Secrets in the Smoky Mountains

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Speaker 8 The meanest, cruelest, most heinous crime.

Speaker 8 I don't know that I'll ever get over it.

Speaker 9 They seemed like the ultimate power couple.

Speaker 11 She told me she would be traveling on secret missions.

Speaker 12 He had all the medals, Silver Star, Purple Heart.

Speaker 9 Glamorous military careers. But was it all camouflage?

Speaker 14 The BS alarms are going off in my head like you wouldn't believe.

Speaker 9 Did they have something to hide? We start doing surveillance.

Speaker 15 Maybe you got a crime here. Yes.

Speaker 8 I'm thinking to myself, this can't be true.

Speaker 16 He was just like in disbelief.

Speaker 9 What had happened to her last husband?

Speaker 9 Whoever did this was very evil.

Speaker 17 The hurt, the anger.

Speaker 8 It makes you question everybody.

Speaker 18 It seems alive somehow here in the foothills of Tennessee's Appalachians.

Speaker 23 The creeping tendrils of mountain mist that snake and swirl

Speaker 24 like lies.

Speaker 25 There's gold in there somewhere, so they say.

Speaker 27 The sort of place where you could strike it rich

Speaker 12 or maybe get away with murder.

Speaker 30 Very scary.

Speaker 31 Shocking. And devastating.

Speaker 20 So, after that mysterious death here, who could anyone trust?

Speaker 34 Dearest friends?

Speaker 12 The word betrayal come to mind?

Speaker 8 Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 35 Brothers in arms?

Speaker 14 It's beyond disturbing.

Speaker 35 Closest family?

Speaker 36 She looked at me as if she wished I was

Speaker 37 dead.

Speaker 38 Maybe no one.

Speaker 31 We were always looking over our shoulder.

Speaker 40 Might still be, had it not been for him.

Speaker 28 Pretty shocking stuff.

Speaker 9 I don't think I'll work anything like this again in my career just because of the different twists and turns.

Speaker 18 Yes, in that toxic swamp of secret identities, of heroes and villains, driven by greed, lust, power.

Speaker 9 Whoever set this up and whoever did this was very evil.

Speaker 44 Oh, so many lies.

Speaker 36 Everything that you were taught as a kid was a lie.

Speaker 18 This place, where the story begins, seems created not for lies, but for love.

Speaker 45 The tranquil waters and soft sunsets of Bradenton, Florida.

Speaker 46 And though the local sheriff's office may seem an unlikely place to find love, here's where it struck a county detective named Bob McClancy.

Speaker 50 Anything to say, Bobby?

Speaker 50 I have a lot to say. How many hours do we have left on the tape?

Speaker 29 A funny man.

Speaker 50 Welcome to Pascua's kitchen.

Speaker 51 And very kind, said his nieces.

Speaker 20 Not just to people.

Speaker 16 We'd be so excited to go over there to see what new animal he got. Or

Speaker 16 he would be like, oh, I got a new bird. Come over and see it.

Speaker 53 Give me a kiss.

Speaker 31 He had got us little turtles as kids.

Speaker 55 He was a real animal guy, wasn't he?

Speaker 29 He was, yes.

Speaker 50 Say hi, Kristen.

Speaker 12 Loved his nieces, too.

Speaker 56 He used to take us out on the boat. He just always took care of us.

Speaker 57 Just like he took care of his sister Kathy when they were kids.

Speaker 11 It was always like the two of us doing everything, yeah. Causing havoc.

Speaker 47 As a sheriff's deputy, said his sister Kathy, He once faced down a violent gang.

Speaker 11 They had knocked him to the ground and took his gun and and everything and beat him up. As a matter of fact, I believe that they fired a shot, but it missed.

Speaker 32 So he barely made it through that one.

Speaker 55 Yeah.

Speaker 49 His marriage couldn't take it, and Bob McClancy sought love elsewhere.

Speaker 38 And then a southern bell at the sheriff's department, an aloof secretary known as the Office Wiz, caught his eye.

Speaker 63 Her name was Martha Ann.

Speaker 47 Was he crazy about Martha Ann?

Speaker 44 Yes, he was.

Speaker 52 He was really smitten.

Speaker 64 Martha Ann had two sons.

Speaker 36 I I always respected my mom.

Speaker 12 She

Speaker 31 was

Speaker 31 very charming, highly intelligent.

Speaker 65 Sean was adopted as a baby, met Jen as a teenager, and she became his wife.

Speaker 42 Where Sean was from was not discussed at home.

Speaker 69 But then he had Martha Ann, the only mother he'd ever known.

Speaker 12 A mother is the sun and the moon and the stars to a little kid.

Speaker 70 Did it feel like she was?

Speaker 36 I was always told since a young age that the only people you can trust completely are your parents.

Speaker 23 In the mid-90s, Sean's mom, Martha Ann, was going through a painful divorce and then fell for the detective, Bob.

Speaker 36 Bob was very down to earth and he taught me a lot of things.

Speaker 58 Like what?

Speaker 43 How to be a man.

Speaker 36 How to be a real person.

Speaker 58 Sounds like you liked Bob.

Speaker 36 I liked Bob a lot.

Speaker 68 In 1995, Bob and Martha Ann Ann got married.

Speaker 23 And on holidays, Bob's sister Kathy got closer to Martha Ann.

Speaker 11 We'd go out shopping. That was our big Thanksgiving.
You know, Bobby would stay home and the girls would just take off and go shopping.

Speaker 48 Bob and Martha Ann retired in the late 90s, left Florida, and bought a big secluded hillside cabin.

Speaker 78 in Coker Creek, eastern Tennessee, in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains, not far from where Martha Ann grew up.

Speaker 38 A place where a man could forget about being a cop and all that violence.

Speaker 66 By then, Sean and Jen had their own family and visited from time to time.

Speaker 36 Bob especially would treat our kids greatly.

Speaker 22 He was fond of them.

Speaker 31 It was the real deal.

Speaker 35 Martha Ann went back to work, a counting job.

Speaker 21 She loved numbers.

Speaker 68 And they made time for friends, too, like Debbie Hartman.

Speaker 8 We met at church. Bob and Martha Ann just became very dear friends.

Speaker 74 In Martha Ann, Debbie found her soulmate.

Speaker 8 She was what I would refer to as the quintessential southern lady. She was like a sister to me.
We had the same type of upbringing, the same type of morals. We had fun together.

Speaker 8 We enjoyed sharing recipes together. She had two boys, I had two girls.
We talk about our children. We just were very, very close.

Speaker 59 Over the years, they shared cookouts, road trips, church church events.

Speaker 59 Just

Speaker 8 like two peas from the same pot.

Speaker 84 And you could just see, said Debbie, how much Bob and Martha Ann loved each other.

Speaker 8 Never once did I hear them argue or have a sour word against one another. Never.

Speaker 8 Just very loving, like the perfect couple.

Speaker 25 And then, May 2006, when Martha Ann was at work, a family friend stopped by to see Bob at home. And in front of him,

Speaker 19 well,

Speaker 76 he called 911. Now, when we're in a merchant face, he covers grief.
I can't get a fault, and he appears to be closer to the touch.

Speaker 38 Martha Ann got home, then called for her friend, Debbie.

Speaker 8 And she's screaming, and she's like, Bob's dead. And I'm like, Bob's dead?

Speaker 25 What had happened to Bob McClancy?

Speaker 36 I cried for 10 hours. I couldn't believe we lost such a great man.

Speaker 10 Shocking.

Speaker 8 The two of us just cried our eyes out. The next thing you know, the sheriff comes out.
And I'm like, what in the world's going on?

Speaker 29 And she's like, I don't know.

Speaker 33 It was the 15th of May, 2006, in Coker Creek, Eastern Tennessee, 5 p.m.

Speaker 85 Now, when we're in emergency, I just walked into the residence, just the McClancy residence. The Mr.

Speaker 19 McClancy appears to be expired.

Speaker 86 Bob McClancy, 56 years old, was lying in his favorite recliner.

Speaker 81 The caller, a family friend, said the body was already cold.

Speaker 86 The friend hung up and waited for first responders.

Speaker 87 I was a detective. I'd been a detective for almost a year.

Speaker 35 Detective Travis Jones of the Monroe County Sheriff's Department was one of the first to go into the house.

Speaker 76 What did you see when you got there?

Speaker 87 I found Robert McClancy in a recliner. He had a pistol in one hand and an empty bottle of pills in the other hand.

Speaker 26 Have you ever seen such a thing before?

Speaker 25 No.

Speaker 51 The gun hadn't been fired, but there were pills strewn all over Bob McClancy's body, a white foam around his mouth pointed to an overdose.

Speaker 63 And a do not resuscitate order signed by Bob McClancy and left in the kitchen said he wanted to die.

Speaker 28 Did you see this

Speaker 15 do not resuscitate order?

Speaker 12 I did.

Speaker 88 It looked like suicide.

Speaker 75 And Martha Ann had to spread the dreadful news to Bob's sister and nieces in Florida.

Speaker 16 We were just like in disbelief.

Speaker 11 It's like a nightmare.

Speaker 89 Yeah.

Speaker 10 Shocking.

Speaker 11 Can't imagine. When she told me he took an overdose and killed himself.

Speaker 20 Do you still remember that moment?

Speaker 11 Yes, I do. You know, it affected me quite a while.

Speaker 62 Sean, too, was grief-stricken when he heard about his stepdad's death.

Speaker 22 It must have come as a shock.

Speaker 36 I think I cried for 10 hours driving from Florida to Tennessee. I couldn't believe we lost such a great man.

