The Killer Among Them

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Speaker 4 Tonight, on Dateline, the real first memory I have is Janine telling me my father is no longer here.

Speaker 6 My girlfriend says Lance was killed killed and I just lost.

Speaker 8 The first thing you think, who did this and why?

Speaker 9 Lance loved women and women liked Lance too.

Speaker 9 Lance had a secret life.

Speaker 10 Multiple secret lives.

Speaker 9 One of the women on your list was Lance's ex-wife Janine.

Speaker 3 Recently divorced. She had accused Lance of infidelity.
Talana and Lance were friends for a very long time.

Speaker 9 The police were looking at you. How did that make you feel?

Speaker 6 A little angry?

Speaker 3 Dion indicated that Lance absolutely loved her.

Speaker 11 Are you aware that he has video surveillance, cameras?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I guess we could call Kathy his main girlfriend.

Speaker 9 And she doesn't seem overly upset?

Speaker 13 She wasn't upset at all.

Speaker 3 We get a phone call that changes everything.

Speaker 3 Caught in another lie.

Speaker 9 What were your last words to him?

Speaker 6 Be careful.

Speaker 14 So many lies, so many lovers. One knew the truth.
I'm Lester Holt, and this is Date Live.

Speaker 14 Here's Andrea Canning with the killer among them.

Speaker 9 A night to remember, a lavish birthday party high atop Atlanta's Hilton Hotel.

Speaker 9 It was to celebrate a leader and a CEO, a man respected, charismatic, at the very pinnacle of his career. Exactly the evening he wanted.
After all, Lance Herndon threw it for himself.

Speaker 9 What did he tell you about the party?

Speaker 6 That it was going to be the best party Atlanta has ever seen.

Speaker 9 Lance was turning 41.

Speaker 4 When we talk about, you know, his awesome 41st birthday party, it's all through the lens of almost this great Gatsby level of character.

Speaker 9 Hundreds of people were there to wish him well. It was a who's who of Atlanta society.

Speaker 8 He loved being surrounded by a lot of movers and shakers. He loved entertaining.
He was in his element.

Speaker 9 Lance had more than just his birthday to celebrate. He'd risen from humble beginnings to become one of America's most successful black entrepreneurs, earning millions along the way.

Speaker 4 It really is that American Rags to Riches story. You know, you can work hard, you can get a good degree, you can build your own business, you can grow a wealthy in America.

Speaker 9 In that moment, 30 floors above the city, Lance Herndon seemed to be on top of the world.

Speaker 9 No one there could have known that in just months, Lance would be dead, or that the perpetrator was among them that very night.

Speaker 9 So chilling when you think that Lance was face to face with his killer at that birthday party.

Speaker 8 Extremely chilling. Everybody happy, he was in the limelight, and four months later, he's no longer with us.

Speaker 9 August 8th, 1996. Holly Stuber pulled up to Lance's large colonial on this cul-de-sac in the tony Atlanta suburb of Roswell.
It was where he ran his lucrative computer company, Access Inc.

Speaker 9 Holly, one of a handful of employees who worked there, unlocked the door to the home office at precisely 8 a.m.

Speaker 9 The business was in the basement of the house.

Speaker 15 Yeah, he had an office for himself, beautifully decorated. He had an office for the rest of us that we shared.
It was a large room.

Speaker 9 What was the business?

Speaker 15 He had an I.T. consulting firm.
He provided I.T consultants for local businesses.

Speaker 9 Among those companies, Bell South, Delta Airlines, and Coca-Cola. So Lance was doing well.

Speaker 15 He was,

Speaker 15 very much.

Speaker 9 That morning inside the office, Holly was surprised to find no sign of her boss.

Speaker 15 He was usually in the office around 5 a.m. He did a lot of work for the day early before everybody came in.

Speaker 9 She also noticed something else that was amiss. Normally, Lance left audio tapes on each employee's desk, first thing.

Speaker 15 He would leave a small cassette with his instructions for the day.

Speaker 9 Those are your marching orders for the day.

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 15 I never

Speaker 15 started the day without that. And yet that was not on the desk.
Neither for myself or my coworkers.

Speaker 9 Holly thought maybe Lance Lance had an appointment out of the office. She checked his daily calendar.

Speaker 15 It was blank. There was not one item on it.
Again, very unusual for someone who is very scheduled.

Speaker 9 Lance, she says, was a stickler for time. He also wanted everything in its place.

Speaker 15 If you put a stamp on a letter, it needed to be straightened in the right position. If

Speaker 15 you were designing a business card or a brochure, it had to be perfect.

Speaker 9 So is this a guy who knew what he wanted when he wanted it?

Speaker 15 Yes, that would be an appropriate characterization.

Speaker 9 Had he overslept? Not likely. Employee and friend Tolana Caraway says Lance made sure of that.
He set three alarm clocks.

Speaker 6 He had one beside the bed that would go off first, and then there was another one on the chest or something that would go off next. And then there was another one that would go off.

Speaker 6 But by the time the third one got off, he was up and ready to move.

Speaker 9 And he would get up really early, right?

Speaker 6 Oh, gosh, yes. Four o'clock.

Speaker 5 Oh,

Speaker 9 that's early.

Speaker 6 He got up early because he said that when he gets up at that time, the world on the other side is already awake.

Speaker 9 Holly paged her boss. No reply.
By now, another co-worker had arrived. Holly paged him again.
Still no response. So this is the man who is on top of everything, is suddenly nowhere to be found.

Speaker 7 Correct.

Speaker 9 At 10 a.m., Lance's mother got to the house. Jackie Herndon was a fixture there, regularly pitching in to help out with the business.

Speaker 15 When she came down the steps, we both asked her if she knew where Lance was. We haven't been able to get in touch with him.
We haven't seen him.

Speaker 9 How did she take that? Was she concerned?

Speaker 15 She immediately ran back upstairs very quickly.

Speaker 9 Seconds later, Holly heard something that stopped her cold.

Speaker 15 She started screaming.

Speaker 2 Oh, wow.

Speaker 9 Lance's mother had found him in bed, unresponsive. His head and face badly injured.
In a panic, she called 911.

Speaker 5 What do you think happened?

Speaker 19 He's all bleeding in the bed.

Speaker 5 I don't know. I can't just come in for you.

Speaker 9 You can hear his mom calling 911.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I mean, I couldn't hear every word she's saying, right? Yeah, we could hear her.

Speaker 9 She's frantic?

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 9 What had happened to Lance? Tell me what's going on. I don't know.
I came in the house.

Speaker 19 He's 40 years old. I found him in the bed.

Speaker 15 When she was initially screaming, I thought, oh, he must have fallen or he's hurt or something like that.

Speaker 9 But this was no accident. And he was beyond hurt, beyond help.

Speaker 5 Somebody don't kill my baby.

Speaker 9 Who would want to kill Lance Herndon, the millionaire entrepreneur?

Speaker 9 This mystery would take nearly a decade to solve, with no shortage of suspects.

Speaker 3 She certainly had the motive to want to do this.

Speaker 9 Or secrets.

Speaker 10 I've always described Lance Herndon as sort of an iceberg. What we saw on the surface was just a very small percentage of what was going on in his life.

Speaker 8 The first thing I thought was, this is unbelievable. This cannot be happening.

Speaker 9 News of Lance Herndon's death spread fast through his tight-knit community. Those close to him, like friend Talana Carraway, were devastated.
How do you find out what has happened to Lance?

Speaker 17 My girlfriend called.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 6 she said, have you heard the news? I said, what news? She goes, stop.

Speaker 6 She said, sit down. And I said, what is going on? She says, Lance was killed and I just lost.

Speaker 8 You've lost somebody that you love. You lost somebody that was really a pillar to the community.

Speaker 20 It was horrible.

Speaker 9 Longtime friend Eva Allen also struggled to comprehend the news.

Speaker 8 What happened? How could this have happened? Who did this? And why?

Speaker 9 Key questions also on the minds of Roswell detectives as they worked the crime scene and spoke with witnesses. Employee Holly Stuber was one of the first to be interviewed.

Speaker 9 What kind of questions were they asking? And did they tell you exactly what was going on with Lance, what had happened?

Speaker 15 They did not tell us what was going on. They just asked us who we were, what we were doing there, our relationship with Lance.
Did we hear or see anything unusual?

Speaker 9 Also on the scene, forensic experts from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to collect and analyze evidence. It was obvious to everyone Lance had been bludgeoned to death.

Speaker 13 He had taken some serious trauma to his face and his head. Talking with one of the detectives, he said nobody could have survived what this man went through.

Speaker 9 Retired Roswell police officer Tommy Williams says it was an especially brutal attack.

Speaker 13 Blood spatter was to the right and to the left, and it was all over the headboard, all over the bed, all over pillowcases.

Speaker 9 Investigators on the scene took note of the unusual position of Lance's body.

Speaker 13 He was laying on his back. He was covered up with his comforter and his hands were like crossed kind of on his stomach.

Speaker 9 Like last rites?

Speaker 13 Yes, like he's just got his hands crossed like he's laying in a casket.

Speaker 9 Did the killer do that?

Speaker 13 That's something that only the killer would know.

Speaker 9 A gruesome scene, but investigators didn't find any bloody footprints or fingerprints. They checked Lance's bathroom.

