said.

Speaker 19 What did she like about the process of a poker match?

Speaker 18 She really enjoyed the psychological aspect of understanding an opponent.

Speaker 19 And to see defeat on the face of the other.

Speaker 18 To know that they had been beaten, yes.

Speaker 55 Jeff was often deployed on combat missions.

Speaker 50 And so at the end of her police shift, Taylor came home to an empty house.

Speaker 32 But not for long.

Speaker 41 In 2010, baby Drake was born.

Speaker 69 Did she stay a good and attentive mother throughout this period?

Speaker 18 She was very much an ideal mother.

Speaker 20 The hours weren't ideal for parenting, but her career was taking off.

Speaker 73 She shattered the glass ceiling, became SWAT-trained.

Speaker 6 You called her a badass.

Speaker 18 Taylor was a badass in the sense that she was physically strong. She was mentally strong.
And she did harness it for good things as a police officer and as a wife and a mother and a friend.

Speaker 45 But that didn't last, said Jeff.

Speaker 73 She left the police.

Speaker 20 The marriage began falling apart.

Speaker 50 Jeff's version, though, is very different than Nancy's.

Speaker 40 He didn't betray her, he said.

Speaker 37 Quite the opposite, in fact.

Speaker 32 Jeff said it was Taylor who wanted the divorce.

Speaker 18 She was very directly saying, I do not want to be with you anymore. This is not working for me,

Speaker 18 and I want this marriage to be over.

Speaker 20 It went on for a while, unhappily.

Speaker 44 More bad days than good, said Jeff.

Speaker 1 Jeff agreed the final blow-up was their 10th anniversary.

Speaker 37 They were having dinner.

Speaker 18 I was very much advocating to give it another good hard go.

Speaker 61 Less so from her, though. I mean, she was not as keen on it as you were.

Speaker 18 Correct. So that 10th anniversary dinner was me finally laying down an ultimatum saying,

Speaker 18 I want this marriage to work. I want for the health of Drake.
I want all this to work.

Speaker 6 But it didn't.

Speaker 55 And soon it was War of the Roses.

Speaker 4 She wanted to see you surrender.

Speaker 18 I offered her half of my paycheck, all the money, half custody of Drake within the first couple of weeks of the divorce process.

Speaker 18 I said, The ill will that a bad divorce will cause is not worth it, and she rejected it.

Speaker 39 He had some regrets, he said, like calling the police during that confrontation.

Speaker 9 He said he felt like she was trying to provoke him, to get him to hit her.

Speaker 20 He also said he didn't want to ruin her career.

Speaker 39 But ultimately, it was Taylor's withdrawal of that $100,000 from their joint account that set up the legal showdown.

Speaker 50 So when she disappeared, Was she trying to avoid that court date in four days?

Speaker 37 Jeff said he didn't know, but he worried she'd show up in North Carolina and snatch Drake.

Speaker 61 Did you ever feel threatened by her?

Speaker 18 Yes, I felt threatened.

Speaker 49 She was

Speaker 18 hostile with a very specific intent, and the intent was to get full custody of Drake, etc.,

Speaker 18 and for me to have surrendered in the process.

Speaker 6 A lot of baggage.

Speaker 39 Perfectly understandable they'd look hard at Jeff.

Speaker 40 But not for long, said Assistant State Attorney Bridget Jensen.

Speaker 69 What kind of reports were you getting back from investigators?

Speaker 25 Well, I actually think the ex-husband was ruled out relatively quickly simply because he was in the military and we knew that Jeff Wright was not in Florida at the time Taylor went missing.

Speaker 8 So Jeff was cleared.

Speaker 39 He contacted Taylor's friend Ashley, he said, to find out if she knew what happened.

Speaker 18 From Cass, I learned the name Ashley MacArthur, found her on Facebook, and I started a dialogue with her.

Speaker 20 Jeff had an idea that Taylor was still alive and that the missing money might have something to do with it.

Speaker 28 The money wasn't the concern.

Speaker 18 Finding Taylor was the concern.

Speaker 28 You can always make more money, but you can't replace a human life.

Speaker 18 And I can't replace the mother of my child.

Speaker 65 But where was the money?

Speaker 12 Find that.

Speaker 56 Maybe they'd find Taylor, too.

Speaker 61 This was one of those cases where you had to follow the money.

Speaker 29 Could they find that missing fortune? Cell phone clues were about to help.

Speaker 22 And we're like, okay, now we're really on to something.

Speaker 58 Cassandra Waller was distraught and not getting a whole lot of information from detectives about the investigation into the disappearance of her girlfriend, Taylor Wright.