Speaker 77 But shocking as it was, to those who knew Bob intimately, it was not a complete surprise.

Speaker 29 Why?

Speaker 81 Four letters, PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.

Speaker 73 Back when the Vietnam War was sinking into its bloody depths, Bob volunteered to go as a Marine.

Speaker 35 It took its toll, as did life-threatening incidents during his police career.

Speaker 62 Bob had been on heavy medications, but still suffered flashbacks, nightmares, depression.

Speaker 30 Martha Ann told Debbie she was very troubled.

Speaker 8 She said, I'm trying, but you know, when I'm at work, he'll get in his bills. She said, Bob is abusing it.

Speaker 33 Bob's sister Kathy had also seen warning signs.

Speaker 20 How did you become aware that PTSD was really beginning to become a factor in his life that had to be dealt with?

Speaker 11 We had been up for Thanksgiving, and he had explained to me that right after the holidays, there was a program and he was going to enter it.

Speaker 68 Bob's New Year's resolution for 2006 was to finally beat PTSD.

Speaker 71 And in January, he set off to Nashville for an intensive six-week program run by the VA.

Speaker 59 Soon after he got there, he called his sister Kathy with hope in his voice.

Speaker 69 He'd made a new friend.

Speaker 29 His roommate, Charles Kazmarzik, went by Chuck.

Speaker 11 He had told me that he finally found somebody to talk to that understood what he went through in Vietnam because Chuck was there.

Speaker 68 Yeah, you kind of need somebody who's been through the same thing, I guess.

Speaker 11 Yeah, right, yeah. So he was happy.

Speaker 61 Bob's new veteran friend, Chuck, was no average grunt.

Speaker 45 He was the very model of a war hero.

Speaker 91 Special Forces airman, citations for valor earned in the most daring operations.

Speaker 45 And such a big shot, he was invited to the presidential inauguration.

Speaker 91 Chuck was a sort of tonic Bob seemed to need.

Speaker 35 This relationship continued after the program was over, right?

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 12 After they got out of the program in February, Bob spent most of his time with Chuck.

Speaker 22 He lived not far away in Knoxville.

Speaker 38 As they did handyman jobs at each other's homes.

Speaker 25 Bob had,

Speaker 8 you know, kind of replaced everybody else with Chuck. You know, Chuck was everything.

Speaker 20 But Bob's PTSD persisted. Martha Ann did what she could to pick up Bob's spirits, though that seemed to backfire when she got a makeover.

Speaker 8 She had had her hair cut short and blonde. Big change.
Big change. And I'm like, oh my God, you look beautiful.
And she says, well, I'm certainly glad you like it.

Speaker 8 She said, because Bob doesn't like it at all. He had a fit that I had, that I cut my hair off.
I said, but then a lot of men like ladies with long hair, so, you know, give him time.

Speaker 89 He'll come around.

Speaker 72 When Martha Ann was at work, Chuck kept an eye on Bob.

Speaker 8 Chuck was right there.

Speaker 38 But Bob was in a downward spiral.

Speaker 47 Martha Ann complained that Bob was abusing his antidepressants, and Martha Ann and Chuck found themselves managing one painful scare after another.

Speaker 35 In one episode, they rushed Bob to the VA hospital more than three hours away, passed out in the car.

Speaker 8 Out of it. Out of it.
I understand they had to stop the car because they thought they were going to have to do CPR on him.

Speaker 35 Bob was stabilized and after he was deemed well enough, sent home.

Speaker 12 Two days later, on that Monday in May, Martha Ann got up early and went to work as usual.

Speaker 57 She'd arranged for Chuck to check in on Bob that afternoon.

Speaker 83 It was he who found Bob, called 911.

Speaker 68 Debbie arrived later to find police cars and ambulances and a frantic Martha Ann.

Speaker 8 And so the two of us just sat there and just hugged each other and bawled and,

Speaker 8 you know, just

Speaker 29 cried our eyes out. Oh,

Speaker 29 it was horrible. Bob was dead.

Speaker 8 And the next thing you know, the sheriff comes out with Chuck

Speaker 8 in a t-shirt.

Speaker 8 And I'm like, what in the world's going on?

Speaker 25 And she's like, I don't know.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 they drove off with Chuck.

Speaker 21 Police have some questions for Chuck.

Speaker 87 They come in and find your friend dead.

Speaker 15 He wasn't kind of rushing around and all upset?

Speaker 87 No, but he was calm. Which was kind of suspicious.

Speaker 15 Maybe you go to crime here. Yes.

Speaker 13 Martha Ann was a mess.

Speaker 69 Her husband, Bob, dead of an overdose of PTSD medications.

Speaker 63 and she couldn't even get back into her own house.

Speaker 84 So her best friend, Debbie, and her husband took her in.

Speaker 8 And, you know, the three of us just,

Speaker 8 you know,

Speaker 8 why, what happened, you know, crying, you know, all night long, just sobbing

Speaker 8 and in disbelief that Bob was gone.

Speaker 36 To be there for my mom, I...

Speaker 36 Left immediately and drove through the night.

Speaker 21 And Sean was filled with a flood of sorrow, a guilt, that he hadn't been there for his stepdad, Bob, as Bob had been there for him.

Speaker 36 Bob took care of me every day.

Speaker 93 It'll make you feel close to a person.

Speaker 36 It did.

Speaker 41 Debbie tried in vain to ease Martha Ann's grief.

Speaker 8 I would bring up, you know, fun things that we had done with Bob.

Speaker 32 I would cry about it.

Speaker 29 Ebbed would be like, and now we're not going to have that anymore.

Speaker 8 You know, and then I'd start bawling. And of course, then she'd start bowling with me.

Speaker 21 And to make it even worse, Bob's best friend, Chuck, had been taken away by sheriff's deputies.

Speaker 47 And so Debbie watched as Martha Ann tried to cope with her own sorrow, as she planned her husband's funeral, anxious at the same time for her friend, that those small town cops had the wrong idea about Chuck.

Speaker 8 And I thought, you know, okay, this was Bob's best buddy. Now,

Speaker 8 you know, you're grieving for Bob and now you've got to take care of Chuck.

Speaker 35 The tough situation for her.

Speaker 12 Tough situation.

Speaker 72 Which was about to get tougher.

Speaker 71 Courtesy of that small-town sheriff's deputy, Travis Jones.

Speaker 49 Something strange here, he thought.

Speaker 96 He and the other detectives.

Speaker 70 So they held Chuck for questioning.

Speaker 29 For one thing, why was he so cool?

Speaker 50 His best buddy was lying there dead.

Speaker 15 He wasn't kind of rushing around and all upset or anything like that.

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 29 Calm.

Speaker 87 He was calm,

Speaker 87 which was kind of suspicious in itself to come in and find your friend dead and he was calm.

Speaker 63 As he had been, calm and kind of strange on the 911 call.

Speaker 84 Mr.

Speaker 9 McClancy appears to be expired.

Speaker 57 The operator suggested Chuck might try to revive Bob.

Speaker 9 If you want to try to do some type of CPR on him, I can give you instructions. If you want to see him.

Speaker 9 We do have a do-not-resuscitate order on him.

Speaker 28 Okay. Chuck didn't seem to want to save his own best friend.

Speaker 18 And to the detective, that resuscitate order seemed maybe just a little too convenient.

Speaker 15 Maybe you go to crime here. Yes.

Speaker 35 Travis Jones wasn't alone.

Speaker 70 Bob's sister Kathy had her doubts, too.

Speaker 18 Kathy knew Bob suffered from PTSD and took medication, but she refused to believe her brother would kill himself.

Speaker 11 I mean, he could have part of his finger hanging off. He would duct tape it up and keep going, you know.

Speaker 29 That's the kind of guy you sound too, you too. Yeah.

Speaker 12 So a pill-popping brother didn't make any sense to you?

Speaker 11 Did not. No, no.

Speaker 57 Suspicions deepened a week later when they traveled to Bob's funeral in eastern Tennessee.

Speaker 12 Deep in their grief, they met the friend who'd reported Bob's death to the police and who was back in the community as police continued to look into him.

Speaker 28 His name was Chuck Kasmarzik. How would you describe the guy?

Speaker 56 He was very creepy. There was just something about him, like

Speaker 56 when he looked at you, it was almost like he could just stare through you.

Speaker 21 Sean and Jen saw the same.

Speaker 73 He seemed like

Speaker 36 a tough military guy.

Speaker 31 There was a look about him.

Speaker 9 The cold stare. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Then Kathy got a copy of the 911 call, and what she heard sounded like the verbal equivalent of a thousand-yard stare.

Speaker 98 Mr. McClancy appears to be...

Speaker 36 expired.

Speaker 11 And I played the tape. I played it over and over and wrote it word for word what was in the tape.
And it didn't make sense a couple of things. First he said he didn't touch the body.

Speaker 11 Then he told the 911 operator when he asked about CPR. He said he didn't need it.
He was already gone. Now if he didn't touch the body, how would you know he was gone?

Speaker 29 How do you go on after that when you're full of these doubts and suspicions?

Speaker 11 You go on. You don't have a choice, you know.
But I knew I would not let it drop.

Speaker 27 But in the end, even though Chuck was questioned at length, everything he did put under a microscope, the suspicion appeared to be unfounded.

Speaker 43 The coroner actually ruled it

Speaker 87 so sad.

Speaker 32 And then in the weeks and months after Bob's death, as suspicions dissipated like the mist and the surrounding hills, Chuck could once again walk with his head held high.