Speaker 13 There was a pillowcase found, you know, in the toilet,

Speaker 13 but still had blood on it, which was collected.

Speaker 9 When they pulled back the shower curtain, the tub was wet. That led them to believe the killer had rinsed off.
So this person had time to clean up.

Speaker 2 Plenty of time.

Speaker 9 And plenty of time to wash away evidence. Investigators took a closer look at the bed, hopeful the killer had left something behind.

Speaker 13 There were hair follicles found in the bed and on the sheets.

Speaker 9 That would be tested.

Speaker 13 Yes, all of those things were collected as evidence and submitted to the crime lab for testing.

Speaker 9 Next to the bed, investigators found an intriguing clue on the nightstand, a picture frame placed face down. It was a black and white photo of a woman posing in lingerie.

Speaker 13 We had no idea who it was. I've heard of that before in different cases where people go through the house and either remove photos completely or

Speaker 13 face them down or try to destroy them. Those are all clues.
Those are all things that we need to look at.

Speaker 9 Something else they needed to look at? Those three alarm clocks Lance religiously set. They were unplugged.

Speaker 13 There were two digital alarm clocks and one old flip-style clock where the numbers click down. That one is frozen in time at 4.10 in the morning.
4.10 is when that clock was unplugged.

Speaker 9 It provided investigators with a possible timeline of when Lance was murdered. But the bigger question was why?

Speaker 9 Any thought that this could be a robbery since Lance was a wealthy man and would have items that, you know, might be worth stealing.

Speaker 13 There was no things missing throughout the home that were visible to us, like TVs or, you know, things of value, silverware, things that people can pawn pretty quickly to make a quick buck.

Speaker 13 All this stuff was there.

Speaker 9 Including Lance's wallet and a stack of credit cards on his dresser.

Speaker 13 It led us to believe that this was just strictly somebody taking care of business on Mr. Herndon.

Speaker 9 They noted there was no forced entry. But downstairs, Holly Stuber knew one thing was missing, the office laptop, a black IBM think pad.
The case, however, was still there.

Speaker 9 Something Holly thought was strange because Lance had a strict rule.

Speaker 15 Never leaves the office without the case. And that's the thing you have to remember about Lance is that he is not kidding about when he says something like that.

Speaker 9 To Holly, it meant the laptop might have been stolen. By late morning, investigators were fanning out across Lance's property.
In the driveway near the garage, they noticed something odd.

Speaker 9 They found gum wrappers outside the house?

Speaker 13 Yes, they found gum wrappers, a lot of silver foil, like rolled up and some were just crumpled up all around the driveway.

Speaker 9 They continued searching for a critical piece of evidence, the murder weapon. What do they believe he was killed with? Was there an object anywhere around there?

Speaker 9 Was it like a blunt type object, given that he was beaten?

Speaker 13 We never found an object on the scene that would have or could have been used to cause the injuries to Mr. Herndon's head and face area.

Speaker 9 With little to go on, investigators needed to dig into Lance Herndon's life and they were about to find something big. Turned out, Lance had a secret.

Speaker 9 Did you get a sense that something was wrong with him? Maybe? Yes. Well, not a sense, but kind of wondered if maybe something was, and then was he going to reveal something?

Speaker 9 Almost like he had some type of premonition about what was going to happen to him. That's what it felt like.

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Speaker 9 The murder of a millionaire entrepreneur in one of Atlanta's wealthiest suburbs made big news. Police say the murder of Lance Herndon is unusual.
Killings like that just don't happen here in Roswell.

Speaker 9 In fact, the city's last unsolved murder was in the early 1980s. Just months after his 41st birthday, friends and family gathered once more in Lance Herndon's name, not to celebrate, but to mourn.

Speaker 9 Lance's longtime friend, Eva Allen, says that amid the shock and grief, many there felt another emotion: fear. Lance's killer was still at large.
You go to the funeral. Is the person here?

Speaker 9 You know, this person has not been caught. And we are Lance's friends and we're all together

Speaker 9 celebrating his life. The killer could be among us.

Speaker 8 Exactly. And that was frightening.
And I think everybody there that cared about him had those thoughts.

Speaker 9 Eva did her best to comfort her friend, Janine Herndon, Lance's ex-wife.

Speaker 8 This was someone that she had been married to for years, recently divorced, had a child with.

Speaker 9 Lance and Janine shared custody of their only child, Harrison, who was four at the time. Today he's 33, but can still recall the day he learned about his father's death.

Speaker 4 And I remember, what do you mean dad's not here anymore? I think as a kid, it's very hard to understand

Speaker 4 that things are gone forever.

Speaker 9 But the memories of being with his dad are still very much alive.

Speaker 4 Being, you know, taken around the house by my father, being able to see his walk-in mainframe computer, being able to take car rides in the Volvo and the Jaguar. I remember watching Top Gun.

Speaker 4 That was his favorite show to play for me.

Speaker 9 Harrison grew up hearing many grand stories about his father. The pilot, the world traveler, the car collector.

Speaker 4 He had a new Lotus Esprit at the time, which was supposed to be like one of the most fantastic Lotuses you could own.

Speaker 9 And he was well aware of all his public achievements. He was appointed by President Clinton as a delegate to the White House Conference on Small Business.

Speaker 9 He was given a National Service Award by President George H.W. Bush.
Your dad was a trailblazer.

Speaker 6 Absolutely.

Speaker 9 For a lot of people. Absolutely.
Now you're an entrepreneur. Do you believe that is because of your dad?

Speaker 4 100%. He was my father, and he's a guidepost for how I want to live my life.

Speaker 9 With Lance gone, Eva wondered if the killer was somehow involved in Lance's professional life.

Speaker 8 The first thing I thought about was maybe it was a business rival that was jealous.

Speaker 9 Someone with an axe to grind.

Speaker 8 Absolutely. He did a lot of work with the state of Georgia, and a lot of times he would win a bid and he would make a comment, such and such, I know they're going to be upset that I won again.

Speaker 9 Had Lance crossed the wrong rival? Not only did investigators have to consider that, while looking into his business dealings, they found something hard to believe.

Speaker 13 Everything's not what it appears on the outside. You know, Mr.

Speaker 13 Herndon fit that profile of being the millionaire, having all of these things, having his bills taken care of, having a nice home, nice cars. But in reality, it was debt.

Speaker 9 Lance Herndon, it turned out, was heavily in debt.

Speaker 9 You were aware of Lance's financial troubles?

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 9 Tolana was one of the few who knew his secret. What did you know?

Speaker 6 He told me, I don't have the money that I used to have. I'm not getting the business that I used to get.

Speaker 15 The client list was going down. The number of people that were out working on assignments had gone down.

Speaker 9 Employee Holly Stuber says Lance appeared to have lost focus on his IT company.

Speaker 15 His interests seemed to not be with the business the way had been for the previous years.

Speaker 9 His eye, she says, was on another business altogether, Atlanta's thriving hip-hop scene.

Speaker 15 He seemed to be interested in a relationship with this growing music scene.

Speaker 8 He had a business partner that wanted to open a club. And at the time, you know, in the 90s, clubs were really hot in Atlanta and quite profitable.

Speaker 8 So he and this partner opened a club called The Vixen.

Speaker 9 Erica Boseman says the club had problems from the beginning. She's the host of the true crime podcast Sinister and covered Lance's case on a recent episode.

Speaker 9 There was a murder tied to the Vixen club that had very similar characteristics to Lance's murder. She learned that several months after it opened, a DJ was bludgeoned to death in the VIP room.

Speaker 9 The murder went unsolved. A couple of years after that, the club closed, and investigators discovered Lance had a falling out with his partner.

Speaker 9 Lance's ex-wife actually said later that he had a lot of enemies in business.

Speaker 13 You're going to start looking at who did he owe money to. Maybe he had some paper notes written down somewhere that IOUs.
There may be other things that you have to look at that would have caused

Speaker 13 somebody to do this.

Speaker 9 Investigators were finding out all kinds of things connected to Lance's business, including this. The day before the murder, a man showed up at a local festival looking for Lance.

Speaker 9 This guy was really, really upset. One thing in particular that he said that was very chilling was, Lance has no idea what I'm capable of.

Speaker 9 Days before he was killed, Lance called his friend, Teresa Stovell. The two met years before when she moved to Atlanta and Lance offered to give her a tour of the city.

Speaker 9 Now he was on the phone and she'll never forget how he sounded. We caught up a little and then the tone of the call shifted.
His energy shifted.

Speaker 9 And he just said, I really want to make sure you take care of yourself.

Speaker 9 You take care of your family.

Speaker 17 And I was like, okay.

Speaker 9 Did you get a sense that something was wrong with him? Maybe? Yes. Well, not a sense, but kind of wondered if maybe something was.
And then was he going to reveal something?

Speaker 9 Almost like he had some type of premonition about what was going to happen to him. That's what it felt like.

Speaker 9 Not only that, in the months before his death, Officer Williams says Lance asked Roswell police to do a nightly check of his property.

Speaker 13 We would go by and get out of our car and go do a specific home check, walk around the exterior of the home.

Speaker 9 What issues was he having that he needed these random checks by police of his house?

Speaker 13 That's one of the things that we weren't informed of. At the time, I was just a patrolman, not a supervisor.
He would have told the supervisor that I'm having trouble with an ex-wife.