Speaker 56 But one person who was trying to help her was Taylor's friend, Ashley MacArthur.

Speaker 75 Ashley helped reaffirm and calm me down a little bit. She was there for me.

Speaker 51 There for the police, too, always ready to answer their questions, called them periodically to see how things were going.

Speaker 14 I was just calling to see if there was any update or anything going on.

Speaker 6 The update was grim.

Speaker 55 Taylor had been missing for more than a month.

Speaker 46 No leads.

Speaker 40 Except, that is for the $100,000 Taylor took from a joint bank account with her ex.

Speaker 61 This was one of those cases where you had to follow the money to know what happened.

Speaker 20 But that would be harder than expected because no one knew exactly what Taylor did with it.

Speaker 69 Detectives had found the $19,000 cashier's check at Cassandra's home, but where was the rest?

Speaker 22 So

Speaker 20 hiding money.

Speaker 22 So we knew that that cashier's check was still a valid cashier's check and that the money was still in that account.

Speaker 55 The detectives also knew that Taylor probably hadn't gone too far because they found her passport, too.

Speaker 22 Well, she didn't have a legal way. to get outside the country without her passport.

Speaker 63 You're eliminating all the possibilities.

Speaker 22 Yes, sir.

Speaker 17 Eliminating was good, but it also left detectives very little to work with.

Speaker 38 So they took a deep dive into Taylor's phone and financial records to see if they revealed where the money went.

Speaker 68 Ashley's phone, too.

Speaker 37 That would help them nail down an official timeline for the day Taylor disappeared.

Speaker 22 It was just like, okay, let's start trying to corroborate her statement through the cell phone records.

Speaker 41 They also tried to track down the Uber Taylor took from Ashley's place.

Speaker 15 If they found that, they'd finally know where Taylor went next.

Speaker 22 We checked all local cab companies. We checked Uber.
I think we checked with Lyft as well.

Speaker 22 But we could not find anyone that had went to that address to pick her up.

Speaker 16 What the mood was I come to her?

Speaker 50 So they went back to Ashley's interview, reviewed her statements about those last moments with Taylor. She was fine.

Speaker 26 She just said that she wanted to go have a beer and that she was going to get an Uber to take her to go have a beer.

Speaker 31 Ashley said she offered to drive Taylor to her car instead, but Taylor insisted on Uber.

Speaker 78 So she denied your assistance, I guess, your help?

Speaker 26 Yeah, I mean, because I was willing to take her. I mean, she doesn't live far from the house, so.

Speaker 17 Ashley never saw Taylor get into an Uber or leave her driveway.

Speaker 8 And if Taylor did go to a bar, she didn't leave a trace of her presence.

Speaker 22 Most people use their credit card to pay for anything at a bar. So when we couldn't find any usages on that, okay, did she really go and have a drink? If so, how did she get there?

Speaker 19 So after she was with Ashley that day, she just disappeared off the map.

Speaker 62 Can't find evidence of her anywhere.

Speaker 45 Correct.

Speaker 20 Those phone records were suddenly more important than ever.

Speaker 41 But when they finally got them, they only seemed to add to the confusion.

Speaker 39 Remember, Ashley told the detective she and Taylor went to a family farm about 45 minutes outside Pensacola. The farm is where its office had a night in Milton.

Speaker 31 But when detectives examined all the cell phone data, it told a completely different story.

Speaker 22 It showed that, well, no, they never went out to a farm in Milton. They actually went to a farm in Cantomet, Florida, which is the complete opposite direction of Milton.

Speaker 74 How far out is that?

Speaker 28 Probably another 30 minutes the opposite way, I would say, of where she said she was easily.

Speaker 12 Half an hour apart.

Speaker 38 And as their mapping revealed, along completely different roads.

Speaker 24 Milton was to the east.

Speaker 24 Cantonment was to the west.

Speaker 59 I mean, I can't imagine what your reaction might have been.

Speaker 22 We're like, okay, well, now we've got to figure out why she's out here.

Speaker 28 Yeah, where was she at? Why was she out there? And why didn't she mention it?

Speaker 50 Why would she lie to us about where she was?

Speaker 14 Right.

Speaker 14 On a hunch, a colleague suggested detectives run Ashley's maiden name, Britt, through a property database to see if her family had properties in Cantonment.

Speaker 32 And surprise, surprise, they did.

Speaker 17 Located on, of course, Britt Road,

Speaker 20 a sprawling farm owned by an aunt and uncle.