Speaker 8 When we did the veterans parade in Knoxville, they put him on the top because he was the most highly decorated.

Speaker 27 After the awful tragedy of Bob's death, Chuck got on with his life again, said goodbye to his dear friend, and comforted Bob's widow, Martha Ann.

Speaker 29 Oh boy.

Speaker 8 He's lost his best friend, she's lost her husband.

Speaker 19 Two grieving friends with growing feelings.

Speaker 8 It was like somebody just dropped a bomb on my head.

Speaker 23 A cruise ship, courtship?

Speaker 8 I looked at her and I said,

Speaker 8 are you and Chuck together?

Speaker 21 In the wake of Bob's death in May 2006, it was only natural, said Debbie, that Martha Ann stayed in touch with Chuck.

Speaker 96 They shared a tremendous loss.

Speaker 8 He's lost his best friend. She's lost her husband.

Speaker 25 They're commiserating.

Speaker 8 They're commiserating, you know, they're helping each other through this grief.

Speaker 18 And there was something else.

Speaker 8 Chuck said that Martha Ann was not feeling good. She was having issues with her back.

Speaker 20 So it made sense Martha Ann would reduce her chores at home.

Speaker 33 Bob, remember, loved animals, but the menagerie was too much for Martha Ann.

Speaker 60 So her son, Sean, helped her downsize.

Speaker 36 Bob had an animal rescue that he ran out of his home.

Speaker 23 They read him.

Speaker 36 He had seven dogs and

Speaker 36 she had a couple cats and chickens and some goats and

Speaker 36 she started to get rid of all these animals as soon as he had passed away.

Speaker 49 Then there were other changes.

Speaker 96 Weeks after Bob's death, Martha Ann invited Debbie and her husband to celebrate Chuck's birthday, dinner at Chuck's place.

Speaker 8 When we got there,

Speaker 8 Martha Ann's dining room set was in Chuck's dining room.

Speaker 64 What did you think when you saw that?

Speaker 8 I said, your furniture is up here.

Speaker 8 And she said, well, it certainly suits his house a whole lot better than mine.

Speaker 100 But they're just friends.

Speaker 8 They're friends. They're friends.

Speaker 25 Still, how close were they getting?

Speaker 8 I called her one day and I said, Jim and I are going to take a cruise.

Speaker 76 Debbie and her husband had gotten an incredible deal from a friend on a week-long Caribbean cruise.

Speaker 8 And she said, well, do you think Chuck and I could go on that cruise?

Speaker 8 And it was like somebody had just dropped a bomb on my head.

Speaker 40 Chuck and I?

Speaker 8 And I said, if there's still spaces available, I'm sure she'll be glad to accommodate you.

Speaker 62 It turned out there was still space.

Speaker 29 And Martha Ann and Chuck shared a cabin.

Speaker 8 And so we're on this cruise ship and every event, you know, they're all dressed matchy-matchy.

Speaker 68 And now, at mealtimes, when the waiter took orders, Chuck spoke for Martha Ann.

Speaker 8 Chuck would speak up and say, the lady will have, and then he would order for her.

Speaker 32 When guests around the table rolled their eyes, said Debbie, Martha Ann stiffened.

Speaker 8 She said, my mother taught etiquette, and a waiter would never have the nerve to speak to a lady.

Speaker 29 Oh my goodness.

Speaker 8 We were just all speechless. We were like, hello, Do you know what century we're living in?

Speaker 89 Have you heard of Women's Lib?

Speaker 8 We're allowed to order for ourselves.

Speaker 8 I was just absolutely floored that she would make a statement like that. You know, a waiter would never have the nerve to speak to a lady.

Speaker 29 Wow.

Speaker 8 And I thought, well, number one, that is not Chuck.

Speaker 79 I mean, he wouldn't know what right fork to use.

Speaker 29 Excuse me.

Speaker 23 Debbie at last confronted her good friend, and that's when the other shoe dropped.

Speaker 8 And I looked at her and I said,

Speaker 8 are you and Chuck together?

Speaker 8 And she said, yeah.

Speaker 8 And I said, are you going to get married? And she goes, oh, heavens, no.

Speaker 73 Though she was surprised, Debbie wanted her good friend to be happy.

Speaker 35 And when the ship docked in Cozumel, Mexico, the group disembarked, went shopping, and then returned to the liner.

Speaker 42 and compared their treasures.

Speaker 8 And I said, so, you know, what did you guys get? And And

Speaker 8 Martha Ann's like,

Speaker 8 you just have to wait and see. Very, very mysterious.
And, you know, it was kind of fun.

Speaker 12 A few weeks after the cruise and months after Bob's death, Martha Ann invited Debbie and her husband to lunch.

Speaker 8 She said, I have something to show you. And I said to her, is this our Cozumel surprise?

Speaker 8 And she pulls out a ring box that has the most gorgeous wedding set you'd ever want to lay eyes on. It was breathtaking.

Speaker 29 Rings. And I'm like, oh my god, this is, I can't believe it.

Speaker 71 They weren't getting married immediately, but when that time came, Martha Ann assured Debbie she would play the supporting role.

Speaker 8 She said, and I want you to be my maid of honor. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm excited.
Absolutely. I would love to be, you know, and I'm ecstatic for you.

Speaker 79 And I would be very honored to be your maid of honor.

Speaker 52 Big deal to be asked. Big deal.

Speaker 80 So, in spite of the apparent sneaking around, thought Debbie, there was something almost poetic about the romance between Martha Ann and Chuck, and maybe dear old Bob would approve.

Speaker 8 I'm just so happy that the two of you, you know, have found one another.

Speaker 8 You know, I know we've lost somebody dear to us, but... But something good has come out of this.
So

Speaker 8 congratulations.

Speaker 15 And besides romance, there was so much more to celebrate.

Speaker 82 Martha Ann and Chuck were going places.

Speaker 63 They were about to be transformed from local Tennessee romantic partners into a sophisticated Washington, D.C.

Speaker 29 power couple.

Speaker 69 Only in America.

Speaker 11 She met a man from the FBI, and she would be traveling on secret missions.

Speaker 100 Flying on Air Force Two or something.

Speaker 11 Flying with the vice president.

Speaker 77 Martha Ann's secret, sudden change of fortune.

Speaker 26 It was five months or so after Bob's death, late 2006.

Speaker 70 Martha Ann and Chuck were about to move up in the world.

Speaker 18 Martha Ann broke the news to Bob's sister, Kathy.

Speaker 35 She had parlayed her office wizardry into a big new high-profile adventure with the federal government, who would be spending time in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 11 She told me one day that she met a man from the FBI and he offered her a job as a secretary. She was getting a security clearance and she would be traveling out of the country on secret missions.

Speaker 93 As a secretary?

Speaker 29 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 12 It wasn't long before Martha Ann was promoted, as she told Kathy.

Speaker 21 She was transferred to the State Department.

Speaker 68 Very hush-hush.

Speaker 63 She had a limo at her disposal, two passports, and with a government pension, she would never have any money worries again.

Speaker 35 Her schedule filled up fast.

Speaker 68 She was apparently moving in the very highest circles.

Speaker 100 She was already working for or flying on Air Force Tourism.

Speaker 11 Right, yeah, yeah, with the vice president.

Speaker 49 Including travel to undisclosed locations.

Speaker 45 She's kind of hard to get hold of.

Speaker 11 Oh yeah, there was no way of getting a hold of her.

Speaker 33 Sean, though he moved to Tennessee with Jen and the kids and became a bridge inspector, couldn't reach his mom either.

Speaker 48 I would call

Speaker 36 my mom to check in on her

Speaker 36 and she would go missing for a month at a time, two months at a time, and you couldn't reach her. by cell phone or home phone and

Speaker 36 as we find out she's out traveling the country.

Speaker 12 And though she was clearly very busy, Martha Ann, along with Chuck, carved out time to give back, to volunteer.

Speaker 96 Together they traveled the country visiting military facilities.

Speaker 12 They presided over dedications and ceremonies honoring troops and Chuck handed flags to war widows at cemeteries.

Speaker 36 Chuck would go out with all these medals and he'd go to the local high school and to veterans parades.

Speaker 100 He also reconnected with the guys he'd served with way back when.

Speaker 84 They recalled old times.

Speaker 14 When I first met Chuck, he had just started his training. He'd just fit in like all the other guys.
He was just one of us.

Speaker 9 He seemed to be a nice guy.

Speaker 35 Bill Walter and P.J.

Speaker 39 Cook are combat veterans who, with Chuck, were gunners on some of the most powerful gunships in the U.S.

Speaker 88 arsenal back in Vietnam.

Speaker 21 They lost touch, easy to do do in such a sprawling military.

Speaker 28 But decades later, PJ ran into Chuck at a reunion of his gunship unit called the Spectre Association.

Speaker 9 So it was kind of just good to see the guy because he was just a guy we served with. I just assume that he completed his career like I did.

Speaker 9 And I served 22 years, Bill served 30, and we gave our whole life to this unit.

Speaker 70 Back in the old days, said Bill, Chuck's nickname was Kaz.

Speaker 63 But now, Kaz had come up in the world from the lowest ranks to the highest.

Speaker 14 So I go up there and I talk to him and I said, hey, Kaz, what's up, man? How you been doing? He says, oh,

Speaker 94 I retired here a couple years ago.

Speaker 13 Really? Wow.

Speaker 14 And I said, well,

Speaker 13 what was your rank?

Speaker 14 I retired as a chief.

Speaker 40 I'm like, really?