Speaker 13 I'm having trouble with a girlfriend. I'm having trouble with employees.
I've had death threats, whatever it may be. So we would have to go by routinely and check on that home.

Speaker 9 As investigators continued their dive into Lance's stormy business life, they looked into his personal relationships too. She had some financial motives, perhaps, to want him dead.

Speaker 13 I do know that she was the beneficiary of a very large life insurance policy.

Speaker 9 With little evidence at the crime scene, no fingerprints, no murder weapon, investigators were counting on Lance Herndon's autopsy to give them a lead.

Speaker 9 At first glance, the report didn't surprise them.

Speaker 13 The medical examiner said that Lance died from blunt force trauma to his head.

Speaker 9 He determined Lance had received a single non-fatal blow to the back of his head and multiple blows to the front and right side of his face that ultimately killed him.

Speaker 9 Were there any defensive wounds on Lance? Did he have a chance to even fight for his life?

Speaker 13 There was nothing visible. It's like he didn't know that this was coming.

Speaker 9 Do you think he was asleep when this attack started?

Speaker 13 Yes, because he was laying on his side of the bed where he always slept.

Speaker 13 I believe that the first blow that was delivered to him would have been a blow that probably just would have kept you in that unconscious state.

Speaker 9 Yeah, because anyone who's awake is going to fight.

Speaker 13 Yes, you're going to fight for your life.

Speaker 9 Investigators learned something else from the autopsy. They got a description of the murder weapon.
The medical examiner determined it was solid and heavy with a rounded surface and a curved edge.

Speaker 9 And he made a guess as to what it could be.

Speaker 13 Our medical examiner had actually

Speaker 13 worked a case similar to this where an adjustable wrench or a crescent wrench had been used.

Speaker 13 So the detectives went back to the scene and searched his home.

Speaker 9 A housekeeper told them Lance had been using a wrench to assemble a piece of exercise equipment in his bedroom.

Speaker 13 So they go down to the basement area to his shed and Lance was very meticulous. He was very neat person.

Speaker 13 He had every single tool drawn on his pegboard. The only tool that was missing was a 16 inch adjustable crescent wrench.

Speaker 6 Wow.

Speaker 9 I mean, that is the fact that the medical examiner thought it might be a wrench and then a wrench is missing from his toolkit. You know, law enforcement doesn't believe in coincidences.

Speaker 13 No. There was a mark on his forehead where the little adjustable part from the middle, the little spiral part, it left that imprint on his forehead.

Speaker 9 Police needed to find that missing wrench. So once again, they searched every inch of Lance's 4,000 square foot colonial and the surrounding area, including the Chattahoochee River behind his house.

Speaker 9 They didn't find it.

Speaker 13 If I had to guess and was a betting man, I would bet that that wrench is still in the bottom of the Chattahoochee River.

Speaker 9 The autopsy contained another major clue. Based on the report from a blood spatter expert, the ME determined the likely position of the killer during the attack.

Speaker 3 The only way to reproduce the blood spatter evidence that we found at the crime scene was the position of the killer had to be on top of Lance

Speaker 3 in a straddling position, striking him.

Speaker 9 Clint Rooker, then an assistant district attorney, joined the case early on. To him, a killer straddling Lance didn't sound like an angry business associate.

Speaker 3 This was a person that Lance would have been very familiar with. He was naked from head to toe, lying face up in his bed.

Speaker 9 Fair to say then that you're narrowing it down to a female, likely someone who Lance was intimate with.

Speaker 3 Right, right.

Speaker 9 The investigators quickly learned that Lance had quite a few girlfriends. These were girls that Lance was calling regularly.

Speaker 9 He kept a card in his wallet with a few numbers on it of women that he liked to call. Lance loved women and women liked Lance too.

Speaker 9 You're going to start going through lady by lady by lady down your list. Correct.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 9 One of the women on that list was Lance's ex-wife, Janine.

Speaker 3 Yes. And when we looked at Janine, certainly there were some obvious motivations.
Recently divorced. She had accused Lance of infidelity.

Speaker 9 It was the whole reason their marriage had ended. But like so many failed relationships, investigators learned it started out with such promise.
Their son Harrison describes how his parents first met.

Speaker 4 My parents met in Brazil. They met under the statue of Christ, which I find to be pretty fantastic.

Speaker 9 Janine was a flight attendant on a layover. Lance was on vacation.
Harrison says for his mom, it was love at first sight. Your mom was quite bold.
Yes. She was the one who approached him?

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 4 She's like, I saw a tall, dark, and handsome man over there and decided to go say something. And as soon as I heard him speaking English, I had to go say something.
So that's a pretty cool story.

Speaker 9 Talana remembers Lance telling her about this new woman in his life. He considered Janine marriage material.

Speaker 6 When I met Janine, I just thought she was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. Very exotic looking, very poised, very confident.

Speaker 6 really a sweet person. I do believe in her heart she loved Lance.

Speaker 9 But not long into the marriage, Janine found out about her husband's wandering eye. Lance cheated on Janine.
Yeah. How did she handle that?

Speaker 6 I know she was upset, but I think she handled it with a lot of grace compared to what she had to deal with.

Speaker 9 After Harrison was born, Janine took her son and moved out. Eight months before Lance was killed, she ended their six-year marriage.

Speaker 6 And I guess she was just a little fed up.

Speaker 9 Investigators wondered, fed up enough to kill him? Officer Tommy Williams said they discovered Janine might have had another reason to want Lance dead.

Speaker 9 She had some financial motives, perhaps, to want him dead. What did detectives learn about her?

Speaker 13 She was the beneficiary of a very large life insurance policy.

Speaker 9 Even though they were divorced, she was now set to collect $750,000.

Speaker 9 Janine admitted to investigators she knew the security code to Lance's house. But when they asked her where she was on the night he was killed, she said she was nowhere near his place.

Speaker 9 She was at her home, a 20-minute drive away.

Speaker 3 She had company from a male companion who was a new person in her life, who had come to the house and spent the evening with her there.

Speaker 9 While detectives tracked down Janine's alibi, they moved on to other women in Lance's life. In particular, the one in the photo that was face down on the nightstand.

Speaker 3 If she had to be categorized in Lance's life, I guess we could call her perhaps his primary or his main girlfriend.

Speaker 9 Her name, Kathy Collins, and her behavior at the crime scene put her front and center in the investigation. She's his girlfriend and doesn't seem overly upset that he's dead?

Speaker 13 No, ma'am, she wasn't upset at all.

Speaker 9 Investigators were under pressure to solve the high-profile murder case of Lance Herndon. Weeks had passed with no arrest.
Lance's inner circle wanted answers.

Speaker 15 I felt unsettled.

Speaker 9 I was upset. And you want someone to be held accountable for whoever did this to you.

Speaker 9 And neighbors in Roswell, the upscale Atlanta suburb, were on edge with a killer on the loose.

Speaker 24 I've noticed my son, who's nine years old, has actually asked for nightlight for the first time in years. And of course, my wife is double-checking the doors.

Speaker 9 Lance's friend, Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, stepped in.

Speaker 9 At a press conference with Lance's mother, Jackie, by his side, the mayor offered a $12,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.

Speaker 25 As anyone that investigates a homicide knows, the longer you wait, the more difficult it is to find those who are responsible.

Speaker 9 Police were working tirelessly running down leads and interviewing possible suspects.

Speaker 9 Based on the medical examiner's theory that Lance's killer straddled him during the murder, they focused on women who knew Lance intimately.

Speaker 9 One in particular was Kathy Collins, the woman whose photo was found face down at the crime scene. Lance's family and friends considered her his primary girlfriend.

Speaker 3 The one that he spent a considerable amount of time with. She was known to be a person that he was actively involved with.

Speaker 9 Investigators learned she was one of the the women Lance had been sleeping with while married to Janine.

Speaker 9 The two had met at a music industry party in Los Angeles where she lived.

Speaker 6 She was kind of a go-getter. She's like, I know what I want and this is how I'm going to get it.

Speaker 9 And Kathy, despite also being married, apparently wanted Lance. When Lance tells you that he's seeing Kathy while he's married to Janine, do you say anything? Do you have advice for him?

Speaker 6 Yeah, I always did, but he didn't listen.

Speaker 9 What'd you tell him?

Speaker 6 I was just like, that's not okay. You shouldn't, that's not something you should do.

Speaker 20 And always like, yeah, I'm going to try.

Speaker 6 I'm going to do this. I'm going to go to therapy.
I'm doing this.

Speaker 9 Like, he knew it was wrong.

Speaker 6 He knew he was wrong, but he could not help himself.

Speaker 9 Kathy ended her marriage, and after Lance split with his wife, she relocated from the West Coast to Atlanta. She was the woman on his arm at his big birthday bash.

Speaker 9 Kathy graduated essentially from the other woman

Speaker 9 to the main woman.

Speaker 9 Is he buying her gifts?

Speaker 17 Oh, gosh, yes.

Speaker 6 That's the way he expressed himself is buying and giving things. And he had a lotus and she would drive it.

Speaker 9 She even moved a bunch of her stuff into his house, clothing.

Speaker 5 Yeah, she had a toothbrush.

Speaker 6 Yeah, she had everything there that she because she stayed there for a lot of times.