Speaker 85 And it matched the location of the cell phone activity.

Speaker 22 It's right in the middle of that one particular tower she keeps banging off of up there.

Speaker 28 Right, there's a pie chart basically, and it's slapped in the middle of it.

Speaker 14 Wow.

Speaker 16 And we're like, okay, now we're really on to something.

Speaker 89 They're doing something up there.

Speaker 28 Absolutely. And Taylor's phone records coincide with that as well.

Speaker 60 Correct.

Speaker 24 So, why did Ashley lie?

Speaker 48 What was she hiding?

Speaker 50 They asked her down to the station for another talk.

Speaker 86 Only this time, they had a plan.

Speaker 79 One they believed would lead to a big break in the case.

Speaker 87 Hold on, give me four seconds.

Speaker 32 Don't cross the legs in the middle of a second.

Speaker 22 At this point, she is our prime suspect. She's at that farm.
We're going to find her.

Speaker 26 That's hunting, but she's not going to be there. Then where is she at? I don't know where she is.

Speaker 14 Where's her body at? I don't know where she is.

Speaker 64 She's dead, though. We know that.

Speaker 58 After a month, doubt had become virtual certainty.

Speaker 67 Taylor Wright was not just missing.

Speaker 11 She was dead.

Speaker 2 And her friend Ashley had been lying all along.

Speaker 26 I don't believe Taylor's been harmed.

Speaker 58 Her lie exposed by electronic records showing where her phone traveled the day Taylor disappeared.

Speaker 22 That's when we're like, okay, she's been killed. Ashley's the one who did it.
This is where she's going to be at.

Speaker 28 It was a large parcel of land with woods all around it.

Speaker 53 If you're looking for a body, that's not necessarily going to be easy to find.

Speaker 28 It's a needle and a haystack.

Speaker 73 Though they were sure Taylor was dead, they had no actual proof.

Speaker 86 But the clear evidence that Ashley had so blatantly tried to lead them astray was enough to obtain three search warrants.

Speaker 38 Not only for the wooded property, but her home and office too.

Speaker 69 Now, secrecy was critical.

Speaker 72 And when Ashley called for updates, I hate to bother even Ashley.

Speaker 14 I checked. Yeah, no worries.

Speaker 17 Detectives were now extra careful about what they revealed.

Speaker 22 Okay, she's obviously digging, trying to see what we know. So at that point, we all just agree that Whatever we talk about stays in this office.
It don't go out.

Speaker 77 When it came time to carry out the search warrants, they decided to do them simultaneously and devised a plan to get Ashley to the station.

Speaker 22 We set up for her to come in to get her under the ruse that she's going to get her phone back, that she's allowed us to download.

Speaker 50 Once there, they'd question her about the phone records.

Speaker 57 And if their suspicions were correct, and the search parties found Taylor's body at the farm, they'd arrest her on the spot.

Speaker 59 As Ashley settled in, she had no idea.

Speaker 42 They no longer saw her as the helpful friend.

Speaker 22 At this point, she is our prime suspect.

Speaker 4 Detective Will Hyde and a colleague stayed at the station to question Ashley.

Speaker 34 Well, Detective Brown went to the farm to supervise the search party.

Speaker 28 We would team up with search and rescue. They had their canines out there to help us out.

Speaker 9 Meanwhile, back at the station, detectives did what they could to give him time to search by prolonging the interview.

Speaker 9 Did anyone else come forward and let let you know anything else friends or anything?

Speaker 58 But after half an hour or so, the tone turned decidedly more serious.

Speaker 22 We confront her with all the cell tower information. When we started

Speaker 22 plotting all the phone calls that you and Taylor were making that day,

Speaker 22 there were some discrepancies in what you had told us.

Speaker 22 Okay.

Speaker 22 we know that you didn't go to Milton when you said you went to Milton. When you did go to Milton, not when you said you want to go.
Oh, well, I don't know when.

Speaker 56 Ashley suddenly seemed to be at a loss for words.

Speaker 22 She started to appear to feel a little bit more uncomfortable with the situation, the line of questioning.

Speaker 43 Especially when detectives showed Ashley evidence that she'd actually gone to a farm in Cantonement.

Speaker 43 What were y'all doing out there at this farm? Did we know y'all were there?

Speaker 43 We picked up some

Speaker 43 stuff that Taylor had there that we had

Speaker 43 at Cheyenne store.

Speaker 43 Some kind of lockbox that she had. Why would you not tell us that original?

Speaker 43 Because she asked me not to tell anyone I ever

Speaker 43 put

Speaker 43 in the floor.

