Susan Baker

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When a body is found floating in an idyllic Tennessee River, questions abound.

You start thinking, is it someone who's fishing maybe fell, hurt themselves?

We had no idea who this was.

Is this a tragic accident or a deadly cover-up?

He had some blood around his mouth and his nose, and there was blood on the side of his head.

A nearby fire suggests someone went to great lengths to cover their tracks.

The car had already been engulfed in flames and consumed by fire.

Nothing left of it.

What was going through our minds was, are these two crimes related?

As the pieces fall into place, a tale of he said, she said threatens to derail the investigation.

I was scared.

You know what I mean?

He had told me before we called him that next time he was going to tie me up and he was going to kill me.

No one could ever imagine the twisted path that would lead detectives to a killer.

This was very intentional, and they wanted to die.

They said, if you don't help me, you're next.

February 2nd, 2011, Sequatchee County, Tennessee.

It's just after 8 a.m.

in this rural community outside of Chattanooga, as Detective Jodi Lockhart settles in for the day.

We're sitting around talking, we're trying to get a game plan of what we're going to do for the day, and then we get a call.

Sequatch County 91, what's the problem?

Well, ma'am, I was walking Dean of Danzan.

I I think I've seen a body folk.

I'm not for sure, but I mean, I just said I was running.

Detective Lockhart immediately rushes to the riverfront, nine miles away from the sheriff's office.

At that point, we don't know how he got there or why he was there.

We started thinking, is it someone who's fishing maybe fell, hurt themselves?

Somebody who maybe got drunk and fell.

The scene itself looked like people would go there and drink.

There were beer cans and debris at the scene.

Piggas Bridge is the area that we were called to.

It's on the south end of our county.

A lot of kids and adults like to party down there just because it's out of the way.

It's in a rural spot.

When detectives reach the river's edge, they're met with a disturbing sight.

You have to walk down.

It's a muddy, slippery track.

We start walking down into there.

Then you get down to where you start seeing the crest of the water, and at that point in time, you can see the body.

The body was not a small guy.

He was a larger male.

We go ahead and we back off.

We rope the scene off to make sure no one else can get in.

We're trying to figure out who the body is.

How did you get here?

We're just running anything you can think of through your head.

You have a body in the water.

Is it a suicide?

Is it an accident?

Or is it a homicide?

Detectives Detectives decide they need all hands on deck and call in for help from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

I remember receiving a call from Detective Lockhart, advised that they had discovered a body in the river under Pickett's Bridge.

I immediately responded to the area.

When I arrived at the scene, they had the end of the road blocked off with crime scene tape.

Several Sheriff's Department vehicles were already present on the scene.

Officers wade into the cold, wintry water and pulled the body to shore.

We go into the water.

It's probably about waist deep water.

As I first started walking up, I noticed it's a white male who's wearing blue jeans, an orange shirt, and had some suspenders on.

He was face up.

He had one hand of the water, and his boots were out of the water.

I've seen bodies in water that have been in much worse shape.

I think what helped in this instance was the water was cold and I think that helped preserve the body.

When they bring the body to shore, detectives and medical examiners begin a more thorough inspection.

Sometimes the officers in the community, they're familiar with a lot of the local folks.

They can identify who they are immediately once we arrive on the scene.

But this wasn't the case in this investigation.

We had no idea who this gentleman gentleman was.

He looked like your typical white male that had been in the river for a good 12 hours.

He was the gray color that you normally see.

Your body changes.

You lose all pigment of your skin.

When the blood pulls away from you, you get like an ashy gray color.

He had blood on the side of his head.

There was blood around his mouth or nose, but we didn't know if he'd been struck with an object.

There were no other visible wounds to him.

The remains are placed in a body bag, and he's transported to Nashville for an autopsy.

While they await the results of the autopsy, detectives search the surrounding area, hoping for clues to the victim's identity.

We found blood between the tree line and the mud.

We collected the tire impressions

where a car would look like it had parked at, where the blood would have been at.

Investigators also discovered two sets of footprints and a trail leading to the river's edge.

We found what appeared to be like a heel of a boot being dragged all the way down.

It was just a solid straight line that would skip every now and then as if you were dragging something heavy all the way there to the water.

You know that this guy didn't drag himself and put himself in the water.

Drag marks would eliminate a suicide.

We also felt it would eliminate an accidental death.

So it did appear fairly quickly that this was the result of foul play of some sort.

There's just speculation as to what might have happened.