Speaker 27 As the former airman caught up on more than 25 years, Chuck flashed his medals.

Speaker 14 And Chuck says, you guys should check your classified records. The VA checked my classified records and I found out I got a whole bunch of really high medals from my operations in Vietnam.

Speaker 38 Chuck invited PJ to his home in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Speaker 9 And I personally saw these awards on the wall in his house up in Tennessee.

Speaker 76 What did you think when you saw them?

Speaker 9 Oh, I was floored. And I said, well, that's really great.
You got this. He goes, oh, yeah.
You know, they finally released these from classification, and here they are.

Speaker 35 Then Chuck had an idea.

Speaker 67 He figured the Spectre Association could benefit from Martha Ann's high-wattage political and business savvy.

Speaker 14 Wow, hey, anybody that volunteers to help is great.

Speaker 71 And as the months went by, Martha Ann carved out time from her schedule to become Association Secretary. She was our recorder, yes.

Speaker 14 She was really good at taking down notes and making paper and so forth.

Speaker 29 Association members were so impressed with the couple that Chuck was promoted to the board.

Speaker 30 He and Martha Ann traveled internationally representing Spectre, carrying the unit's mascot.

Speaker 68 And there was time for fun too.

Speaker 71 They reveled in their newfound happiness, enjoyed their new responsibilities, of course, but also decided to live a little, splash out.

Speaker 9 Just out of nowhere, they said that, boy, we certainly like to have an RV. And my wife says, well, you know, my boss is selling a beautiful RV.

Speaker 91 Well, of course, they went and looked at the RV and liked it a lot so they made him an offer right next to the rv chuck noticed a garage anniversary edition corvette tempting even though he already had a mercedes convertible he said well i like corvettes too

Speaker 8 show me that next thing you know they bought the corvette too and pretty soon they were parading their new toys for their old friend debbie here a knock on the front door and i open the door and sitting in front of of my house is this gorgeous, like, $350,000 motorhome bus.

Speaker 8 Wow. And it was to die for.
This is what the wealthiest of the wealthiest drive. It had been custom-made.

Speaker 78 To Debbie and others, Martha Ann and Chuck had made it.

Speaker 80 They put Bob's painful death behind them and were now a high-powered couple.

Speaker 21 doing good things and living well.

Speaker 93 Sort of success a person wants to share.

Speaker 49 In early 2008, Chuck relished the opportunity to share with a group of young people stories about his many combat exploits.

Speaker 12 And what do you know?

Speaker 13 When he made his speech, there was a reporter in the room writing it all down for the local paper.

Speaker 13 Oops.

Speaker 11 She said, oh, there's more to this story.

Speaker 23 New lives that seemed like a dream.

Speaker 59 But Chuck and Martha Martha Ann were in for a very rude awakening.

Speaker 14 The BS alarms are going off in my head like you wouldn't believe.

Speaker 12 Amazing, isn't it?

Speaker 66 A life could change in a dime.

Speaker 25 In the spring of 2006, Martha Ann was burying her husband and great love, Bob McClancy.

Speaker 50 But by the end of the year, she had rebuilt her life and had a new partner, Chuck.

Speaker 101 In the meantime, Bob's sister Kathy had questions from Martha Ann about Chuck, but couldn't reach her.

Speaker 26 What with the State Department travel schedule and Air Force II duties?

Speaker 11 I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but at that time, when I told my older sister what was going on, she said, oh, there's more to this story.

Speaker 33 Kathy still wanted answers about her brother's death, but you know how people can start to sound like broken records.

Speaker 11 I think my family, friends, probably everybody was tired of listening to me saying this isn't right. I know something had to, you know, had to have happened.

Speaker 46 When Martha Ann found the time to respond to Kathy, she told her she was imagining things.

Speaker 38 Did she accuse you of meddling?

Speaker 11 Right, yeah. Yeah, she said, your brother always said that you always had to get in people's business.
You could never just

Speaker 11 let things lie.

Speaker 11 And I guess that was true. I don't stop till I find out.

Speaker 12 Then she said, Martha Ann got even more snippy.

Speaker 11 She literally told me that I needed psychiatric help. I need to get over the fact that my brother killed himself.
And I said, I will never, I will never believe that.

Speaker 22 But Kathy wasn't the only one getting the brush off from Martha Ann.

Speaker 76 Remember how Martha Ann promised that when she eventually got married, her best friend Debbie would be maid of honor?

Speaker 33 At the monthly meeting of the Corvette Club in Knoxville, Debbie got a surprise when the chairperson asked new members to stand.

Speaker 19 And...

Speaker 8 All of a sudden I hear this, hi, my name's Chuck Kasmarzek, and this is my wife, Martha Ann, and we've bought an anniversary edition Corvette. Hey, hang on, just a second.

Speaker 84 When he got up at the back of the room that day

Speaker 93 and said, this is, I'm Chuck and this is my wife, this is the first you knew that.

Speaker 8 This is how I found out.

Speaker 28 You must have been asleep that day when you're a maid of honor.

Speaker 8 I guess I must have been.

Speaker 8 So I said, Chuck, you know,

Speaker 8 actually I was kind of hurt.

Speaker 29 Well, not surprised.

Speaker 8 And I said, you know, when did you all get married? Oh, we went on a cruise and we got married on the beach down in some island. And I said, wow, you know,

Speaker 8 I'm happy for you.

Speaker 8 I'm still hurt. But I'm happy for you.

Speaker 84 Rude awakening.

Speaker 75 But nothing compared to the morning early early in 2008, soon after Chuck gave his speech to a group of students eager to hear about his many and heroic combat exploits.

Speaker 28 And a story about Chuck's talk appeared in the newspaper.

Speaker 84 Vets who read it reacted with outrage.

Speaker 25 At the same time, Bill Walter was hearing about Chuck from another veterans group.

Speaker 14 He was telling all of his war stories to them, and these guys were like, we never even heard about you before. We've had these reunions for 30-something-odd years, and and this is the first one.

Speaker 6 Your name isn't anywhere on here.

Speaker 60 Special Forces guys like Bill and PJ didn't brag about their service.

Speaker 14 I'm like, it's just some guy spouting off, talking trash, trying to impress his buddies.

Speaker 71 People want to aggrandize their service, right?

Speaker 14 Yeah, some guys do, but it's very rare around our people to do that, especially when they're doing it in front of our own people.

Speaker 60 The veterans called Chuck out.

Speaker 14 Well, Chuck went home all mad because they challenged him. Dog on it, they cannot challenge me.

Speaker 27 No, and Chuck sent the group his official military records just to prove he was telling the truth.

Speaker 77 He also told them, due to an emergency, he'd be dropping out of circulation for a while.

Speaker 21 Wouldn't be able to attend any more reunions anytime soon.

Speaker 14 And the BS alarms are going off in my head like you wouldn't believe.

Speaker 86 Bill and the others informed the Air Force.

Speaker 39 And then the Air Force contacted the Veterans Administration, asked them to check this guy out.

Speaker 12 The job fell to former Marine and VA investigator in Nashville, Special Agent Nate Landcammer.

Speaker 9 This is definitely the case of a career. I don't think I'll work anything like this again just because of the different twists and turns.

Speaker 12 Twists and turns that would end up leading to a chilling conclusion.

Speaker 38 And right away, here's what Nate heard.

Speaker 9 The people who had served with him were very emphatic that he had not participated in these missions.

Speaker 9 He specifically talked about the Iran hostage rescue, being a part of that, being at the fall of Saigon and Vietnam. He said he was there for all the big stuff.

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 28 Naturally, Nate's first step was to check Chuck's service records.

Speaker 76 So he went back to the Air Force and was surprised by what he found in Chuck's file, not what he expected.

Speaker 9 His records did contain items substantiating significant combat service in Vietnam and after Vietnam. Did he have a silver star hearts, the distinguished flying cross, some very, very high

Speaker 9 deal stuff. Very high awards and they were substantiated by names and socials and names of missions and dates that these missions took place.

Speaker 76 So as far as the Air Force knew, he was on the up and up.

Speaker 55 Yes.

Speaker 39 But Nate was unsatisfied.

Speaker 49 Something was wrong here.

Speaker 81 He kept digging.

Speaker 32 Because down deep, where it gets really mucky, evil lives.

Speaker 38 Quite Quite possibly, evidence of an unimaginable crime.

Speaker 71 Nate Landcammer would launch a special operation to learn the truth.

Speaker 9 We start doing surveillance on Charles and Martha Ann.

Speaker 23 Chuck in a wheelchair?

Speaker 25 Exactly what were they up to?

Speaker 59 A crime far darker than anything investigators imagined.

Speaker 9 It just really, really gave you the sense of, you know, whoever did this was very evil.

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Speaker 28 Chuck Kazmarzik didn't know it, but he was under investigation.

Speaker 40 While his military record engraved him into the pages of American history, borne out by a chest full of ribbons, the combat veterans who knew him were saying this guy was a fake, which presented a dilemma for VA investigator Nate Landkammer.

Speaker 79 So you've got really good-looking documents, but you're sitting in somebody's living room and he's saying to you, that's all BS. Yes.

Speaker 9 From the Air Force service members that I talked to that that served with him, every one of them was emphatic that he did not participate in any combat at all, at all.

Speaker 76 So Nate went back to the Air Force, asked them to double-check.

Speaker 9 The Air Force really started pouring over these documents at the missions and the order numbers and rather quickly determined that these were all forged documents. They were not legitimate.

Speaker 12 Yes, Chuck had been in the Air Force, but no act of heroism.