Speaker 9 Lance's friend Eva was never thrilled about his relationship with Kathy. To her, it seemed purely transactional.

Speaker 8 I just saw Kathy as someone that was involved with him and enjoying the benefits of being with somebody that was powerful and had money.

Speaker 9 She was the one he took to public events.

Speaker 8 Absolutely. Absolutely.
I think it was more of, this is a person that looks good on my arm and we travel together, we attend parties together and we look good together.

Speaker 9 Was he

Speaker 9 interested in settling down with her?

Speaker 6 No, because then he has other women in between.

Speaker 9 Okay, so the wandering eye doesn't go away with Kathy.

Speaker 9 Investigators worked to determine if Kathy had any reason to want Lance dead.

Speaker 9 There was some talk that Lance might be cooling things off with Kathy, that she was maybe no longer going to be his main person.

Speaker 3 And maybe that would have been the source of Kathy's consternation.

Speaker 9 A possible end to the lavish lifestyle Lance provided her. And investigators learned of another possible motive.

Speaker 3 She could have found out that Lance was cheating.

Speaker 9 Both motives were being investigated. The focus on Kathy had started the minute she showed up at Lance's house the day he was murdered.

Speaker 9 Kathy Collins did something that got the detective's attention at the crime scene.

Speaker 13 Miss Collins showed up at the scene demanding all of her personal property from a crime scene. And she was, you know, didn't seem to care that Lance uh had been murdered.

Speaker 9 She's his girlfriend and she's she doesn't seem overly upset that that he's dead.

Speaker 13 No, ma'am. She wasn't upset at all.
She was more upset that she couldn't get her personal property back from a crime scene.

Speaker 9 And police say Kathy's demanding behavior continued. Just six days after Lance's murder, she sent a letter to the Roswell police requesting, quote, property from the Lance H.
Herndon home.

Speaker 9 She asked for dozens of items, including clothing, sunglasses, photos, and bottles of expensive Merlot.

Speaker 3 It was just a very odd

Speaker 3 response from a person that we believed would have been close with Lance, but certainly it did suggest to us that perhaps there was more to meet the eye about the nature of their relationship.

Speaker 3 And so it really did cause us to take a real hard look.

Speaker 9 Investigators grilled her about where she was on the night of the murder. There was a bit of a secret woven into Kathy's alibi, something that Lance didn't know about.

Speaker 3 Right, Kathy had begun seeing another gentleman.

Speaker 9 He was her alibi. At least that's what she told police.

Speaker 3 On the night of this incident, in which Lance would have been murdered, she traveled to the home of this gentleman and spent the rest of the evening.

Speaker 9 Investigators set out to confirm Kathy's story. In the meantime, they turned their attention to someone else on their list, the last person known to have seen Lance alive.
Did they ask you,

Speaker 9 Did you have anything to do with Lance's murder?

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Speaker 9 In the days after Lance Herndon's murder, investigators focused on his ex-wife and all the women he'd been dating at the time.

Speaker 9 But former prosecutor Rucker says there was one woman police were interested in who fell into a different category. You've already met her.
Talana Caraway.

Speaker 3 We learned that Lance and Talana had been friends for a very long time. Initially, they started out as lovers.

Speaker 9 Talana freely admits she and Lance were sometimes more than friends.

Speaker 18 We

Speaker 6 were friends with benefits for a minute.

Speaker 9 So things turned romantic for a hot minute?

Speaker 17 A hot minute.

Speaker 9 She says her 11-year friendship with Lance began when she was working as a bank teller. He came to her window to make a deposit.
Do you remember that very first moment when he walks up to your

Speaker 9 station?

Speaker 6 I do. He had,

Speaker 6 he told me his name and he looked at me.

Speaker 9 He goes, you're really pretty.

Speaker 20 I was like, oh, thank you.

Speaker 6 And I just, because no one has ever really said that.

Speaker 9 Lance sent her flowers and later asked her to lunch. Things progressed from there, but she says she never thought of him as a boyfriend.

Speaker 9 According to Tolana, their relationship evolved from romance to friendship.

Speaker 6 It was

Speaker 6 almost like we were girlfriends. We would talk every day.
He would not necessarily talk in a long conversation, but always touch space.

Speaker 9 Lance even loaned Tolana's boyfriend cash to pay off a car. And when she was in need of money, Lance offered her a part-time job.
And it was that job that put her in police crosshairs.

Speaker 9 Turns out, she was in Lance's home office the night of the murder.

Speaker 9 You're the last person or one of the last people to see. Lance.
You were in a relationship with him at one time.

Speaker 21 You work for him.

Speaker 20 Right.

Speaker 9 So naturally, you're someone that the police need to look at. Absolutely.
Sure enough, a few days after the murder, police came to her door, startling her.

Speaker 6 I'm in the shower and I hear this banging on my door like they were trying to break it down.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 I'm like, I'm soaking wet. I'm not going out there.
I'm not going to answer the door.

Speaker 6 And so when I got out of the shower, the first thing I did was call my attorney and let him know what was happening.

Speaker 9 You weren't ready to talk to them right then

Speaker 9 in a surprise visit.

Speaker 20 Not at all.

Speaker 9 What were you concerned about?

Speaker 6 Their aggression. If you heard them banging on my door the way you did, I don't think anybody would have opened the door.

Speaker 9 Did it scare you?

Speaker 6 It scared me a lot.

Speaker 9 Your attorney calls the police for you

Speaker 9 and I.

Speaker 6 They make an appointment to go.

Speaker 9 They want you to come in, so you go in with the attorney. Yes.
Did the police think that was odd that you had an attorney?

Speaker 6 They're like, why do you have an attorney already? Because you guys aren't always fair.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 6 and I don't want, I didn't want my words twisted. So at least if I had a witness there with me, there would be, it would be okay.

Speaker 9 Did it raise a red flag that Tolana already had an attorney when the police came to her place to talk to her?

Speaker 3 I will say that there's kind of a feeling amongst investigators that if you're truly an innocent person,

Speaker 3 you should not need the protections of an attorney to kind of help you navigate your rights.

Speaker 9 When Tolana sat down with investigators at the Roswell Police Department, they asked her to tell them everything she could remember from the night of the murder, starting with when she arrived at Lance's home office.

Speaker 6 I know it was around dusk. I went into the office.
He had a tape for me. I listened to that to see what I needed to do.
And a lot of it was like a little data entry work.

Speaker 6 some phone calls to leave messages. And then...

Speaker 9 Was anyone else working?

Speaker 6 Or just you? I was just the only one in the office at that time.

Speaker 9 Did you see Lance at all?

Speaker 6 Yes, that night? Yes.

Speaker 9 She says he came down to the office a few times to check in. What's Lance's demeanor like on this evening?

Speaker 6 Oh, he was very relaxed. He was excited because he was telling me about the woman that he had met

Speaker 6 that was a teacher. And he wanted me to write this card.
You know, it's like,

Speaker 6 I need a nice voice on the card, you know, that kind of thing.

Speaker 9 So a new woman. Right.
So you're like his chat GPT of the 90s.

Speaker 6 So we were just going over scenarios of what it could say and how she would, how this person would receive it and all of that.

Speaker 9 Tolana finished writing the card and Lance went back upstairs. Do you remember approximately what time you left?

Speaker 6 I just know it was late because it was dark.

Speaker 9 She recalls it was raining and Lance was worried about her driving home. He checked up on you? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 6 He had told me, because especially that particular night, he's like, you call me when you get home. And

Speaker 6 he called me before I actually called him.

Speaker 9 Around what time does he call you?

Speaker 6 It was closer to midnight almost, I think.

Speaker 9 She says she'd made it home by then, but missed the call because she was in the shower. Lance left a message on her machine.
And what did he say on your machine?

Speaker 6 Um, just, you know, I just want to make sure you got it home safely. I think I called him back and let him know I got the message and I was home.
And we talked briefly.

Speaker 9 So this is around like 11.30 midnight? Yeah. That part of her story was easy enough to verify.
Investigators not only pulled her phone records.

Speaker 3 They pulled the phone records

Speaker 3 of Lance Herndon, both calls going out from his house and calls coming into his house.

Speaker 9 Investigators weren't ready to clear her, but she'd given them an important piece of the timeline. And another thing she told them about the night of the murder piqued their interest.

Speaker 9 A woman had called asking for Lance repeatedly. Is she annoyed that he's not calling her back?

Speaker 20 Right.

Speaker 9 Annoyed enough to show up at his house? Tolana was sure the woman was on her way over.

Speaker 9 Lance's son Harrison has only vague memories of the dark days surrounding his father's murder. Just a little boy at the time, he mostly remembers how he wasn't allowed to watch TV.

Speaker 9 Because it was everywhere.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was like on TV, it was like everywhere. And I think my mother and my grandmother did a very good job of trying to shield me from like the horrificness of my dad's murder, frankly.

Speaker 9 Meanwhile, investigators were working around the clock trying to solve the murder, interviewing possible suspects and examining evidence.

Speaker 9 But so far, far, none of it had brought them any closer to making an arrest in the brutal murder of the millionaire businessman.

Speaker 9 Police were hoping DNA from the crime scene might give them the break they needed.

Speaker 27 There's a lot of evidence, ultimately, that they're asking us to test.

Speaker 9 Barbara Retzer, a forensic biologist, worked the case at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab, where they were testing those hair samples and other evidence connected to the case.