One of the things we talked about, was there a fight at the scene?

You know, were people out there drinking or doing something and a fight ensued and the victim was killed?

You're trying to keep your mind open to any possibility as to what it might be.

After processing the scene, detectives turned to the 911 caller, Larry Eggert.

You have times when the 911 caller is actually the perpetrator, so we have to rule out everyone from being a suspect in this case.

Egert tells detectives he was in the area hoping to make a little money.

Mr.

Egert was aware that people would go down there and party, and they usually don't clean up their beer cans.

He would collect aluminum cans to take the recycling center, and they would pay him.

As police continue questioning Egert, he remains cooperative.

That is, until police ask him to show them where he first spotted the body.

He didn't want to go back nowhere near the river at all.

Of course, we didn't make him, we kept him away.

He just described everything he saw and he was visually shaken up.

You could tell that seeing the body bothered him.

To determine if he is involved in the crime, detectives compare Egert's shoes to the footprints discovered near the river's edge.

We took foot impressions from him at the scene and he was ruled out as a potential suspect.

There was no indication that Mr.

Egert was anything other than the fellow who found the body.

After we got through working the crime scene, we go back to our office to try to strategize and think about how we can identify who he is.

We won't alert the news media.

As detectives discuss their next move, they receive more troubling news.

We had a deputy who came down the hall and mentioned that there was a fire scene that he had worked involving a vehicle.

We thought that it was kind of odd that we had a car burning at the same time.

There's a body in the river.

Coming up, out of the ashes comes a crucial clue that will kick this investigation into high gear.

The owner of the residence that was closed heard the explosions.

By the grace of God, he had recovered a handicap placard from that scene.

Started noticing he looked a lot like the gentleman that we found in the river.

Detectives in Sequatchee County, Tennessee are learning the details of a mysterious fire that seems to have occurred just hours before they fished an unknown man out of the river.

This occurred on the north end of our county, kind of a remote area where the car was at.

Very secluded, not many people around.

The owner of the residence that was close heard the explosions.

He called the dispatch center, dispatch center officer out there.

By the time officers arrived to the scene, the vehicle was a total loss.

The car had already been pretty much engulfed in flames and consumed by fire.

Nothing left of it.

Couldn't tell what it was.

We had a vehicle that had been torched and then we have a body in the river on the same day.

It is not atypical for criminals to burn a car in an effort to conceal evidence.

What was going through our minds was

are these two crimes related?

While the car was completely destroyed in the fire, officers were able to salvage one key piece of evidence.

By the grace of God, he had recovered a handicap placard from that scene.

He found the handicap tag that was partially burnt and he brought it back to the office so we could maybe investigate that crime.

We took the handicap tag, we ran the numbers through the DMV.

The tag is registered to a 1996 Monte Carlo owned by an area resident.

It led us to the name of Clifford Cardin.

At that time, we didn't know who Clifford Cardin was or who our body was.

We went ahead and pulled up a driver's license picture of him, started noticing he looked a lot like the gentleman that we found in the river.

From an early age, Clifford M.

Cardin Jr.

loved two things, family and cars.

My father was a mechanic for 30 plus years of his life.

and he was into cars.

Dad was a big nice car guy.

That's what he loved.

You couldn't drag him away if you had to.

It was crazy of all of the memorabilia that he had collected of Delarnhart and Dellarnhart Jr.

knives, watches, cards.

If it had Delarnhart on it, my father purchased it.

Besides cars and racing, Cliff's other passion in life was his family.

Even though his first marriage ended in divorce, the doting father still remained actively involved with his children, Chris and Sendora.

When they divorced, he just moved right across the street.

So coming home from school, he would be there.

If I had a ball game that day, everybody went.

That's just the way my childhood was with my dad and my mom.

Then in 1988, at age 32, Cliff decided to give love another shot when he met 27-year-old Cindy Tapley.

We got married on Valentine's Day, February 14th, 1991.

I fell in love with him because he was so kind and so gentle.

He was just an awesome person.

When my dad and Cindy were together, he took care of her to the best of his ability.

He would provide and do what he had to provide.

I already had two children, and he played with my kids.

I mean, it was just like

whatever was in my house that belonged to me, he accepted it right away.

He was just my big teddy bear.

Though he'd always enjoyed life, by the time Cliff was 50, issues with his weight had begun to have a detrimental impact on his day-to-day activities.

My dad, he's right at 350, 375 pounds.

He needed to lose weight.

My father struggled with diabetes.