Speaker 43 I gotcha.

Speaker 43 I gotcha?

Speaker 43 Odd response to being caught in a lie.

Speaker 12 And then the detectives upped the ante.

Speaker 73 The day after Taylor disappeared, her phone was still pinging away in exactly the same locations as Ashley's phone.

Speaker 43 At one point, Taylor's phone was even pinging at Ashley's house. Her phone is communicating with the tower that covers your house, not her house, your house.

Speaker 43 Again, same tower. Right.
Same place.

Speaker 20 No denials or admissions.

Speaker 52 And Ashley remained remarkably calm as she stuck to her story. Why do you have her phone or why is she with you?

Speaker 52 She wasn't with me and I was unaware that I had her phone.

Speaker 67 This is a woman who worked CSI.

Speaker 60 She would have had to have some information about how police solve crimes.

Speaker 22 I would assume she would too, especially with Zach being a law enforcement for several years. Yeah.

Speaker 68 Just the same, detectives turned up the heat, hoping Ashley would break.

Speaker 68 Tell me what you did to her. I didn't do anything to her.

Speaker 62 Can't imagine how a person would feel inside when he or she recognized that you have all this information.

Speaker 22 And that's what I ultimately told her during the interview:

Speaker 22 you can either tell us where she's at,

Speaker 22 we're going to ultimately find her. I didn't do anything to you.

Speaker 22 She's at that farm. We're going to find her because we're executing a search warrant out there right now.
That's fine, but she's not going to be there. Then where is she at? I don't know where she is.

Speaker 22 Where's her body at? I don't know where she is. She's dead, though.

Speaker 4 Out of the farm, Detective Brown and his team had been combing through dense, wooded areas for hours.

Speaker 28 The investigators that were interviewing Ashley were texting me, you know, have you found anything? You know, and I'd have to say, no, nothing yet. We're still looking.

Speaker 50 Downtown, detectives were running out of time

Speaker 20 and getting nowhere with Ashley.

Speaker 32 Hold on, hold on for a second. Don't cross your legs and walk me for a second.

Speaker 32 Don't let us tell your story.

Speaker 32 Because we're going to, this is gonna tell us what happened.

Speaker 32 Don't let us tell something that may not be true.

Speaker 32 Tell us what happened. I think at this point I need an attorney because it seems to be that you'll think that I did something to her.

Speaker 7 The interview came to a screeching halt.

Speaker 59 You had all this evidence, but not enough to actually

Speaker 62 effect an arrest at that point.

Speaker 22 We had no body.

Speaker 61 So here's the deal.

Speaker 97 We are taking your phones,

Speaker 97 your vehicles,

Speaker 78 and we just conducted a search warrant in your house.

Speaker 97 Okay.

Speaker 78 I'm going to give you your keys back.

Speaker 97 Your free leave.

Speaker 85 No confession.

Speaker 57 No body.

Speaker 37 No evidence that Taylor was in fact dead.

Speaker 11 So they hid their disappointment and watched Ashley walk away.

Speaker 2 No telling what would happen now.

Speaker 29 Coming up, what really happened out there in the woods? New questions for Ashley, her husband, hail no, and her cousin.

Speaker 87 No, not on that.

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Speaker 15 Detective Jeff Brown was beyond frustrated.

Speaker 7 He and his team had spent hours searching the farm on Britt Road, hoping to discover what happened to Taylor Wright.

Speaker 20 But they found nothing.

Speaker 40 And because of that, Ashley, their number one suspect, had just walked out of the police department.

Speaker 28 It was disappointing that I wasn't able to send him that text.

Speaker 14 You know, we got her.

Speaker 86 And then, not more than 10 minutes later, just outside the farm property line.

Speaker 28 We believe we found something. And when look you can easily see what the top of a human skull kind of encased in concrete and potting soil.

Speaker 55 Wait, wait, wait a minute, but you could actually see the top of a head.

Speaker 28 You could see the very top part of it.

Speaker 15 And when they removed the concrete,

Speaker 43 they found mostly a skeleton.

Speaker 28 Then we also found her necklace, and that was the key.

Speaker 16 That bullet necklace she always wore found where her neck used to be.

Speaker 39 After six long weeks, the search was over.

Speaker 67 It was definitely Taylor.

Speaker 10 How was she killed?

Speaker 28 They found what appeared to be a gunshot wound in the back of the skull.

Speaker 4 Execution.

Speaker 28 It's what it appeared to be.

Speaker 61 This suggests that she was taken completely by surprise.

Speaker 28 By one of her friends, yes.