Speaker 9 One of the things that was important to this case were the fingernail clippings from Lance Herndon.

Speaker 17 Yes.

Speaker 27 They want to know is there any foreign DNA present under the nails that could help them, you know, point to what happened or who possibly committed the crime.

Speaker 9 Investigators knew Lance had no defensive wounds, so he would not have gotten DNA under his fingernails from fighting back. But Retzer says there still could be DNA if Lance touched his killer.

Speaker 9 When the analysts ran the tests, he found nothing of interest from Lance's left hand. But then...

Speaker 27 He found that on three of the fingernails from his right hand, that there was a mixture of DNA, and it was from Lance Herndon and an unknown individual.

Speaker 9 Only trace amounts, but still a potential break in the case. Now, investigators needed to compare that DNA to their list of possible suspects.

Speaker 9 There was Janine, the ex-wife who stood to collect three-quarters of a million dollars. Kathy Collins, Lance's main girlfriend, who he seemed to be phasing out.

Speaker 9 And Talana, Lance's close friend and confidant, who police thought might be more than that.

Speaker 3 We know she was the last person to see Lance alive before he was murdered.

Speaker 9 Investigators asked Tolana for samples of her DNA. She agreed.

Speaker 6 They took samples of my hair.

Speaker 3 We got the DNA of all of the women that were potential suspects to look at whether or not they matched any of this evidence.

Speaker 9 But Talana told them about yet another woman. She said while she was working at Lance's office that evening, the phone rang several times.

Speaker 3 There were three separate individual calls that she reported to investigators that they were really interested in trying to determine who this person was and what is it that they wanted with Lance Herndon and could they be involved in his murder.

Speaker 9 The first time the phone rang, Talana says Lance was upstairs. I answered the phone

Speaker 6 and she said, may I speak with Mr. Herndon? And I I said, I'm sorry, he's not available.
Would you like to leave a message? She said, tell him I called. I said, and your name is?

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 she said, Dion. And I said, okay, I'll let him know.
And so wrote the time down, wrote the message down.

Speaker 9 About an hour later, she calls back. Is she annoyed that he's not calling her back?

Speaker 20 Right.

Speaker 6 I am assuming.

Speaker 9 Did it feel like that based on the tone of her voice?

Speaker 6 Between the fact that he wasn't there and I was answering the phone, yes, there was definitely a tone in her her voice. And so the next time she called, she said, May I speak with Mr.
Herndon?

Speaker 6 I said, I'm sorry, he's not available. Would you like to leave a message? And she said, This is his girlfriend.
I said, and your name?

Speaker 9 Wait, again?

Speaker 6 Yeah. The second time?

Speaker 17 Yes.

Speaker 9 How did she take that?

Speaker 6 She wasn't very happy, but she still gave me her name. So I said, I'll let him know you called.

Speaker 6 That was it.

Speaker 9 You like to stir the pot a little bit, huh?

Speaker 17 She's just annoying.

Speaker 18 You know.

Speaker 9 Talana says the woman tried a third time. By then, Lance was back in the office and took the call.
And what did you overhear?

Speaker 6 I didn't. He stepped out of the room, so I didn't hear anything.

Speaker 9 Talana suspected the woman was making plans to come over that night. Did you see Lance when he asked?

Speaker 5 Yes, I did.

Speaker 9 Was he with someone?

Speaker 6 No, he was moving

Speaker 6 Kathy's clothes out of the main bedroom into the hall closet.

Speaker 20 What does that mean?

Speaker 6 I just looked at him and I shook my head because I knew exactly what it meant. It meant that he was getting ready to have company.

Speaker 9 And it wasn't the kind of company Tolana wanted Lance to keep. She thought this was a bad idea and told him so.
What were your last words to him?

Speaker 6 Be careful. Literally.

Speaker 6 He better be careful.

Speaker 9 You didn't realize how

Speaker 9 important those words would be.

Speaker 6 No, I didn't. I did not.

Speaker 9 So, who was this mystery woman? Police were about to to find out.

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Speaker 9 Talana Carraway had told investigators about another one of Lance Herndon's girlfriends she thought they should focus on.

Speaker 9 She's the one Talana was certain was coming over that night, who'd called Lance three times in the hours before his murder.

Speaker 6 I knew her name was Dion Baugh.

Speaker 9 So she's the frustrated caller.

Speaker 3 She is in fact the frustrated caller.

Speaker 9 After hearing about her from Tolana, police went to Dion Baugh's home to speak with her.

Speaker 3 She lets them in and they sit down and they begin to question her about her relationship with Lance.

Speaker 9 Dion cried as she told them about her time dating the tech mogul.

Speaker 3 She indicated that Lance Herndon absolutely loved her. They were in a romantic, intimate relationship.

Speaker 9 But Dionne said she wasn't at his home the night of the murder. He was at hers.
That he'd come by to loan her his laptop, the same laptop detectives had been looking for.

Speaker 9 She told them she was a college student and needed it for homework.

Speaker 9 Investigators collected it as evidence and left her apartment determined to learn more about her.

Speaker 9 Dion was 27 and originally from Jamaica. She'd been living in Atlanta for four years, attending Georgia State University.

Speaker 6 She was in school. She worked as an administrative assistant or executive assistant or something like that.

Speaker 9 That assistant job was at MARTA, Atlanta's transportation agency. Dion was also married with a young daughter.

Speaker 6 When I first met her, I was under the impression that she was single. And then I found out later that she was actually married and that her husband was quite handsome.

Speaker 9 Quite.

Speaker 9 Her husband would often go out of town for weeks at a time as a pilot, and so she kind of got to live her own second life.

Speaker 9 Dion's second life always involved trying to get in with the beautiful people.

Speaker 9 Like the time she scored an invite to Lance's big birthday bash four months before he was killed. Dion wasn't on the original guest list, but her boss was.

Speaker 9 She felt comfortable asking her boss, what is this party and can you help me get in? He really didn't see an issue with it and kind of helped her finagle her way into getting an invite.

Speaker 9 Talana told police that's where Lance first met Dionne. And from the beginning, he whined and dined her, showered her with expensive gifts.
He even leased a new silver Mercedes for Dion to drive.

Speaker 9 Talana says she picked it up.

Speaker 6 So I drove the Mercedes to his house. I was like, okay, that was one of my errands.

Speaker 9 A short time later, Lance introduced her to Dionne.

Speaker 6 My take on her was immediately jealousy.

Speaker 9 You got a bad vibe immediately.

Speaker 6 Immediately, yes. I mean, she was like quizzing me as if I was going to take an exam on Lance.
And I was like, don't ask me. I said, we're friends.
That's it.

Speaker 9 And she told Lance what she thought.

Speaker 6 I'll never forget. I told him that day.
I was like, she is not the one. I said, she is a jealous woman.
And he said, yeah, but she lets me do anything I want to in bed.

Speaker 9 Hearing all of this, the detectives asked Dion to come to the station for a formal recorded interview. They let no one go on camera.
I look better.

Speaker 3 They go all the way back to the beginning and they talk to her about the development of her relationship with Lance.

Speaker 15 Did Lance support her?

Speaker 9 Just kind of

Speaker 31 to a certain degree.

Speaker 31 How so?

Speaker 31 Well, he'd give me money every week.

Speaker 12 I mean, like, was it fifty hundred?

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 31 What can fifty dollars do? That's not really.

Speaker 12 Well, you you have to realize that that's about to to us. Fifty dollars at least

Speaker 12 the week groceries you have.

Speaker 31 No, sometimes it'd be 700, sometimes it'd be 500.

Speaker 12 Sometimes. Every week?

Speaker 16 Um.

Speaker 12 Basically. I'm a nice guy.

Speaker 12 Damn. I'm embarrassed.
That's okay. I hope this is not an calorie.

Speaker 9 The detectives thought Dion's giggly demeanor seemed strange for someone who had just lost a boyfriend.

Speaker 9 She told them that at first she believed she was the only woman in Lance's life, but then she realized he was seeing others.

Speaker 12 How does that make you feel?

Speaker 31 Now, disgusted.

Speaker 7 Totally mad.

Speaker 31 Not mad, just disgusted. When a man puts you on a pedestal and treats you like that, you'd like to think that you're the only one.

Speaker 9 She even caught him with one woman at his house.

Speaker 31 I went up there and I don't know who the woman was, but I drove in and she had her head wrapped in a towel.

Speaker 31 One towel like here, so I could tell that she didn't have any clothes on because the towel was right here. And when I saw her, I just shook my head.

Speaker 9 To investigators, Dion did appear to be a jealous woman, but jealous enough to kill Lance? They needed more details about her timeline for the night of the murder.

Speaker 9 She told detectives she dropped off her husband and daughter at the airport around 7 p.m., then headed home. That's when she says Lance stopped by her place to bring the laptop.

Speaker 12 What time did he come over to your house?

Speaker 31 I don't remember the exact time. I think it was somewhere between 9 and 10.30, but I can't remember the exact time.

Speaker 9 This timeline doesn't match up with what Talana said about how late Lance had been working.

Speaker 16 Right.

Speaker 3 Because in speaking to Talana Carraway, she indicates that she was at the home consistently from about 6 p.m. until 10.30 p.m.