Speaker 40 Chuck had doctored old mission records, inserting his name and some official-looking stamps, all of it convincing enough he was able to get the forged documents entered into his own Air Force record.

Speaker 15 So he'd gone to an awful lot of trouble to lie about his service.

Speaker 9 Yes, he did.

Speaker 77 And that was no joke to Nate, the former Marine.

Speaker 9 It's very offensive. Very offensive to me, personally.

Speaker 86 Yes.

Speaker 90 Wasn't he like appearing at Arlington Cemetery to give flags to widows and so on?

Speaker 9 He was appearing at funerals, wearing his purple heart and comforting widows of servicemen who had died in combat.

Speaker 23 Oh, but it got worse.

Speaker 49 As Nate kept digging, he discovered something about Martha Ann.

Speaker 74 Martha Ann, who'd never donned a military uniform in her life, showed up at a veterans retreat.

Speaker 40 and claimed that she too had rank and medals and combat experience.

Speaker 21 She showed off a purple heart.

Speaker 9 Several of the attendees at this retreat specifically remember her talking all about working at the Pentagon, being at the Pentagon during the 9-11 attacks, and Charles was also telling people that, yeah, she's a Fulbright colonel in the Marine Corps retired.

Speaker 44 And nobody questioned her then? No.

Speaker 43 They believed her.

Speaker 29 But they discovered that military glory, that big-time government career, didn't exist.

Speaker 67 any of it.

Speaker 98 There was no high-profile State Department job in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 100 No travel aboard Air Force 2 with the Vice President.

Speaker 93 No undisclosed locations. They were all the fantastic stories of two sophisticated con artists.

Speaker 28 A con that wasn't just about social prestige either.

Speaker 20 It was about cash.

Speaker 49 Chuck and his documents?

Speaker 9 I knew we had a very substantial fraud case because those documents in particular were used to get the benefit money from the VA and Social Security as source documents that gave legitimacy to his claim.

Speaker 73 Chuck was claiming thousands of dollars a month in disability payments.

Speaker 29 And then, look at this.

Speaker 12 Looked like Martha Ann was helping Chuck.

Speaker 49 For example, on statements she signed supporting Chuck's claim for 100% disability.

Speaker 9 She claimed that he was homebound and he could not take care of himself. He would not be able to feed himself.

Speaker 25 He wouldn't bathe.

Speaker 9 He would just be wandering around the house aimlessly.

Speaker 28 Guy's in bad shape.

Speaker 9 Really bad shape. He should be getting more money from the VA than what they're paying him.

Speaker 63 Looked to Nate like he'd uncovered a major scam.

Speaker 75 And if Chuck was scamming the VA, what was Martha Ann up to?

Speaker 84 Nate ran her name.

Speaker 38 And what do you know?

Speaker 28 Martha Ann was getting Social Security disability payments herself.

Speaker 9 Because of

Speaker 9 she claimed to have back issues where she couldn't walk, she was wheelchair bound.

Speaker 63 And he found out that while Martha Ann was entitled to some of her dead husband's benefits, she was claiming a lot more.

Speaker 74 Together, Martha Ann and Chuck were bilking the government for about $10,000 a month.

Speaker 28 Nate wanted Martha Ann and Chuck, or Charles as his name appeared in the records, to be charged with fraud.

Speaker 63 But first he needed proof they were lying about being disabled.

Speaker 58 So.

Speaker 9 We started doing surveillance on Charles and Martha Ann.

Speaker 78 Nate and fellow investigators got into the back of a surveillance van with their video camera and they waited.

Speaker 9 We had several agents all participating in surveillance.

Speaker 76 And it wasn't long before Martha Anna Chuck appeared outside their home.

Speaker 28 Here they are, supposedly disabled people, but by the look of it, perfectly fit.

Speaker 9 We'd observe them doing hours and hours of yard work outside their home.

Speaker 97 We would observe.

Speaker 87 Strenuous stuff.

Speaker 9 Yes, very strenuous stuff for hours at a time at their Knoxville house.

Speaker 9 Watch them pressure washing their driveway and their house and clearing brush.

Speaker 12 Bending over.

Speaker 35 No sign of back trouble.

Speaker 27 Lifting heavy objects.

Speaker 68 But look at this.

Speaker 63 Here they are arriving at the VA for one of Chuck's regular assessments.

Speaker 15 You'd assume that their demeanor was going to change anyway.

Speaker 9 Yeah, well, we quickly found out that that was the case.

Speaker 76 Martha Ann lifts a heavy wheelchair out of the car.

Speaker 38 Chuck gets in.

Speaker 69 She wheels him into the VA center.

Speaker 38 A picture that might wring pity from even the hardest heart.

Speaker 35 Sometimes when they followed Martha Ann,

Speaker 9 she was moving out pretty good to where you'd almost break a sweat trying to keep up with her.

Speaker 82 And when Martha Ann had her appointments, she and Chuck would switch positions.

Speaker 9 It actually got to be kind of humorous.

Speaker 52 But the couple had only one wheelchair, so Nate got to thinking.

Speaker 12 And...

Speaker 44 Here's how Dr. Seuss would write it.

Speaker 12 And then Nate got an idea.

Speaker 79 A wonderful, devious idea.

Speaker 79 But it's just true, in a way, isn't it?

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 63 What if Nate arranged the schedules so that Martha Ann and Chuck had their appointments at the very same time?

Speaker 49 Who would get in the wheelchair then?

Speaker 12 He wondered.

Speaker 58 What happened?

Speaker 12 A conniving couple caught in a trap.

Speaker 8 This can't be true.

Speaker 60 And Martha Ann's son, Sean, is about to launch an investigation of his own.

Speaker 36 I had to know the truth.

Speaker 80 VA investigator Nate Landcammer had set a trap.

Speaker 96 He knew Martha Ann and Chuck had just one wheelchair as they faked disability.

Speaker 57 So he set up appointments for them at the Social Security facility at the same time.

Speaker 9 So they arrived at the facility and then, as we suspected, they only had one wheelchair. So Charles, instead of using a wheelchair, he had a walker and a cane.

Speaker 12 A walker and a cane.

Speaker 9 A walker and a cane both.

Speaker 33 And a knee brace.

Speaker 9 Stilt-legged, and then he was toting an oxygen tank as well.

Speaker 49 As Chuck fumbled his way inside, Nate and his agents were waiting.

Speaker 29 Busted.

Speaker 9 I interviewed Charles. We pulled him into an office, and then Martha Ann was being questioned by another VA OIG agent in the Social Security Administration OIG agent.

Speaker 57 Martha Ann and Chuck Kazmarzik had been found out.

Speaker 18 Chuck was no decorated hero.

Speaker 41 He had never once seen combat.

Speaker 97 No silver stars, no purple hearts, those ribbons, all fake.

Speaker 66 And Martha Ann had never walked the hallways of the Pentagon as a Marine colonel, much less been in the 9-11 attack, or flown on Air Force 2.

Speaker 50 Confronted with the evidence, they confessed to perpetuating a complex and massive fraud and fake disability claims.

Speaker 76 Had you or your partners in the investigation ever encountered people who were so

Speaker 9 complexly fraudulent, I don't think I'll work a case like this again in my career.

Speaker 21 But the really sinister stuff was yet to unfold.

Speaker 18 Because family and friends were only just finding out about the fraud, in the summer of 2012, over early morning coffee, Martha Ann's best friend, Debbie Hartman, was reading her newspaper.

Speaker 8 And I'm thinking to myself,

Speaker 8 this can't be true.

Speaker 8 This can't be true. So I start yelling at the top of my lungs, Jim, get up.
You've got to come see this.

Speaker 21 Debbie's husband, Jim, is a Marine veteran.

Speaker 69 Neither he nor Debbie could believe what they were reading.

Speaker 8 Fooled the federal government.

Speaker 8 Stole money from our veterans.

Speaker 63 Is it the money that mattered or the...

Speaker 8 Oh, no. It was the fact that they took it out of veterans' pockets that need it.

Speaker 29 That's...

Speaker 8 That just sticks in my craw. That hurts.

Speaker 79 It must be quite something to know that this woman who was your best friend hid herself from you and conned you all these years.

Speaker 29 Absolutely.

Speaker 8 Took me for a complete sucker.

Speaker 58 Chuck, too.

Speaker 8 He would go and present the flags to a widow of a veteran that lost his life.

Speaker 29 That's cruel. The people that he took in under that don't deserve that.

Speaker 12 And it wasn't long before Sean and Jen were reading online in disbelief about Sean's own mother, Martha Ann, caught in an outrageous fraud with Chuck.

Speaker 31 And we found out that they were arrested on eight federal indictments. That's how you found out? That is how we found out.
We had no idea.

Speaker 36 Made your heart stop. It was heartwreaking.

Speaker 31 Very overwhelming.

Speaker 12 Martha Ann stole her dead husband's valor.

Speaker 36 My mom never served a single day in any armed services unit. She assumed Bob's purple heart and told these veterans groups that that was her purple heart that she received in the 9-11 Pentagon attack.

Speaker 47 By early 2013, Martha Ann and Chuck were sentenced.

Speaker 9 Charles got 30 months federal and then Martha Ann got 20.

Speaker 49 They'd spent most of their ill-gotten gains, of course.

Speaker 35 So before she began her prison sentence, Martha Ann prepared to sell the house for restitution.

Speaker 61 She

Speaker 9 started, you know, boxing up all of her belongings and selling things and closing up the house.

Speaker 12 But Martha Ann was a notorious pack rat.

Speaker 18 She had kept everything.