He was a heart patient.

neuropathy of the hands and feet.

His health issues were really bad.

That's where our stepmom Cindy had stepped in to help take care of him.

But Cliff's health wasn't the only thing in his life going downhill.

After nearly two decades of marriage, he and Cindy separated, leaving Cliff to live alone in his trailer.

He was not coming home until like

two to three o'clock in the morning.

My son and his wife came with a U-Haul and made two loads and I moved.

And I just took what was mine.

Dad hated being single.

He needed a companion.

My father's trailer looked like somebody had taken a 16 by 80 trailer and dropped it right in the middle of a tomato field.

His nearest neighbor was a mile and a half down the road and Daddy was afraid to be alone.

So he would drive off the mountain every day

to find something to do to keep himself busy

but on february 3rd 2011 it seems cliff had gone out and never returned right before christmas we started talking again we were discussing me coming back home he said i want us to work but i kept trying to call him and There was no answer.

My stepmother could not get in touch with my father.

On the phone, she had called and left message after message and got the feeling something was wrong.

So she calls me and wants to know if I had heard from my father.

Sandy, I said, your daddy's not home and it's not like him to leave our gizmo, which is our dog, outside.

A chill runs down Sandora's spine as she tells her stepmother she has not spoken to her father in days.

We usually talked about at least three, four times a week, but I had not heard from him.

I hung up with her and started calling around the places where I knew he was at or people he might have been with and could not reach my father.

24 long hours pass with no word from Cliff.

There was so much going through my head at that point in time of what had happened.

It was just such an uneasy feeling because it's not like him not to communicate.

I went through every hospital in the parking lot to see if I could see his little red car because he'd had a heart attack before.

So I thought, well, maybe he's at the hospital.

Then Cindy gets a call that changes everything.

I get a phone call from the TBI.

He says, does your husband have any

identification marks on his body?

And I said, yeah, he's got tattoos on his arm.

And I describes the tattoos.

And he goes, we found your husband.

I said, is he okay?

And he said, he was dead.

It was like my heart was broke.

And then all of a sudden I got numb,

you know?

Got a phone call and I don't even remember who it was that called me.

I set the phone down.

I turned to my wife, Marlene, and said, um,

dad's dead.

They found him.

She said, what are you going to do?

I said, I'm going to his house.

At first, I didn't believe it, but then I had talked to my brother on the phone, and

he was on his way to come get me.

We were going

to go find out.

Coming up, a witness comes forward with key information about a suspect.

He had a lady with him.

I'd never seen her before.

What'd she look like?

Was she older, younger?

Probably half way, half four, had strike thick black hair, a little bit shorter than mine.

They had some mud on their shoes, and that they were in a fast pace to get away from that area.

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Less than 24 hours after his body was pulled from Tennessee's Sequatchee River, police are now trying to figure out what happened to 55-year-old Cliff Cardin.

We were still waiting back to hear from the medical examiners on the autopsy, find out the cause of death.

To find out more, detectives initiate a search of Cliff's residence.

As they begin to work, Cliff's son Chris arrives at the home and immediately notices something out of place.

Dillerhardt 118 scale porcelain car.

It was one of dad's prized possessions as far as his collection goes, and I noticed immediately that it was missing.

Other valuable items from Cliff's memorabilia collection are also missing.

There was no signs of forced entry, but there had been items removed.

You could tell the house was disarrayed.

There was stuff on the floor.

Someone had went through it like they were looking for something.

To detectives, the condition of the home suggests Cliff was robbed by someone he knew.

But as police continue to search the home, they make a sinister discovery.

There was a gas propane tank laid against the furnace heater area.

In my opinion, that was said to try to burn the house down after someone had went through and tried to steal what they needed out of the house.

While police still don't know who is responsible for Cliff's death, others are beginning to have their suspicions.

Given how people were acting, what had taken place, I immediately thought, Cindy's involved in this.

She has to be.

Clifford Cardin's estranged wife, Cindy Carden, did not live at the house with Cliff.

They'd been separated for approximately 11 months.

Though Chris doesn't have any proof their stepmother is involved in their father's death, Police take his concerns seriously.

I do remember being asked, do you think your stepmom has something to do with this?

They were looking at her, but of course they said the partner would be the first one they look at.

It made me feel like she had something to do with it, that it was her.

At this point in time, you know, we hadn't ruled everybody out as being a potential suspect in this case.

You look at family members, the strange wife, everybody's a suspect.