Speaker 3 when she leaves. And she indicates that Lance never left the house during that time time period.

Speaker 9 Investigators believed they'd caught Dion in a lie. They kept pressing, zeroing in on that laptop.

Speaker 7 Did the computer have the case cover to it? No.

Speaker 12 Nothing.

Speaker 31 No, no. He just gave it to me just like that.

Speaker 9 That didn't jibe with what Lance's employees had told them.

Speaker 12 The people in the office said that the laptop has never ever, I mean, never,

Speaker 7 ever left that office for the cover.

Speaker 32 That's not true.

Speaker 7 I don't know. I don't know why they would tell me that.

Speaker 31 That is not true. I've borrowed that locked up on several occasions, and most of the time when Lance gave it to me, it's out of that case.

Speaker 9 Dion was on the defensive. They didn't believe Lance ever left his house that night.
If there was a time to play hardball, police thought it was now.

Speaker 12 Right now, there's about four people that could swear that he was at his house working in his office until 10.30.

Speaker 7 Until 10:30.

Speaker 31 I don't know what to tell you. I know he came over there, he gave me the computer, and then he left.

Speaker 31 And that was it. That couldn't possibly be true.

Speaker 12 I think you probably went to his house because we have proof that he was at his house. There's no way you could have.

Speaker 31 But I never, I never would.

Speaker 31 Do I need to get an attorney or something?

Speaker 3 She maintained consistently that she was not

Speaker 3 in Lance's home on the night that he was murdered.

Speaker 9 So detectives pushed it even further by saying this.

Speaker 12 Are you aware that he has video surveillance cameras

Speaker 12 in his office?

Speaker 7 No, why not?

Speaker 9 It was all a ruse. Lance didn't have any surveillance cameras at his home.
Detectives were lying to her to try to get a confession.

Speaker 12 Surveillance is showing that he was there until 10:30.

Speaker 12 I mean, if it's showing that he was there at the office all afternoon or evening until 10:30,

Speaker 12 Then I don't see how he could be at your house too.

Speaker 31 Well, maybe the times may be wrong. I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 12 I can't be specific about the times.

Speaker 9 Then, just as detectives thought they were closing in, Dion turned the tables on them.

Speaker 31 Did you see me on the surveillance camera?

Speaker 12 On the office?

Speaker 12 I had to meet you on the table set. Because I have to go through all this rigging around with attorneys and all this other stuff, so I can't go through all that stuff.

Speaker 12 When I get these things, am I going going to see you on the tape? No, you are not.

Speaker 31 I was not there.

Speaker 9 And of course, she wasn't caught on tape because there never were any cameras.

Speaker 3 So, at the end of the interview, law enforcement officers did not have enough evidence at that time to charge her with any crimes, and so she was released from custody.

Speaker 9 Detectives believed Dion was lying, but had no way to prove it.

Speaker 3 They were stuck until we get a phone call that changes everything.

Speaker 9 Clint Rucker ticked through his list of possible suspects and began a process of elimination. The first person he could cross off, Lance's ex-wife, Janine.

Speaker 9 Detectives learned he'd been taking good care of her.

Speaker 3 Lance was consistently paying a good bit of money in monthly alimony and monthly child support. And so we just found that there really wasn't a solid financial motive for Janine.

Speaker 9 Detectives also looked into her alibi and confirmed she was at home with her new boyfriend on the night Lance was killed. Her alibi made sense.

Speaker 3 Her alibi completely made sense. And she was eliminated as a suspect.

Speaker 9 Then there was Kathy Collins. Police thought her behavior in the wake of Lance's death did appear insensitive, but they concluded it wasn't really proof of anything.

Speaker 9 And Lance's friend Eva had a theory about that picture of Kathy that had been turned down in his bedroom that night. What does that say to you that that picture was down?

Speaker 8 Apparently, Kathy wasn't the most important person in the room.

Speaker 9 So it says Kathy probably wasn't there that night that he was killed. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 9 Police agreed. Kathy had a solid alibi, too.
They tracked down that secret boyfriend of hers. He said they'd spent the night together.

Speaker 3 Because of her alibi with her new

Speaker 3 found gentleman friend, we were able to eliminate her as a suspect.

Speaker 9 As for Talana Caraway, detectives had found it strange that she showed up with a lawyer when they interviewed her. Did they ask you,

Speaker 9 did you have anything to do with Lance's murder?

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 18 Point blank.

Speaker 6 Yes, they did.

Speaker 6 And the answer was no.

Speaker 9 Those phone records police obtained showed Lance called Talana at home at 11.31 p.m. and spoke with her for several minutes, just like she'd told detectives.

Speaker 3 We were able to eliminate her based on the phone records and her alibi.

Speaker 9 So police were able to clear Janine, Kathy, and Talana.

Speaker 3 Then that kind of left us with Dion Baugh, who we put a bitrig circle around because we were not able to eliminate her.

Speaker 9 Dion Baugh, Lance's newest girlfriend, who'd been tough in that interrogation room.

Speaker 3 She had the opportunity to do this. We caught her in several lies.

Speaker 9 And that wasn't all all they had police searched their files and learned lance had reported a trespasser outside his house a month before he was killed

Speaker 19 911 hey there's a somebody knocking at my door and over the night you weren't expecting anybody i take it from out of town or anything no so it was a just take the girl why okay do you know if it's a male or female i don't know okay

Speaker 9 Officer Tommy Williams responded to the call on one of his regular drive-bys that night.

Speaker 13 As I was pulling onto Mr. Herndon's street, our dispatcher gave a call saying that someone was at the home banging on the door.

Speaker 9 Williams approached a car he saw in Lance's driveway.

Speaker 13 And I happened to shine my flashlight in the car and I saw partial of a person's arm or leg sticking out from underneath a black coat. on the back floorboard of this car.

Speaker 13 So I immediately stepped back, gave verbal commands to he or she, whoever it was, to display your hands.

Speaker 9 It was Dion, but that incident and her lies in the interrogation weren't enough for police to pin a murder on her.

Speaker 9 With no evidence to put Dionne at the crime scene, Rucker and his team were at a standstill and the case dropped out of the news. I mean, more than a year and a half goes by and there's no arrest.

Speaker 8 It was horrible. We just felt like nothing was being done.

Speaker 8 And I can remember, you know, reaching out to the Roswell Police Department and they had already already interviewed suspects that they had, and it just seemed like nothing was being done.

Speaker 9 And the fact that this person is still out there.

Speaker 8 Absolutely.

Speaker 9 That they're maybe free to kill again or, you know,

Speaker 13 it's a huge puzzle. It's a thousand-piece puzzle or more.
And, you know, we put everything together the best that we could to try and solve this case. We just needed a little break.

Speaker 9 Then in January 1998, a year and a half after after Lance's murder, they got a big one.

Speaker 20 A phone call came in.

Speaker 9 On the line, Dion's husband, Sean Nelson, he told police that he and his wife were getting a divorce and one recent argument had turned ugly.

Speaker 13 She made the statement to her husband that she was intimate with Mr.

Speaker 13 Herndon and that they had an argument and that they had a fight and that she said she would kill him, her husband, the same way she killed Lance.

Speaker 3 I was absolutely shocked.

Speaker 9 If this is true, it is huge. It is.
This can change everything for you now with the course of this investigation.

Speaker 3 Right, because now I've got statements out of the mouth of Dion Barr herself,

Speaker 3 which are very incriminating.

Speaker 9 But the prosecutor still needed more. After speaking with Dion's husband, Rucker learned she was set to testify in an Atlanta divorce court.

Speaker 9 So he went to the trial to be a fly on the wall and heard this curveball.

Speaker 3 During her testimony under oath, she maintained to the judge after vigorous questioning that her relationship with Lance Herndon was merely platonic.

Speaker 9 That completely contradicted the relationship she described to detectives. Caught in another lie.

Speaker 3 Caught in another lie. It was just a friendship.
He was like a mentor.

Speaker 9 And as she began testifying about the night of the murder, she told a whole new story. It was a whopper.

Speaker 3 She now told the judge and divorce court that she actually traveled to Lance's house to obtain a laptop computer. And by saying that, she then put herself at the crime scene.

Speaker 9 A complete reversal of what she told police. Now, Rucker believed he had enough evidence, but time was ticking.
He feared Dionne might head back to her native Jamaica after the divorce case.

Speaker 3 There was a large concern that she would flee the country and then be unavailable to us for prosecution.

Speaker 3 And so the decision was made to arrest Dion Baugh as she left the courthouse on the evening of her testimony during the divorce trial.

Speaker 9 You don't mess around. This was quick.

Speaker 3 Well, it was important.

Speaker 9 Police set up a traffic stop along Dion's route home from court, pulled her over, and arrested her. What was that moment like when you got that word of that?

Speaker 6 Basically, it's about time.

Speaker 6 Finally.

Speaker 9 You thought all along that Dion was responsible for Lance's murder. I did.

Speaker 8 We were just so elated because we felt like finally, finally she's arrested. Thank God.

Speaker 9 But the prosecutor knew getting a conviction wouldn't be easy.

Speaker 3 There was no direct evidence. There were no eyewitnesses.
There were no fingerprints. There was no murder weapon found in her possession.
And so it was a real uphill battle.

Speaker 9 An uphill battle with a defense team geared up for war.