Speaker 21 Trunks full of clothes, thousands of pages of receipts, contracts, documents.

Speaker 28 So what did she do?

Speaker 21 She gave them to her son, Sean, and his wife, Jen, for safekeeping.

Speaker 36 If she asked me to do something, I will do it.

Speaker 64 Well, and in a way, I suppose if she gave things to you, then the feds or the other investigative agencies maybe wouldn't have access to them.

Speaker 23 Well yes.

Speaker 21 But when those boxes of records arrived Sean and Jen dived in ravenously to see what they could uncover.

Speaker 28 Who keeps all those documents?

Speaker 31 30,000. 30,000.
30,000.

Speaker 91 There must have been some job going through all of this stuff.

Speaker 31 It was overwhelming.

Speaker 31 It was.

Speaker 36 I did feel conflicted about digging into my mom's affairs, but I had to know the truth.

Speaker 25 Then, Sean turned on one of the computers his mom had sent for safekeeping.

Speaker 18 He intended their kids to use it, so he wanted to be sure it was clean.

Speaker 70 He checked the trash bin and couldn't believe what he saw.

Speaker 36 And there were photos of my stepdad, Bob, deceased.

Speaker 25 Dead?

Speaker 104 Dead.

Speaker 36 There were many photos in there.

Speaker 27 They were photos of Bob McClancy lying dead in his recliner in 2006.

Speaker 36 What was it like to see those pictures? Disturbing.

Speaker 18 Here were the pictures that told an entirely different story to what Sean and Jen knew.

Speaker 36 In one picture, Bob would have a pistol in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other. In another picture, Bob would just have a bottle of pills and nothing in the other hand.

Speaker 31 And it was odd the way he was in the chair. The way his leg was placed, looking back at that, I think you could tell that was body manipulation.

Speaker 84 The pictures didn't appear to be police photos because they were all apparently taken before any police arrived on the scene.

Speaker 32 So you called the cops?

Speaker 48 Right away.

Speaker 35 Sean, conflicted, was suddenly faced with the prospect he may be implicating his own mom.

Speaker 32 And so torn, he called Nate, the VA investigator, and began to tell him all about Bob McClancy's death in 2006.

Speaker 9 He said, I just want to talk to you guys about this and get it off my chest because it's really been bothering me. And if there's nothing to it, great.

Speaker 9 But if there is, I think it needs to be investigated.

Speaker 15 It's like pulling a string, isn't it?

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 63 And now the string led back in time, six years back, to that dismal afternoon in the Tennessee Hills when Chuck called 911 to report a suicide.

Speaker 9 It was just part of a very complex evil scheme. You know, that was the sense that I got when I first saw the photographs.

Speaker 26 So maybe this wasn't, after all, just a fraud case.

Speaker 12 Maybe, he thought, someone had gotten away with murder.

Speaker 79 Did you suspect that he killed his friend Bob?

Speaker 87 That was a possibility.

Speaker 33 The old suspicions about Chuck.

Speaker 25 What had happened to the investigation all those years ago?

Speaker 87 It was devastating. I felt guilty about it.

Speaker 25 Like you'd blown it.

Speaker 87 Yes.

Speaker 42 BA Special Agent Nate Landcammer had Martha Ann McClancy and Chuck Kasmarzik for fraud, but his investigation was about to take a sudden turn to evil.

Speaker 60 He had learned about the suspicious photos Sean and Jen found in the computer Martha Ann had given them.

Speaker 6 Pictures of Bob lying dead.

Speaker 9 Sean contacted the U.S. Attorney and said, I have some information that you might want to know that may be helpful to the investigation.

Speaker 31 There were a lot of phone conversations between Sean and Nate and Nate and I.

Speaker 88 Nate learned there had been an investigation into Bob McClancy's death six years earlier in 2006.

Speaker 35 Remember, Detective Travis Jones had been called to the house after a 911 call placed by Chuck.

Speaker 105 I just walked into the residence, just the McClancy residence. The Mr.
McClancy appears to be expired.

Speaker 91 Back then, the detective thought Chuck was acting way too calm, was avoiding CPR on his best friend, and was staging that perhaps too convenient, do not resuscitate, order.

Speaker 30 And it turned out the detective had good reason to want to question Chuck after he discovered a digital camera inside a backpack.

Speaker 55 Who found the camera? I did.

Speaker 15 Did you, like, assume anything about its ownership or anything like that?

Speaker 87 No, I just assumed it belonged to the residents there, Mr. McClancy.

Speaker 15 Did you think as you're opening it up, hey, wait a minute, maybe I shouldn't be doing this?

Speaker 87 No, it never crossed my mind at the time because that was standard practice.

Speaker 23 Hmm.

Speaker 90 On the assumption that what?

Speaker 79 There's no need to get a search warrant for a dead guy's camera.

Speaker 29 Right.

Speaker 28 On the camera were pictures of the deceased Bob McClancy.

Speaker 46 His body positioned differently than the way the police found it.

Speaker 45 They were the same pictures Sean later found on the computer, some showing Bob McClancy holding a revolver, others the revolver and the pill bottle.

Speaker 90 What did you think when you saw that?

Speaker 87 That we had a stage scene.

Speaker 15 And if you have a stage scene, maybe you got a crime here. Yes.

Speaker 33 That's when the detective decided to question Chuck.

Speaker 9 We took him down to the sheriff's office.

Speaker 101 At the sheriff's office, confronted with the photo evidence, Chuck's story changed dramatically. His first statement to the police had been he arrived at the house after Bob died and called 911.

Speaker 88 Now, he was telling them that when he arrived, Bob wasn't quite dead, but was taking his last gasps.

Speaker 87 He had come home,

Speaker 87 found Mr. McClancy, said he was still alive,

Speaker 87 and he was barely breathing.

Speaker 27 Chuck said he was the one who staged the scene and took the photos because he didn't know Bob was going to die and hoped that photos of his friend suffering might help Bob leverage more benefits from the VA.

Speaker 25 Did you suspect that he killed his friend Bob?

Speaker 87 That was a possibility.

Speaker 20 At the time, Detective Jones believed he had at least a case of negligence.

Speaker 87 His negligence caused his death. That was the evidence we had at the time.

Speaker 15 If he had moved quicker or called 911 sooner or tried to do CPR or something, his friend would still be alive.

Speaker 87 He let him die before he called 911.

Speaker 25 911.

Speaker 60 Chuck was charged with tampering with evidence and criminal negligence.

Speaker 78 So it must have seemed like you kind of had him on that.

Speaker 87 That's what we thought.

Speaker 40 But that's not what happened.

Speaker 40 Before the case could go to trial, a judge ruled the photos taken by Chuck were not admissible in a court of law.

Speaker 29 Why?

Speaker 72 The camera belonged to Chuck, not Bob.

Speaker 45 And Detective Jones had gathered the photos without a search warrant.

Speaker 84 In the courtroom, that was it.

Speaker 45 The case against Chuck Kasmarzik collapsed.

Speaker 15 Go back to that time when you got that ruling and it was basically thrown out and you weren't going to get the case at all.

Speaker 25 What was that like for you?

Speaker 87 It was devastating.

Speaker 90 Did you feel as if you were responsible?

Speaker 87 I did. I felt guilty about it.
Like you'd blown it.

Speaker 25 Yes.

Speaker 81 Six years later, in 2012, Chuck was a convicted con man.

Speaker 45 And investigator Nate Landkamer was looking at the very same images on the computer.

Speaker 9 You know, I knew that the local sheriff's department had some suspicions that Chuck had done something, but really weren't able to substantiate anything through, you know, charges being able to stick.

Speaker 24 But to Nate, maybe

Speaker 88 Chuck was up to his lying eyeballs in Bob McClancy's death.

Speaker 9 It just really, really gave you the sense of You know, whoever set this up and whoever did this and whoever took these pictures was very evil.

Speaker 77 Chuck had taken the pictures, but what were they doing on the computer Sean got from his mother, Martha Ann?

Speaker 33 Then Nate and the state investigators who joined him came up with a plan.

Speaker 45 They'd put Sean and Jen on the spot.

Speaker 40 They'd get Sean to spy on his mom.

Speaker 80 Sean was about to become an undercover agent.

Speaker 55 What's it like to phone your mother knowing that you're going to be putting her on tape?

Speaker 36 It had to be done. I asked her why the pictures were there and she said, photos of Bob.

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Speaker 41 It should be noted that Sean's relationship with his mother, Martha Ann, was never particularly warm.

Speaker 30 Martha Ann wasn't exactly the cuddly, protective type.

Speaker 36 I think I was more scared of my mom looking back.

Speaker 47 Remember, Sean had been adopted as an infant by Martha Ann and her first husband in Florida.

Speaker 22 He said his mom was strict and quick to punish if Sean crossed her red lines.

Speaker 36 You knew that was it. Your

Speaker 36 life was not going to be as pleasant for a period of time.

Speaker 23 What did you think when you saw her treating Sean that way?

Speaker 31 It made me angry.

Speaker 20 Even so, Sean tried to stay loyal to his mom.

Speaker 74 But now he was about to go against her in a way he never could have imagined.

Speaker 91 He'd seen the photos of Bob's dead body, contacted the investigator Nate Landcammer, and now he and Jen were turning up more evidence for Nate's investigation.

Speaker 31 We were coming across all of these what we would call crazy, crazy documents. We couldn't wrap our brain around them.

Speaker 84 And one of those mind-boggling documents was Bob McClancy's will.

Speaker 63 Bob had been married before he met Martha Ann and had a daughter.