As detectives finish up with Cliff's children, Cindy arrives on the scene.

The police called and told me to come up to the house.

So I went to the home and they were investigating the scene.

We interviewed Mr.

Cardin's wife, Cindy,

and she was very helpful to us.

She cooperated with every bit of the investigation we had.

She said they've not been together for a while.

She was visibly upset.

I was the last one that had verbally talked to him.

I was in college to get my bachelor's degree, and I had a problem with a paper that I wanted him to kind of help me understand.

I kept trying to call him every 30 minutes.

Cindy Cardin told the officers where she was during the applicable time frame and they were able to verify that her alibi was in fact valid.

She was never seriously looked at as a suspect.

With Cindy cleared, detectives begin looking into other possible leads.

The following morning, the very first thing we want to do is we want to call the medical examiner's office in Nashville.

The medical examiner, as part of the autopsy, did toxicology, and the toxicology on Cliff was all negative.

He had nothing in his system.

But the autopsy does reveal a crucial piece of information.

The exact cause of Cliff's death.

They let us know right off the bat.

You did have a single gunshot wound to the head.

The shot ended up being right around the right side of the ear.

The medical examiner felt that the gun was three inches to two to three feet from Mr.

Carden's head when it was discharged.

And a bullet was recovered from the head of Mr.

Carden.

They told us it was going to be a small to medium-sized caliber weapon, and they thought it'd either be a 9mm or a.38 caliber.

With the autopsy complete, police release information about the crime and their victim to area media outlets hoping to drum up some tips

after that we start trying to retrace cliff cardin's steps up until the point he died we try to figure out who he's been with where he's been at fuzzy's bar is the shirt he had on

detectives work quickly to bring bar owner sabra rotti in for questioning

Cliff, he came to my place four or five times a week.

So you never seen him have any kind of disturbances or arguments with anybody at your establishment?

Not that I know that, never.

How did you liked him?

According to Sabra, Cliff was in the bar the day before his body was found.

He came in at his usual time, which is five, six o'clock, and he had a lady with him.

I'd never seen her before.

What'd she look like?

Was she older, younger?

Probably five, three, five, four, had straight, thick black hair, a little bit shorter than mine, probably, shoulder length.

And she was dressed real nice

for my place.

She would not make eye contact, and she kept going to the bathroom frequently.

Where even though I was taking care of other customers, I noticed it.

Sabra tells detectives that Cliff and the woman stayed at the bar into the evening before leaving together.

They left my place somewhere between 9 and 10.

I did not know where they were

Could this mystery woman possibly be involved in Cliff's death?

As detectives search for the unidentified female, Cliff's murder continues to make headlines.

This was a homicide.

We don't have a lot of homicides, so there was some tension in the community, and there was media coverage.

The media frenzy pays off on February 8th when resident Randy Griffith calls the police tip line with a possible lead after seeing the story on local news.

Mr.

Griffith called in.

He didn't know if it was part of the investigation or not, but thought that we might want to know about it.

Randy tells investigators he had run into a friend of his on the night of February 2nd, not far from where Clifford Cardin's burned out car was discovered.

He talks to us about how he had picked up Brian Bettis and a female walking.

He didn't know who the female was, but he knew Brian.

Randy Griffith said Brian was acting kind of odd, kind of skittish, kind of worried that something was going on.

That's not all.

Randy thought was unusual.

Mr.

Griffith noticed that they had some mud on their shoes and that they were in a fast pace to get away from that area.

They asked him to give them a ride to the local hotel.

So Mr.

Griffith takes them to Mountain Inn Suites, drops them off there.

After a quick run inside, Randy says Brian made one final request.

He asked, hey, can you run us to Walmart?

We need to buy a few things.

He takes Brian and the female to the Walmart, and that's the last time Randy remembers seeing the woman.

Coming up, police catch a glimpse of the woman at the center of this mystery.

They're in Mr.

Cart's car, and they're carrying in Dale Arnhardt memorabilia.

And a shocking allegation leaves investigators speechless.

Oh, you said she got off on this at favor ordering.

She was was a hypothesis.

Yeah.

It's been nearly a week since Cliff Cardin's murder, and detectives in Sequatchee County, Tennessee now have two key suspects: 34-year-old Brian Bettis and an unknown female.

The pair was last seen at an area Walmart on the night of Cliff's death.

We learned that information from Randy, which gave us suspects.

And from there, the detectives got the video from Walmart.

Using their informant's description of the couple, it doesn't take long for detectives to hit pay dirt.