Speaker 20 Right away, Detective Brown notified his partner back at the station.

Speaker 29 Arrest her.

Speaker 1 How'd she behave then?

Speaker 22 She was,

Speaker 22 I believe, a lot more quieter that time.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 22 Definitely a different side of Ashley that we hadn't seen or noticed yet.

Speaker 65 Then phone calls.

Speaker 86 Family had to be told.

Speaker 17 Nancy had to be told.

Speaker 46 Taylor was dead.

Speaker 30 I had hoped, against hope, that someone just,

Speaker 30 you know, was holding her somewhere.

Speaker 30 It was soul-crushing.

Speaker 10 And then a call that was also investigation.

Speaker 42 Did Ashley have help?

Speaker 28 It was always a concern because of Ashley's size. She might have needed help

Speaker 28 moving a body.

Speaker 8 And so they called Ashley's husband, Zach MacArthur.

Speaker 87 Your wife is

Speaker 19 being arrested this evening and charged with murder.

Speaker 14 What?

Speaker 70 They asked him to come down to the station and got straight to the point.

Speaker 98 Did you kill or participate or do you have any knowledge?

Speaker 11 Zero, Jason.

Speaker 98 Absolutely none. If any person in this world was like, hey, Zach, come help me do something, I would run from that as fast as I could.

Speaker 20 And Zach had an alibi.

Speaker 9 He was clear.

Speaker 40 But there was one more possibility. A young man named Kyle Britt, Ashley's cousin.

Speaker 20 He lived on that farm.

Speaker 37 And when detectives searched Ashley's phone records, Kyle's number came up repeatedly right around the time Taylor disappeared.

Speaker 4 In other words, these are phone calls for a specific purpose.

Speaker 14 Correct. Correct.

Speaker 37 They pulled him in, questioned him for seven hours.

Speaker 25 She's not going to go down alone, and she's going to take the world down with her if she can.

Speaker 25 So if there's any kind of conversation that you had with her, I mean, anyway.

Speaker 16 You helped her in any way.

Speaker 30 No,

Speaker 87 not on that.

Speaker 46 Kyle insisted.

Speaker 37 He had an alibi.

Speaker 33 And then they understood the reason Ashley kept texting him.

Speaker 28 Like, hey, are you out at the farm today? And he responds, no, I'm not.

Speaker 28 I'm at school.

Speaker 72 Of course.

Speaker 41 Ashley was calling Kyle to make sure he wasn't around.

Speaker 79 Ashley went to jail while prosecutors built their case, but she wasn't there very long.

Speaker 58 Barry and John Barossett were her attorneys.

Speaker 96 There was a lack of criminal history, substantial ties to the community, so the judge set a bond.

Speaker 48 And out she went on bail,

Speaker 6 which didn't sit well with some people.

Speaker 92 She's walking around free while, you know, Taylor's

Speaker 92 dead, and it just seemed like it was the biggest slap in the face.

Speaker 2 What to do?

Speaker 20 A little digging revealed.

Speaker 55 Three months before Ashley was arrested, she was accused of stealing from her parents' business clients.

Speaker 4 Tom Williams was an assistant state attorney.

Speaker 27 I'm a fly on the wall hearing this and think there's a good fraud case here.

Speaker 33 If convicted, Ashley would go back to jail.

Speaker 6 So they went for it.

Speaker 24 The family business Ashley ran split profits 50-50 with the bars that rented their jukeboxes and pool tables.

Speaker 40 But the owners of the Azalea Cocktail Lounge found out she had shortchanged them by about $14,000.

Speaker 55 Jeff DeWeez was the accountant.

Speaker 65 He called Ashley for a meeting.

Speaker 20 But the morning of the meeting, Ashley canceled.

Speaker 101 Something didn't feel right, so I drove to where her business was. And as I was coming up the road, I saw that it was blocked off by fire trucks and sheriff's cruisers.

Speaker 32 Because

Speaker 15 the building was on fire.

Speaker 6 Looked like arson.

Speaker 42 Ashley's attempt, alleged Prosecutor Williams, to burn records and maybe file an insurance claim.

Speaker 38 And so, while they prepared their murder case, they put Ashley on trial for fraud and arson.

Speaker 10 The verdict was a split decision.

Speaker 96 She was found guilty of organized fraud and racketeering, and she was found not guilty of the arson charge.

Speaker 56 It was enough to put Ashley back in jail.

Speaker 79 But that split decision worried the prosecution.

Speaker 82 The arson charge was circumstantial, and so was the murder case.