Speaker 78 The daughter hadn't seen Bob in years, and she was cut out of Bob's will.

Speaker 9 He wanted nothing to do with her, and I don't want you to know about my death, and I'm leaving you one dollar of my estate.

Speaker 46 The wording seemed especially harsh.

Speaker 9 I didn't know Bob McClancy. Most fathers would not write something this cruel to their only daughter.
I just realized that this is just not adding up, and it just was very, very suspicious.

Speaker 47 Bob's sister, Kathy, thought it was fishy, too.

Speaker 11 I knew this wasn't Bobby's will. I even said that to my daughters.
Uncle Bobby would have never put this in here.

Speaker 11 No, never.

Speaker 78 Nate concluded that Martha Ann, the sole beneficiary, had forged the will.

Speaker 22 Came from Martha Ann, not from

Speaker 9 came from Martha Ann. And the will in particular ended up being a major part of the investigation.

Speaker 62 And then Nate discovered a curious date, or dates,

Speaker 47 Martha Ann's wedding to Chuck.

Speaker 9 If you wait until after you turn 57 and remarry then, you can keep the benefits for the rest of your life.

Speaker 9 And she ended up marrying Chuck in Las Vegas, Nevada, one day after her 57th birthday, which allowed her to keep the VA benefits associated with Bob for the rest of her life.

Speaker 45 Martha Ann used the same formula to claim her husband's Social Security disability benefits.

Speaker 9 There was a stipulation under her Social Security benefits that she could not remarry prior to her 60th birthday. So, of course.

Speaker 76 There's a little dancing attitude.

Speaker 9 Yeah, they then got married again

Speaker 9 three years to the date after their first marriage. So yeah, they had essentially two marriage dates.

Speaker 78 With so much compelling evidence against Martha Ann and Chuck, Nate figured it was more than a coincidence that Martha Ann had married the man who was last known to be with her husband, Bob.

Speaker 69 If Chuck had murdered Bob, then Martha Ann, who'd married Chuck just five months after Bob's death, must have known something.

Speaker 31 We really never believed that she could be capable of killing Bob.

Speaker 20 Just who would do such a thing, right?

Speaker 31 Well and we knew that Chuck was the last person with Bob. So we really didn't think Martha was the one that had killed Bob.
I think we both believed that it was Chuck.

Speaker 59 But they wanted to be sure if there was a murder conspiracy.

Speaker 62 Maybe his son could find out from his mother.

Speaker 35 They decided to recruit Sean, get him to wear a wire and place a call to his mom, Martha Ann, and ask her what she knew about the photos.

Speaker 23 Sean agreed.

Speaker 9 So he was willing to make the phone call and we gave him a recording device.

Speaker 64 What's it like to phone your mother knowing that you're going to be putting her on the spot that way on tape with somebody listening?

Speaker 36 Well, it had to be done.

Speaker 12 You nervous?

Speaker 36 I was nervous, but at the same time.

Speaker 78 You gotta know.

Speaker 58 You have to know.

Speaker 25 Nate and Sean's wife, Jen, were listening as the call began.

Speaker 36 We talked for about an hour, about 45 minutes to an hour.

Speaker 9 He's like, hey, mom, the kids were on the computer over the weekend, and when I got in the trash, I found like over 100 photographs in there of Bob dead.

Speaker 36 I asked her why the pictures were there.

Speaker 9 And she said, Photos of Bob? She started saying, I think those are police photos, Sean. And he was like, Mom, these photographs are not police photos.

Speaker 31 And then he said he has a pill bottle and a pistol, and then he doesn't. And he's dead.
Why are these pictures in here?

Speaker 9 Her spontaneous reaction to this being posed to her was: for God's sake, Sean, delete those photographs, you know.

Speaker 9 And that was kind of what we were looking for.

Speaker 55 What did you think when you got off that phone call?

Speaker 86 Did you think this woman was part of it?

Speaker 36 I really started thinking that she's guilty.

Speaker 36 She has more of a role in Bob's death than she put on.

Speaker 4 Nate agreed.

Speaker 45 With the suspicious will, the wedding dates, and the photos of Bob's death scene, Nate and his investigators believed they were dealing with a murder conspiracy.

Speaker 94 That Bob had not killed himself with an overdose of antidepressants, but had been deliberately poisoned.

Speaker 26 And as they confronted their two suspects, one of them was about to sing like a canary.

Speaker 88 The lovers start pointing fingers.

Speaker 110 It was Chuck's idea and he did it.

Speaker 102 She maintained her innocence from the very beginning.

Speaker 45 A dramatic courtroom showdown.

Speaker 68 Chuck versus Martha Ann.

Speaker 111 Did you kill your husband?

Speaker 112 No, sir, I did not.

Speaker 64 It was a cold night, December 2012.

Speaker 28 VA Special Agent Nate Landcammer waited outside a jail cell in Tennessee, nervous, uncertain.

Speaker 74 Inside, investigators were trying to persuade Chuck Kazmarzik to reveal, finally, the real story of that deadly Monday in 2006.

Speaker 6 Who did what and why.

Speaker 65 And then, out came the investigators, smiles on their faces.

Speaker 99 Chuck talked.

Speaker 9 That was kind of like the culmination of everything, knowing that what we had suspected was correct.

Speaker 98 Nate understood full well.

Speaker 28 The stage was set for an epic, he said, she said battle between two major league con artists.

Speaker 73 He couldn't know whose story would win, but Nate was pretty sure the one finally telling the truth was Chuck.

Speaker 9 We didn't suspect it anymore. Now we know.

Speaker 95 In November 2015, in Madisonville, Tennessee, Martha Ann McClancy went on trial.

Speaker 102 She was charged with first-degree premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

Speaker 35 Attorney Matthew Rogers was appointed to defend Martha Ann, accused of poisoning Bob with his PTSD medications and conspiring with her lover, Chuck, to make Bob's death look like a suicide, and then stealing Bob's assets and benefits.

Speaker 26 A guilty verdict could mean the death penalty.

Speaker 78 But Martha Ann was fully ready to defend herself with an absolute blanket denial.

Speaker 102 She maintained her innocence from the very beginning. She made it very clear that she wanted to speak with the jury and to tell her side of the story.

Speaker 98 There were no cameras in the courtroom, but microphones were allowed.

Speaker 112 Bob is the love of my life. I couldn't have imagined losing him.

Speaker 112 And I didn't want to lose him. I didn't want to be without him.

Speaker 49 And besides, she testified, she didn't need to kill her husband.

Speaker 111 There's these allegations

Speaker 111 that you and Chuck were in this for some sort of financial reason or something too.

Speaker 105 What do you say about that?

Speaker 110 No, sir, absolutely not.

Speaker 105 I had my own money.

Speaker 110 I had my own funds.

Speaker 85 To this day, would you be better off that Bob McClancy remained alive? Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 102 Martha Ann did not benefit from the death of Bob McClancy. She would have received benefits through the government for his military service, whether he had remained alive or whether he had passed.

Speaker 21 Chuck was the villain, said Attorney Rogers.

Speaker 63 Chuck played Martha Ann like a fiddle.

Speaker 102 Mrs. McClancy was snowed by Mr.
Kazmarzik's cons and manipulations, just as the government had been on numerous occasions in the past. Mrs.
McClancy was another victim of Mr. Kazmarzik.

Speaker 85 He had never, ever indicated to me in any way that he had lied

Speaker 85 about what he had done in the military, about what he had received.

Speaker 85 I thought that he had all these awards.

Speaker 20 Lying Chuck, said Attorney Rogers, would say anything to avoid the blame.

Speaker 102 What did Chuck not lie about? He's a habitual liar, and that's proven and documented.

Speaker 102 I was in a position to attack his credibility, and that wasn't very hard.

Speaker 74 It was Chuck who forged Bob's will, said Martha Ann, and she went along with it because the content of the will was what Bob wanted.

Speaker 111 And that was initially Chuck's idea?

Speaker 110 It was Chuck's idea, and he did it.

Speaker 111 Your knowledge today that you went along with that.

Speaker 112 I did go along with it.

Speaker 77 She had no idea, she said, that Chuck was planning to take those awful pictures.

Speaker 62 And when questioned about the flashy government job she told Bob's sister Kathy about in Washington, D.C., Martha Ann simply scoffed, said it was a joke.

Speaker 110 I mean, it was just a hoax.

Speaker 112 That's all in the world it was, was a hoax to more or less

Speaker 112 get her to stop bugging me.

Speaker 32 Attorney Rogers took Martha Ann back to the day Bob died.

Speaker 13 A normal day, she said.

Speaker 111 You went to work that day?

Speaker 112 Yes, sir. I went to work that day.

Speaker 28 And she didn't have a clue that anything was wrong, she testified, until she arrived home after 6 p.m.

Speaker 112 A young detective came out and took hold of my hands and he said, this is going to be the most difficult thing that you ever hear. And he said, your husband has passed away.

Speaker 93 Conspiracy with Chuck?

Speaker 29 Of course not, she said.

Speaker 111 Did you and Chuck ever have a conversation about getting rid of your husband?

Speaker 112 No.

Speaker 112 No, we did not. I don't know where he has come up with this.

Speaker 26 First time she heard about a murder conspiracy, she said, was after she told Chuck she wanted to divorce him in 2012.

Speaker 112 I didn't know about it until much later on when this wild concocted story of my having murdered my husband was told for the first time.

Speaker 112 And it was told by Chuck Hasmarzik.

Speaker 111 Did you kill your husband?

Speaker 112 No, sir, I did not. I did not kill Bob McClancy.
I did not have anything to do with killing Bob McClancy.