You can see them on the surveillance video.

They buy some clothing.

They buy blue jeans and shoes for Brian.

Hoping to ID the woman accompanying Brian, detectives head to the hotel where they they believe the couple may have stayed on the night of the murder.

Once again, detectives pull surveillance footage from February 2nd, this time from the Mountain Inn and Suites, and begin looking for their mystery woman.

This is another piece of the puzzle, basically.

And of course, that puzzle comes together when they see the video from the Mountain Inn and Suites.

Hours before it was burned, detectives spot Cliff's car and the couple on security footage.

They're in Mr.

Card's car and they're carrying in Dale Arnard memorabilia.

They're on video having a good time smiling.

You can see them coming back to the hotel and unloading some of the items they stole from the house.

That's a damning piece of evidence.

Though they've already checked out of the hotel, police are hopeful the couple may have left something behind.

They had already cleaned the room, but we found out that Mountaineer Suites keeps a lock on their dumpster so no one else can throw garbage in there.

At which point we received the key and consent.

We started going through the dumpster.

We laid a tarp out.

We brought every piece of garbage out of the dumpster.

We found what we believed to be the garbage from their room.

It doesn't take long for the search to pay off.

We found all of the Walmart receipts and bags and stuff.

We found a pill bottle with the last name Cardin on it.

It It had a bloody fingerprint.

At that point, we had enough evidence to bring charges.

With this new evidence, detectives need to track down Brian immediately.

But he finds them first.

Brian ended up turning himself into us.

I think he wanted his version put out first.

I knew of Brian.

I've dealt with him before on different calls prior to this.

And Brian, he didn't look like his normal self.

He looked like he had something troubling him

according to Brian he had never seen Cliff Carden before

I never met her in my life until that night she's honeyfully

she is his girlfriend 35 year old Susan Baker

Growing up in Harris County Texas Susan Baker thrived

my mom was a normal kid went to school had friends, went to beaches, things like that.

She did good in school, I know that, and she was a dancer after school in the flag team.

But complications from childhood kidney issues soon led Susan down a dark road.

My mom's pathway to addiction started out with painkillers.

They were the only thing that relieved that pain.

Though Susan struggled with chronic pain and addiction, the birth of her children, Justice and Autumn, gave her purpose.

We are always close.

She woke me up for school, made sure I got ready, make sure I was fed.

She provided everything I needed.

I felt like she was my number one best friend.

I just felt like I could talk to her about anything that was going on in my life, and she would help me through it.

Single parenting was tough, but in 2009, Susan found comfort in the arms arms of 33-year-old Brian Bettis.

While Brian's affection may have been good for Susan's soul, it wasn't good for her addiction.

She always had a pill addiction, but she was never abusing it too much until she met Brian, and then it got worse.

She stopped for a while, then she met him, and they...

Started doing pills together.

but now seated across from brian in an interrogation room detectives want to know how exactly cliff cardin fit into this picture

being in a local bar hanging out there is where he met susan baker we found out she was using cliff for money and and pills and she was actually in love with brian

It started coming around that Cliff Carden may have been selling some of his medication.

She started with him because he did get rugs and do get zanxes

brian says the relationship started about a year ago

i had met susan when they first began dating she would basically show him attention and he would give her anything that she wanted my father was lonely and did not want to be by himself so he would settle for whatever dad just needed somebody to talk to that's the only thing dad ever wanted That's all he ever needed.

According to Brian, on the day of the shooting, Susan called him with a plan to rob Cliff.

He explains to us that they're going to rob him of his pills and his money.

Was this a point in time they all were planning to do something to him?

I didn't plan to do nothing.

I said I just met the guy.

She just called me and asked me, did I want to go make some honey

real quick?

Brian says that later that day, Susan and Cliff picked him up from an auto parts store and she set the plan in motion.

She told us told me that he

kept a gun under his seat.

Cliff was driving when Susan is trying to take money from Cliff and Brian states that Cliff didn't go along with the robbery.

Starts, you know, trying to fight back.

Susan reaches underneath the seat, displays a gun and shoots him.

Boom, like hell, it was boom that quick.

Bettis tells detectives that he had no idea Susan intended to shoot Cliff.

And after pulling the trigger, she turned the gun on him next.

After she shot him in the head, she looked at me and said I was scared, dude.

You know what I mean?

I just want the dude to be shot the head that far from me.

She said, if you don't help me, you're next.

And Brian Bettis's explanation to law enforcement was that he was scared and had to go along with this because she threatened him.