Speaker 56 Mind you, those cases may have shared something else, too.

Speaker 28 They were different cases with different results, but perhaps the same motive.

Speaker 47 Greed.

Speaker 8 Coming up, Ashley on trial.

Speaker 25 Jurors want forensics. They want DNA.
They want fingerprints. I didn't have any of that.

Speaker 29 A bold strategy from the prosecutor.

Speaker 25 There were so many possible suspects. I put everybody on the stand.

Speaker 8 August 2019, almost two years after Taylor Wright disappeared, Ashley MacArthur went on trial for her murder.

Speaker 17 Ashley's seasoned lawyer said detectives had gotten it all wrong.

Speaker 96 There's not a single piece of of physical evidence that links Ashley MacArthur to the murder of Taylor Wright. None.

Speaker 33 Assistant State Attorney Bridget Jensen had no illusions. Proving that this pretty, petite mother with no criminal history was a cold-blooded killer wouldn't be easy.

Speaker 19 What about your case was a matter of concern?

Speaker 61 Was there a weak spot you worried about?

Speaker 25 Well, I think the fact that it was wholly circumstantial is always troublesome. Jurors want forensics.
They want DNA. They want confessions.
They want fingerprints. I didn't have any of that.

Speaker 53 Well, and in this case, I guess you had a person on trial who knew all about forensics and maybe had to protect herself in that respect.

Speaker 25 Maybe.

Speaker 2 Or maybe not.

Speaker 27 But first, the prosecutor wanted to address another potential weak spot.

Speaker 25 The fact that there were so many possible suspects was not good for the state's case.

Speaker 38 Instead of shying away from that, she took it head on.

Speaker 25 I put everybody on the stand that was a suspect.

Speaker 60 You did, yeah.

Speaker 25 I wanted the jury to

Speaker 25 see each of these witnesses testify, to look at them, to judge their credibility.

Speaker 24 She started with Taylor's ex-husband, Jeff Wright, asked him about their contentious divorce and the money Taylor took.

Speaker 20 against court orders.

Speaker 25 Was Taylor in trouble with the court about that? That's correct. You were in North Carolina at this time?

Speaker 49 That's correct. Okay.

Speaker 17 There was also Ashley's husband and her cousin, Kyle.

Speaker 20 And of course, the prosecutor called Taylor's girlfriend, Cassandra.

Speaker 25 Now, do you see Ashley MacArthur in the courtroom today? I do.

Speaker 89 During the trial,

Speaker 75 that was my first time seeing Ashley, and it was the most uncomfortable feeling.

Speaker 65 She was the picture of a grieving lover, choking back tears when shown a photo of that bullet necklace, the one found on Taylor's skeletal remains.

Speaker 25 You'll take a look at that and see if you recognize him.

Speaker 25 I think once the jurors actually saw each of these witnesses, it was clear that it was not any of them.

Speaker 39 On day two of the trial, the prosecutor focused on Ashley's image.

Speaker 25 Ashley MacArthur was not this meek,

Speaker 25 you know, submissive, mild-mannered, you know, little mouse, which is what she looks like.

Speaker 33 Instead, Jensen wanted the jury to see Ashley as cunning and heartless.

Speaker 55 She called to the stand three women who told a disturbing tale about Ashley.

Speaker 41 It happened, they said, the night before Taylor went missing.

Speaker 103 I heard her say how much cocaine would it take to kill somebody.

Speaker 9 And then a friend of Ashley's testified that she drove Ashley to a strip club called Babe's, where Ashley bought $250 worth of cocaine.

Speaker 25 She said that she was going to put it in Taylor's beard.

Speaker 34 She said the next day she asked Ashley what she had done with the cocaine.

Speaker 25 And what did she tell you? That she put it in her beard and Taylor spit it out because she said it tasted sour.

Speaker 25 So to hear these conversations, and it wasn't just with one girl, it was with three.

Speaker 74 The defense attorneys were saying, well, yeah, that's just just hearsay, that, you know, maybe it happened, maybe it didn't happen.

Speaker 25 Of course, and that's what great defense attorneys do say. You have to minimize something that is that damaging.

Speaker 20 Even though she didn't have any physical evidence tying Ashley to the murder, Ashley was the last person to see Taylor alive, and the prosecutor did have one powerful exhibit, Ashley's police interviews and the lies she told police.

Speaker 9 The jury heard Ashley confronted with cell phone records that put her at the very place where Taylor's body was found.

Speaker 9 So really, in essence, you spent, it seems like, at least a large portion of the majority of your day out here.