Speaker 30 They don't know if Lance Herndon was murdered by a jealous husband of any number of women he was dating. They don't know.

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Speaker 9 Entrepreneur Lance Herndon was only 41 when he was beaten to death in his bedroom.

Speaker 25 The state versus Mrs.

Speaker 30 Dion

Speaker 30 Andrea Baugh.

Speaker 9 Five years later, his lover, Dion Baugh, was on trial for his murder. Eva, Lance's longtime friend, was there for it all.

Speaker 8 It was pretty difficult to sit there in the courtroom with witnesses and I

Speaker 8 kept looking over to the left, seeing Dion.

Speaker 9 Clint Rucker was the lead prosecutor. What did you want the jury to know in your opening statements right off the bat in this case?

Speaker 3 The thing I wanted to communicate to the jurors is that Dion Ball actually targeted Lance Hermden. The evidence will show you.

Speaker 9 Rucker told jurors in his opening remarks that Dion was pure evil, a woman who had an ugly thirst for the finer things in life, a description that didn't sit well with her.

Speaker 30 It is a tragic case

Speaker 30 of a greedy

Speaker 30 and controlling woman

Speaker 30 who targets a rich and powerful man.

Speaker 9 Deion's attorney fired back in his opening statement, telling jurors the state's case lacked a key element, evidence.

Speaker 30 The state cannot tell you a murder weapon that killed Lance Herndon.

Speaker 30 They have no fingerprints of my client. They have no blood

Speaker 30 evidence related to my client.

Speaker 9 As the trial got underway, Rucker argued his theory that Dionne felt Lance was done with her. So she killed him in a fit of rage, then stole from him.

Speaker 3 There were three things of real high value and significance that proved to be missing and all consistently in the possession of Dion Baugh. I categorize them as the three Cs.

Speaker 9 Each one gave Rucker a chance to tell jurors a story. He said the first C was for Lance's computer, that expensive laptop.

Speaker 9 The jury heard Dion tell police in her interview that Lance dropped off the laptop at her house.

Speaker 30 What time did he come over to your house?

Speaker 30 I don't remember the exact time. I think it was somewhere between 9 and 10.30.

Speaker 9 That couldn't have happened, Rucker told the jurors, because phone records backed up Talana's version of events. that she answered three calls from Dion between 9 and 10.30 when Lance was home.

Speaker 9 The second C was for one of Lance's credit cards that police discovered was missing from his bedroom.

Speaker 3 A few hours after Lance's body had been found, there was a very expensive credit card charged for dining room furniture to the tune of several thousand dollars that was made by Dion Baugh.

Speaker 9 Wow. If she's the killer and she's taking the credit card, that is cold.
If you're out shopping for furniture after you bludgeoned a man to death. Right.

Speaker 3 Everything about this case suggests that this was done by a cold-blooded, calculated,

Speaker 3 heartless individual.

Speaker 9 Then came the third C, the fancy car.

Speaker 3 Dion Baugh had possession of Lance's brand new Mercedes-Benz.

Speaker 9 The prosecution had evidence Dion may have been scheming to keep the car. A state special agent testified about an unusual letter he found.

Speaker 30 What was that document found? This was in the Mercedes and in her pocketbook.

Speaker 9 It was addressed to whom it may concern and said Lance was not able to update his will. But in the event of his death, the Mercedes should be released to Dion.

Speaker 9 It was unsigned.

Speaker 3 State Exhibit 176.

Speaker 9 And the agent found something else in her purse. Physical evidence that he believed tied her to the crime scene.

Speaker 33 This is a close-up showing... The large amount of gum wrappers contained in her purse.

Speaker 9 He told the jury investigators found similar wrappers littered across Lance's driveway the morning of the murder.

Speaker 30 It's very heavy, and it's also somewhat of a broad surface.

Speaker 9 The medical examiner showed jurors the type of heavy wrench the prosecution claimed killed Lance.

Speaker 9 As Eva sat in the courtroom, she remained hopeful, even though she knew it was an entirely circumstantial case.

Speaker 8 I wanted to believe so badly that justice would be served and she would be convicted.

Speaker 8 I think knowing that circumstantial evidence, there is a chance she would get off, I didn't really want to believe that.

Speaker 9 Three days into the trial, the prosecutor launched into the forensic evidence.

Speaker 30 I can determine whether a hair could have or could not have originated from a particular source.

Speaker 9 He called an expert who said two of the hairs found in Lance's bed were a likely match to Dion's hair.

Speaker 9 And Barbara Retzer, the state forensic biologist, testified about that DNA found under Lance's fingernails.

Speaker 9 What did you find when you compared Dion Baugh's DNA to the DNA sample from under Lance's fingernails?

Speaker 27 Well, on those three fingernails, Lance Herndon's DNA matched part of the mixture and Dion Baugh's DNA matched the remaining mixture.

Speaker 9 The chances of this DNA being from someone else,

Speaker 9 the stats are pretty clear.

Speaker 27 About one in 100 billion.

Speaker 9 There were no matches to Talana, Janine, or Kathy. Still, the expert couldn't pinpoint when Dion's DNA got under Lance's nails.

Speaker 27 Between the night of the murder and a few days before,

Speaker 27 I couldn't say.

Speaker 9 The prosecution knew the DNA result wasn't a slam dunk. After all, Lance and Dion had been lovers, shared his bed.

Speaker 30 I believe it was around 5.52 in the morning.

Speaker 9 But then Officer Tommy Williams took the stand. He shared that story about Dion banging on Lance's door one month before his death.

Speaker 9 He testified it was actually the second time police were called that night about the banging. So he told Dion she was under arrest for trespassing.
That's when he said she snapped.

Speaker 13 And the fight was on. I mean, it was, it was, oh, yes.
Once we get her in the car, she's beating and banging and kicking the cage and the windows and stuff.

Speaker 9 What did you learn about why Dion was so upset?

Speaker 13 Dion

Speaker 13 was peering into Lance's windows and she saw Kathy Collins walking through the home in a towel. And that's what had her upset.

Speaker 9 And this story gave the prosecutor yet another motive for why Dion killed Lance. He told the jury she was to appear in court for that trespassing incident the day he was murdered.

Speaker 3 Speaking with people very close to Lance, he was going to use this criminal trespass case as a way to say, hey, if you don't leave me alone, I'm going to go forward with these charges.

Speaker 9 Prosecutor Rucker argued Dion was worried Lance wasn't going to help her out of those charges. So she went to his house looking for assurances.

Speaker 9 When he refused, she waited for him to fall asleep and then used that wrench from his bedroom to repeatedly strike him in the head.

Speaker 3 The actions of Deion Baugh really painted for the jury a picture of who Dion Baugh really was.

Speaker 3 Really violent, a very obsessive person with respect to Lance Herndon.

Speaker 9 As the state rested its case, the defense was ready to fight back, and it had something up its sleeve.

Speaker 9 Forensic evidence that raised the question, was there someone someone else in Lance's bed that night?

Speaker 10 That's almost the definition of reasonable doubt, right?

Speaker 10 Deanna Baugh Deanna,

Speaker 9 Dion Baugh was facing the prospect of life behind bars, and her defense team was determined to stop that from happening.

Speaker 9 Her attorneys told jurors investigators zeroed in too quickly on Dion, that Lance lived a risky double life with a lot of enemies.

Speaker 30 They don't know if Lance Herndon was murdered by one of his other girlfriends by a jealous husband of any number of women he was dating,

Speaker 30 whether he was killed by somebody that was mad at him in conjunction with his business. They don't know.

Speaker 9 Any number of people might have had a motive to want Lance dead.

Speaker 16 Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 9 Lance had a secret life.

Speaker 10 Multiple secret lives, yes.

Speaker 9 Dion's attorneys hired criminal defense investigator Charles Middlestadt to dig into the case.

Speaker 10 I've always described Lance Herndon as sort of an iceberg.

Speaker 10 What we saw on the surface was just a very small percentage of what was going on in his life.

Speaker 9 The defense pressed that point during cross-examination of Lance's ex-wife, Janine Herndon.

Speaker 30 And you also told Detective Anastasio that he had a lot of enemies. Yes.
Did you know particular people that you were talking about? People that disliked him.

Speaker 30 Were they of a personal nature, a business nature, a combination?

Speaker 30 I would think more, a little bit of both.

Speaker 9 Take Lance's company, the one most thought was successful, but was actually failing.

Speaker 15 While he had a very crafted persona, you know, there were things behind the scenes that perhaps were not as

Speaker 15 good as he'd like other people to think.

Speaker 9 Holly Stuber said her boss had been dealing with some questionable business associates, and one person stood out.

Speaker 30 I believe Lance said he thought the man was crooked. That Lance did business with him and correct.

Speaker 9 Dion's attorneys argued the police didn't take that lead seriously or do a deep dive into some of his other business dealings, like that nightclub.

Speaker 9 They pressed Lance's girlfriend, Kathy Collins, about the club.

Speaker 30 Were you aware that there were some problems with Lance

Speaker 30 and the Nixon partner?

Speaker 30 Yes.

Speaker 30 And that Lance was angry at some thugs, and it's a lawsuit about the Dixon Club.

Speaker 30 Yes.

Speaker 9 To establish more reasonable doubt, the defense pointed the finger at the last known person to see Lance alive, Tolana Carraway.