Speaker 112 I cannot tell you anything more than what I know, that he died of a drug overdose.

Speaker 63 And that was Martha Ann's story.

Speaker 62 Every word of it was true.

Speaker 12 She swore.

Speaker 102 If Martha Ann believes that her husband, Bob McClancy, was murdered,

Speaker 102 she would say that it was Chuck Kasmarsen. He was there with Bob McClancy when he died by admission.
He was the one that took photographs of Mr.

Speaker 102 McClancy and manipulated the scene of the death, whether it was a crime scene or not.

Speaker 35 But the battle of the con artists was just getting started, and the prosecutors believed they had a strong case.

Speaker 45 What was the most important piece of evidence, in your view?

Speaker 115 The most important piece of evidence, of course, was the randomized confession taken from Chuck Kasmarjek.

Speaker 13 And what a dark and devious story of murder Chuck was about to tell.

Speaker 114 Keep it simple, make it look as natural as possible.

Speaker 18 Powerful testimony from the star witness and from a reluctant son.

Speaker 36 She looked at me as if she wished I was dead.

Speaker 55 The climax was at hand.

Speaker 74 The years of fraud, the money and position and goodwill stolen from honest veterans were only background now.

Speaker 77 Martha Ann McClancy, charged with premeditated first-degree murder, faced the death penalty.

Speaker 115 A lot of work went into this case, 12,000 pages of documents.

Speaker 101 Assistant District Attorneys Cindy Schemmel and Nack McCoy took on the hugely difficult task of boiling down a story every bit as convoluted as it was devious.

Speaker 116 And to be able to tell it in such a simple story, so 12 people off the street understand it.

Speaker 46 That's really complicated to do.

Speaker 116 That's the hard thing.

Speaker 18 They would prosecute what was clearly a complex case using a well-tested strategy.

Speaker 116 The old kiss method. Kiss? Kiss.
Keep it simple, stupid.

Speaker 69 They presented the evidence of Bob McClancy's forged will and the wedding dates, but not Chuck's photos, which had collapsed the case in 2006.

Speaker 32 Instead, they showed the jury police photos, while Sean described the photos he found, all as he faced his own mother.

Speaker 36 She looked at me as if she wished I was dead. She looked at me with the most hate I've ever seen from anyone.

Speaker 57 When Bob's sister, Kathy, testified.

Speaker 11 I wanted to jump over the bench and choke her, but I thought, well, that won't get me any place. But she just sat there.
She showed no emotion,

Speaker 79 just cold, cold-hearted person.

Speaker 48 At last, Martha Ann's fate rested in the hands of the state star witness, her lying husband, Chuck, now on the stand.

Speaker 28 Chuck began at the beginning when he met Bob at that PTSD clinic in 2006.

Speaker 112 Did he ever express any suicidal thoughts to you? No.

Speaker 63 Then, Bob introduced him to Martha Ann, said Chuck.

Speaker 65 They began an affair, and she began scheming to do away with Bob.

Speaker 114 She had mentioned on several occasions that she'd like to get rid of him, and

Speaker 114 if he went away, that we could be together.

Speaker 63 She made all the decisions, said Chuck.

Speaker 66 Investigator Nate Landcammer agreed.

Speaker 9 I think the investigation clearly showed that she was the mastermind.

Speaker 112 And who was in charge of his medication? Martha.

Speaker 9 Turns out before he died that Martha Ann was put in charge of all of his meds, that Bob was not to have any access to his own medications whatsoever.

Speaker 84 For days before Bob died, said Chuck, Martha Ann ground up the pills into something she called magic dust.

Speaker 114 She had fixed his favorite meal for him and then afterwards remarked that she had used magic dust on it.

Speaker 18 The doses got bigger and Bob more disoriented.

Speaker 27 It was Martha Ann's Ann's idea, said Chuck, to rush Bob to the VA hospital, suffering apparent overdoses to reinforce the impression that Bob was suicidal.

Speaker 117 And then, two days after his last trip to the VA hospital, I was pretty sure that she was going to give him a lethal dose of the drugs because she was so specific about me being there at a certain period of the day on that date.

Speaker 9 She told him specifically, I'm going to load him up with some magic dust, you know, before I leave for work.

Speaker 114 She she said you come over and find him he should be dead by then I'll be at work I'll have an alibi that if I found him dead just to make it simple keep it simple to make it look as natural as possible or to make it look like a suicide then Chuck confessed he staged the scene I

Speaker 114 took some photos there was also

Speaker 114 a bottle of pills that I put in his hand and also a gun.

Speaker 48 Those photos intended as leverage to try to squeeze more money out of the VA.

Speaker 23 And the gun?

Speaker 47 Chuck claimed it was to honor the wishes of a former detective to die with a gun in his hand.

Speaker 111 You thought that was an honorable thing to do for Bob while you were killing him and sleeping with his wife.

Speaker 117 I wasn't killing him. You weren't killing him.

Speaker 111 While you were letting him be killed and sleeping with his wife.

Speaker 117 Yes.

Speaker 9 I think they were evil, but I think the root of their evil was their greed.

Speaker 95 There it was.

Speaker 96 Martha Ann poisoned Bob and Chuck was her willing servant.

Speaker 55 Match made in hell, quite frankly.

Speaker 41 The motive?

Speaker 63 Chuck and Martha Ann wanted to be together and they wanted money.

Speaker 76 How much money altogether?

Speaker 7 I'd say close to a million dollars.

Speaker 81 Close to a million dollars.

Speaker 63 The prosecution rested with a scathing indictment of Martha Ann.

Speaker 115 To have your husband die losing his mind. It's hard to comprehend how some people can be that evil.

Speaker 12 But how would the jury judge Martha Ann?

Speaker 29 The jury was out for quite a while, wasn't it?

Speaker 23 Yes, it scared us badly.

Speaker 32 Sean and Debbie and Kathy were all in court, nervous, hearts racing.

Speaker 68 And then it came.

Speaker 8 Lead the jury.

Speaker 113 Find the defendant, Martha Ann McClancy,

Speaker 85 aka

Speaker 113 Martha Ann Kazimarzik. Not guilty of the offense of first-degree murder.

Speaker 47 Not guilty.

Speaker 71 A wave of disappointment washed through the room.

Speaker 31 I wish she would have gotten the death penalty, both her and Chuck.

Speaker 6 But the jury wasn't finished.

Speaker 8 We the jury.

Speaker 91 Martha Ann was found guilty of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Speaker 11 It wasn't really a happy feeling. I'm glad justice was served, but I still thought, why did you have to kill him?

Speaker 64 Do you think they got it right that she was the one primarily responsible?

Speaker 11 Yes, she was a real conniver.

Speaker 38 Chuck had already made his deal.

Speaker 27 He'd already pleaded guilty to murder conspiracy, got 25 years in prison.

Speaker 81 Does Chuck's sentence make sense to you?

Speaker 116 He was necessary to be able to prove the case against her. So when you look at that, it makes sense.

Speaker 98 In June 2016, when it was Martha Ann's turn to receive her sentence, she clung to a walker, faking disability again.

Speaker 26 That's what the prosecutors believed.

Speaker 15 And then the judge tore into her.

Speaker 19 The

Speaker 118 slow poisoning and slipping of life from an individual is exceptionally heinous.

Speaker 74 He gave her the max 50 years.

Speaker 74 And although that was halved on appeal, Martha Ann may serve the rest of her life in prison.

Speaker 53 I'm a firm believer that karma will get you, and I think it's got her.

Speaker 23 Ex-best friend Debbie was relieved.

Speaker 8 Absolutely the epitome of evil. She was the meanest, cruelest, and she didn't get away with it.

Speaker 20 And for the detective, who believed nearly 10 years earlier that Chuck was guilty, it was vindication.

Speaker 90 The fact of the matter is, if you had not looked at that camera, if you had not opened up those photographs, we wouldn't be sitting here talking today.

Speaker 29 No.

Speaker 87 And justice would have never gotten served for the McClancy family.

Speaker 15 So, it came out all right after all.

Speaker 25 It did.

Speaker 87 Took a while, but it did.

Speaker 52 Yes, it did.

Speaker 63 No small thanks to Martha and son, Sean.

Speaker 36 No child should ever have to testify against their parent.

Speaker 44 That was the hardest thing you ever did.

Speaker 25 That was the hardest thing.

Speaker 66 And he hasn't been the same since finding out about his mom's monstrous crimes.

Speaker 31 I think he had a lot of trouble wrapping his head around it.

Speaker 53 and believing that she was capable of this.

Speaker 31 Bob was a man of right,

Speaker 31 and there was no way that he was going to go down like that and be silenced that way.

Speaker 74 But there was one more piece of unfinished business.

Speaker 6 Sean, remember, was adopted.

Speaker 36 I had always been told that I would never find out where I was actually from

Speaker 36 or who my birth parents would be.

Speaker 45 Even after a Florida court denied him access to his adoption records, he was determined to find his birth parents.

Speaker 91 He ended up getting in touch with Ancestry DNA.

Speaker 92 And what do you know?

Speaker 109 I mean, we basically hit the bullseye immediately.

Speaker 37 Wow, that's just crazy.

Speaker 86 They found his birth father living in Maine.

Speaker 36 That feels amazing, overwhelming.

Speaker 27 Not long after first speaking with his birth father, Sean traveled to meet him, and they now chat regularly on the phone.

Speaker 74 And as they plan to see each other more often, Sean is discovering a whole new life.

Speaker 29 A whole new future.

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