Speaker 9 It's really pleasant though.

Speaker 85 And remember the concrete and potting soil covering Taylor's body?

Speaker 31 The jury saw a video of Ashley at a home depot the day after Taylor disappeared buying

Speaker 35 two bags of potting soil and the bags of

Speaker 102 cement.

Speaker 68 But one thing was missing.

Speaker 32 The why.

Speaker 10 Why would Ashley kill Taylor, a woman she seemed to like so much?

Speaker 50 The mode of his oldest time.

Speaker 2 Money.

Speaker 40 It all came back to that money.

Speaker 20 Taylor was trying to hide it from her ex-husband.

Speaker 49 She'd given a big chunk of it to Ashley to hold for safekeeping.

Speaker 25 There was a $34,000 cashier's check that was deposited into a joint bank account with Ashley MacArthur and Taylor Wright.

Speaker 42 Ashley was supposed to go to the bank and repay her the day Taylor disappeared.

Speaker 5 She'd delayed it before, so Taylor texted her.

Speaker 67 This is way too important for me not to do today.

Speaker 52 I'm under a court order or my ass will get thrown in jail.

Speaker 48 But Ashley couldn't give the money back because she'd already spent it.

Speaker 20 Here's Ashley at Walkup ATMs moving Taylor's money around.

Speaker 25 One was showing Ashley MacArthur withdrawing $8,300

Speaker 25 the day after she deposited Taylor's $34,000 cashier's check.

Speaker 27 So was Ashley spending the money on herself?

Speaker 67 Well, no, not exactly. It turned out she was spending it on this man,

Speaker 86 Brandon Beatty, the owner of Styx Billiards, a convicted felon.

Speaker 38 The two were having a long-term affair, and she was playing the sugar mama with Taylor's money.

Speaker 25 Was she buying supplies at Sam's Club for your business? Yes, ma'am, she did. Okay.

Speaker 25 In approximately August of 2017, did she buy your motorcycle?

Speaker 102 I'm not sure the date, but yes, she did purchase a motorcycle. Okay.

Speaker 25 Do you know how much that motorcycle cost?

Speaker 102 I think it was like $8,000 or maybe just a hair more.

Speaker 25 Did Miss MacArthur also buy you a boat?

Speaker 102 Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 25 How much was that boat?

Speaker 102 30 grand.

Speaker 24 After four days of testimony, the prosecution rested.

Speaker 25 There was no question in my mind, and I hoped that there was no question in the jurors' minds, that Ashley MacArthur is the one who killed Taylor Wright over money.

Speaker 67 But the defense attorneys didn't agree, and they were confident they could prove it.

Speaker 35 How does someone kill someone and then take the body and hide it there without anybody knowing about it?

Speaker 29 No forensics, no case. What would the jury decide?

Speaker 95 My understanding is we have a verdict.

Speaker 21 You could have cut the air with a knife.

Speaker 37 From the start, Ashley MacArthur's defense team, father and son Barry and John Barossett, had a strategy, attack the state's case.

Speaker 35 We focused on the fact that they did not have forensic evidence to connect her to it.

Speaker 5 The defense reasoned, with no DNA of the crime scene, no blood evidence, no murder weapon, no proof even of where Taylor was killed, the jury could easily find reasonable doubt.

Speaker 96 We told the jury, look, you may not like Ashley, and you may think she's a liar, and maybe you think she stole money, but you know, in this trial, she wasn't on charge for theft.

Speaker 39 John and Barry Barossa took turns chipping away at the state's case. Every law enforcement officer who searched the crime scene for evidence

Speaker 15 admitted to turning up nothing that pointed to Ashley.

Speaker 52 And it wasn't just the farm.

Speaker 39 The defense called the crime scene supervisor who helped search Ashley's house and three vehicles.

Speaker 35 Are you aware of any evidence that was collected that established that Miss MacArthur killed Taylor Wright?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 38 On top of that, They argued that Ashley wasn't physically capable of pulling off the crime, of carrying Taylor's dead body over a fence to the adjacent property where they found it.

Speaker 56 The defense put Ashley's chiropractor on the stand, who testified she'd been in a car accident several years earlier and left her with a bad back.

Speaker 39 She was having trouble traveling,

Speaker 56 sitting or standing,

Speaker 56 lift overhead, lifting objects off the floor.

Speaker 39 And the defense argued no one at Britt Farm saw anything out of the ordinary during the time Taylor was missing, ever.

Speaker 35 The question is, how does someone kill someone, shoot them in the back of the head, there's got to be a lot of blood, and then take the body just over the fence

Speaker 35 and hide it there without anybody knowing about it.