Speaker 9 You're the alternate theory here for the defense

Speaker 17 as a killer.

Speaker 20 Of all people, you know.

Speaker 6 The thing about it is I wouldn't have a reason to kill him because he was always on my side. He'd always helped me out.
So, why would I want to take that away? I wouldn't.

Speaker 9 But maybe Talana's boyfriend would. The defense made sure jurors heard about that money he owed Lance.

Speaker 9 And one of Lance's neighbors testified that he saw a suspicious man in a light-colored compact car around 4:45 a.m. near Lance's house the morning he was killed.
Tolana had a similar-looking car.

Speaker 30 What kind of car did you have back in August of 1996? In geoprison.

Speaker 30 What color was it? Light blue.

Speaker 9 Dion's attorney pressed the lead detective on why he didn't investigate the boyfriend.

Speaker 30 And you did know that her boyfriend had borrowed some money from her?

Speaker 30 Yes.

Speaker 30 And he had a criminal record too, didn't he?

Speaker 30 From what I understand,

Speaker 30 you didn't go out and interview the criminal whose girlfriend's car was seen in the neighborhood or possibly seeing the apostle Dad.

Speaker 30 No,

Speaker 30 I didn't talk to him.

Speaker 9 Besides Dion, the defense argued police didn't look for other women in Lance's life beyond Talana, Janine, and Kathy.

Speaker 10 The Roswell Police Department only identified essentially, you know, three women that he was involved with.

Speaker 9 As defense attorneys chipped away at the state's case, they also pointed out police never found the murder weapon.

Speaker 9 In fact, the wrench prosecutor showed in court it was a prop they picked up at Home Depot.

Speaker 10 I mean, they literally bought the murder weapon because it simply didn't exist.

Speaker 9 The medical examiner testified even though he theorized a wrench was used to kill Lance, he couldn't be 100% sure.

Speaker 30 So you're not telling this jury to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that it was that wrench. Oh, no, not at all.
I cannot tell you that, no.

Speaker 30 That would be a stretch, wouldn't it? Yes.

Speaker 9 Then, evidence Dion's attorney said was a game changer. Two unknown strands of hair found in Lance's bed.

Speaker 10 We just know factually from the two unidentified hairs that were in his bed that he had other intimates, that they never could match to anybody, so not to any of the other known lovers.

Speaker 10 And so that automatically, that's almost the definition of reasonable doubt, right?

Speaker 9 As for the hairs that were a match to Dion and her DNA under Lance's fingernails, the defense argued that should surprise no one in the courtroom.

Speaker 10 They were lovers, and so that's just circumstantial evidence. It does not in any way timestamp when they were together, when she was last there.

Speaker 9 And Lance's laptop, the one the prosecution made a big deal about, even its own witnesses admitted Lance often lent it to Dion

Speaker 9 and freely let his girlfriends use his credit cards.

Speaker 30 Were you aware that he had lent or allowed many people that he dated to use his credit cards?

Speaker 30 Yes.

Speaker 30 So that was not an unusual thing that he did. No.

Speaker 9 Had defense attorneys created enough reasonable doubt for Dion Baugh to be found not guilty? As they rested, there would soon be a verdict. But would that that be the end of the case?

Speaker 8 The first thing I thought was: this is unbelievable. This cannot be happening.

Speaker 9 Closing arguments were underway in the Fulton County, Georgia courthouse.

Speaker 30 The decision you make in this case will affect this woman

Speaker 30 every day for the rest of her life.

Speaker 9 The last chance to convince jurors of Dionne's innocence or guilt.

Speaker 30 Now where is the evidence that she's killed someone?

Speaker 9 Defense attorneys return to their main argument. Prosecutors lacked evidence.
Take the violent crime scene. They asked why didn't the police have any blood evidence connected to Dionne?

Speaker 30 There is no blood on the defendant's car, clothes, shoes, or laptop in this case. There are no fingerprints in the blood.
All the things, the bed sheets, the clock, there's none of that.

Speaker 10 The issue for me has always been that the violence and the gruesomeness that is associated with this crime, you would have been covered in blood.

Speaker 10 You would almost have to be a CSI cleanup expert to be the perpetrator.

Speaker 10 and walk away from that scene, get in your own vehicle, get back to your own home, and have no trace of that, no DNA, no biological evidence transferring. It's almost unbelievable.

Speaker 9 And Deion's attorney told jurors, despite what they heard from the prosecution, Deion and Lance were on good terms.

Speaker 30 There's no prior threat of harm. None.

Speaker 30 She did not kill Lance Herndon.

Speaker 9 Prosecutor Rucker would have the final word in his closing arguments.

Speaker 30 The killer sits in this courtroom.

Speaker 9 He stitched together all the crime scene evidence, taking the jury through a dramatic step-by-step narrative of how he believed an unhinged Dionne Baugh killed Lance.

Speaker 3 She arrived at the house sometime after midnight. They would have had sex.

Speaker 3 I believe that Lance drifted off to sleep. I believe that she would have obtained that wrench.

Speaker 3 She would have crawled onto the bed, straddled him, and she would have used her hands to strike him in the head in the face after she killed Lance. She unplugged the alarm clocks.

Speaker 3 She turned the picture of Kathy Collins down on the nightstand.

Speaker 3 I believe she went through Lance's wallet and removed the credit card. She went down into the office.
She decided to take the laptop computer.

Speaker 3 She went out through the garage.

Speaker 3 I think that she dropped a series of silver chewing gum wrappers as she got the keys out of her purse to get into her car to leave, she went home and pretended like she didn't know anything about it.

Speaker 9 With that, the case was in the jury's hands. Were you feeling confident when the jury went out to deliberate?

Speaker 8 I was feeling confident. Yes, I was.

Speaker 9 After about five hours of verdict.

Speaker 30 We, the jury, found a defendant, Dion Ball,

Speaker 3 guilty of murder.

Speaker 9 Dion was also found guilty of theft of the laptop and financial fraud for using Lance's credit card.

Speaker 8 It was one of the greatest days of my life. She was convicted of murder.
I felt like justice has been served. She's going to prison for the rest of her life.

Speaker 9 Did you look over at Dion?

Speaker 8 I sure did.

Speaker 6 What was the

Speaker 8 look on her face? I think she was so solemn. It was as if she wasn't affected.
by any of it.

Speaker 9 Everyone thought that was the end of it. But two years later, later, a huge development.
Georgia Supreme Court overturned the conviction.

Speaker 9 It said the trial court allowed improper hearsay evidence from the lead detective.

Speaker 8 And the first thing I thought was, this is unbelievable. This cannot be happening.

Speaker 9 In October 2003, Dion went on trial a second time.

Speaker 3 I thought that nothing really had changed in terms of our theory, and I didn't believe that the defense attorneys had really come up with an explanation that would adequately explain the inconsistencies in Dion's testimony, her statements, and her possession of the laptop computer.

Speaker 9 Jurors deliberated for five days. Then they sent the judge a message.

Speaker 30 I got a note

Speaker 30 just a few minutes ago, and

Speaker 30 it says, Judge Baxter, the jury is hopelessly deadlocked.

Speaker 30 Signed by the four-person, and I'm going to bring them out, declare a mistrial.

Speaker 3 The jurors were 11 to 1.

Speaker 9 Rucker says it was 11 to 1 guilty.

Speaker 3 So the only thing we have to have left is to try and tee it up a third time and have a third trial.

Speaker 9 Unbelievable!

Speaker 3 It's one of the most unusual and bizarre experiences I've ever had professionally.

Speaker 21 But Rucker had a problem.

Speaker 9 The special agent on the case had passed away. And Lance's mother said she didn't want to go through another trial.
So he offered Dion a plea deal.

Speaker 3 We would resolve the case by allowing Dionba to plead guilty and receive a sentence much less than she would ordinarily receive if she were found guilty of murder.

Speaker 9 10 years.

Speaker 3 We agreed to serve, to give her a sentence of 10 years, yep,

Speaker 3 on a charge of manslaughter.

Speaker 9 Lance's friends were devastated that Dion got such a light sentence. Too short?

Speaker 6 Way too short. You took somebody's life.
You took somebody's father. You took somebody's son.

Speaker 9 Today, Dion is a free woman. She was released from prison in 2011.

Speaker 9 And now, so many years later, Lance's son has a message about his father's legacy.

Speaker 4 This is not the story of a negative. This is not the story of a murder and how a family was destroyed.
This is a story of Lance Herndon created a...

Speaker 4 a path of entrepreneurship for African Americans that maybe wasn't there. And look how we're continuing this.

Speaker 9 Harrison Herndon is married and is now CEO of his own marketing agency.

Speaker 4 There's a whole nother world out there where you can be a very successful entrepreneur. And I'm happy to tell that story.

Speaker 4 I can be vengeful, I can look Indiana, I can be upset, or I can say, Lance made me the man that I am today, and I am so proud and happy to be here.

Speaker 9 And I think your dad would be so proud of you.

Speaker 18 Thank you.

Speaker 4 Seeing Lance and making Lance proud is the most important thing for what I do in my life. It really is.

Speaker 14 That's all for this edition of Dateline. And check check out our Talking Dateline podcast.
Andrea Canning and Josh Mankiewicz will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode.

Speaker 14 Available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News.

Speaker 4 Good night.

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