Speaker 39 The defense continued to try to pick apart the state's case, like that video of Ashley buying potting soil and cement.

Speaker 35 The concrete that was found on the body was very coarse, had stone-like pebbles in it, like you might use on a sidewalk.

Speaker 57 But that's not how the Home Depot employee described it. It's the concrete that this lady purchased, is it textured?

Speaker 102 No, ma'am.

Speaker 102 It's like fine dust.

Speaker 63 Are you suggesting that that wasn't the same concrete that potting soil than what wound up on the farm?

Speaker 16 But what a remarkable coincidence.

Speaker 4 Somebody goes and buys concrete and potting soil.

Speaker 27 A victim is found buried not very effectively in concrete and potting soil.

Speaker 62 Burial appears to be around the same time.

Speaker 96 You go back to the photographs, the concrete on top of the body was not fine like dust.

Speaker 50 As for the three women who testified, they heard Ashley talk about poisoning Taylor with cocaine.

Speaker 12 On cross-examination, they admitted they'd never seen any cocaine, not even the woman who drove Ashley to buy it.

Speaker 96 Did you see any drugs?

Speaker 25 I did not see any drugs getting handed off, no, sir.

Speaker 19 So you didn't buy their stories at all?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 14 Not at all.

Speaker 81 And finally, motive.

Speaker 50 The prosecution claimed Ashley had killed Taylor over money.

Speaker 49 But the defense said that's ridiculous.

Speaker 35 She was from a family that was well-to-do, so it wasn't like this money was the last straw. I had to kill somebody in order to keep her quiet.

Speaker 65 And John Barass had told the jury, Ashley had good reason to be spending some of that $34,000 Taylor had given her.

Speaker 96 Ashley MacArthur loaned Taylor Wright some money and some of this was due back to Ashley for that loan.

Speaker 37 Father and son felt pretty confident they'd sown enough doubt as to whether or not Ashley had committed premeditated murder.

Speaker 61 So when the jury went out, what were your hopes, fears, expectations?

Speaker 35 Our hopes were that they'd find her not guilty of first-degree murder.

Speaker 49 Nancy and Daniel, who'd sat through the trial, had very different hopes.

Speaker 20 The not knowing was awful.

Speaker 17 I was was nervous.

Speaker 61 What about you, Nancy?

Speaker 30 I was anxious. You know, in your mind, you're going, oh my God, what if they come?

Speaker 30 What if she's found innocent?

Speaker 11 They wouldn't have to wait long to hear the jury's decision.

Speaker 95 My understanding is we have a verdict.

Speaker 72 Just three hours.

Speaker 50 Taylor's friend Barbara Evanson held her breath.

Speaker 24 So the jury came back.

Speaker 63 What was that like?

Speaker 21 An absolute tense moment. You could have cut the air with a knife.

Speaker 25 the judge's clerk read the verdict we the jury find the defendant ashley macarthur guilty of first-degree premeditated murder with a farm as charged in the indictment when they read the verdict that's the only time ashley macarthur showed any kind of emotion during that entire trial

Speaker 85 ashley's flash of emotion quickly reverted to the stone face she'd maintained through the trial

Speaker 50 But Cassandra, seated behind her, could barely contain herself.

Speaker 75 We got the verdict that we had been waiting for for two years because we finally got the justice that Taylor deserved.

Speaker 95 I'm going to sentence you to life with a mandatory minimum 25 years state prison.

Speaker 48 But those who love Taylor, friends and family members close and far, still suffer.

Speaker 60 As you look back over the experience, how has it changed you?

Speaker 30 You know, in so many ways, I feel that I was robbed. You know, I love her and miss her, and that will never stop.

Speaker 33 Even Taylor's ex-husband felt cheated, having never got the chance to heal the deep rift between them.

Speaker 18 I wanted our relationship to be repaired to the point that when Drake got married, she and I could dance together at his wedding and smile and be friends again.

Speaker 39 But family and friends agree, it was Taylor's son who lost the most.

Speaker 40 At seven years old, his mother.

Speaker 20 Gone forever.

Speaker 21 One of the most important things is for him to know how much his mother loved him and

Speaker 26 how proud of him she was.

Speaker 25 Okay, Nicole.

Speaker 93 You won the wish! Now you have to make a wish.

Speaker 34 And most of all, she loved Drake

Speaker 21 more than her life itself.

Speaker 75 I love you.

Speaker 38 That's all for now.

Speaker 16 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 29 Thanks for joining us.

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