She had the guns around her.

She could pull out and shot me this quick.

She did him when he was

From there, Baker and Bettis moved the body out from the driver's side and drove to Pickett's Bridge, where Baker and Bettis pulled Mr.

Cardin out of the car, pulled him into the river, and left him there.

Then they dropped the car out to Cliff Cardin's house and they steal from his house.

Finally, the two shacked up in the mountain inn and suites for the night.

Y'all y'all go back to the motel room and

have a fling in the sack?

Yeah.

She said

it made her horny.

Yeah.

It was disturbing.

Detectives have to consider the possibility that Brian is lying to them.

You'll hear that from folks.

They'll blame it on the other person.

We were just waiting to hear her side of the story.

Coming up, Susan Baker has her own story to tell.

You shot him.

Who shot him?

Brian.

It's the first time I've ever had anyone react the murder scene to me.

It was a hard situation.

You don't really believe it at first.

Following his interview with Tennessee authorities on February 8th, 2011, 34-year-old Brian Bettis is arrested for the murder of 55-year-old Cliff Cardin.

However, Bettis maintains that his girlfriend, 35-year-old Susan Baker, is the real person responsible for the murder.

During the interview, Brian Bettis advises us that Susan has a friend that she may be at in Chattanooga.

Around eight o'clock, nine o'clock at night, we hooked up with Saudi Daisy officers and Hamilton County officers and went to the residence.

She did not resist in any way.

She seemed like she was just in the house, just, you know, hanging out waiting on the police to come get her.

Detectives place Susan under arrest.

and escort her back to the Sequatchee County Justice Center for questioning.

Tell us when you met Claire.

A couple of years ago.

And what kind of relationship did you have?

We had

Clifford Guilford's relationship.

He was an auger man.

He kind of teaching duty.

Susan Baker said Clifford Cardin was the first man to been good to her, took her to Gatlinburg, took her to Daytona.

According to Susan, Cliff also provided something else for her.

Easy access to pills.

Who were you?

you what kind of pills they were uh oxycodone and zenith

like brian's account susan says on the day of the murder the plan was simply to rob cliff not hurt him that day a sad

basically rob

rob his pills and get his money and be done with it never hurry never been next to her

But one vital detail of her account is significantly different from Brian's.

Chris might have been a real smart ass.

Say, hey, Grandma Arm, and he told me he was going to kill me.

And Brian was sitting right there, but he heard him.

What?

Shot him.

You shot him?

Who shot him?

Brian.

Susan Baker told the officers that Brian Bettis was the shooter.

As detectives recount Brian's statement,

Susan does an about face.

I snapped.

I did.

I snapped.

I didn't look at you for the nut in it.

I didn't even know you didn't pay any oxidation here, no glass break or nothing, because all none has been popped.

Same buddy, they were like that, and they're like everywhere.

During the interview, Susan offers to reenact the shooting.

She asked me to pull my seat up next to her as if I was driving.

Grabbed your arm, grabbed my arm, and I just went like this.

I'm like,

like that.

I ain't look at it.

In the interview, I'm kind of taken aback by it.

It's the first time I've ever had anyone react the murder scene to me.

In addition to her startling confession, Susan also admits to disposing of Cliff's body, robbing his house, and burning his car.

We charged Baker and Bettis with felony murder because they killed him in the perpetration of a robbery.

And they were charged with destruction of personal property for burning the car.

My sister was the one that called me and told me.

She called and told me, she said, hey, they got Susan.

I said, great.

When I did find out it was my mom this was a hard situation like you don't really believe it at first

as trial dates for the couple loom brian bettis makes a calculated decision he pled and received a 35 year sentence

he was just as guilty as susan because he was part of the crime.

Our feeling was that Bettis had no idea she was going to shoot him.

And we took that into account and talked to the family and reached this agreement.

Susan Baker elects to take a different route.

Her attorneys felt that she should be evaluated just to make sure she was competent and did not meet the insanity standards.

A clinical psychologist testified that her continued drug use was affecting her ability to be competent to participate in the process.

Years pass, and Susan remains under doctor's care while her trial is postponed indefinitely.

They kept postponing everything.

They kept trying to say that she shouldn't be held accountable for her actions and it was so frustrating that it got almost unbearable.

A psychologist continued to work with her and then came back at some point and said she was competent to proceed to trial.

Finally, in March of 2014, three years after Cliff's murder, the trial begins.

Through an abundance of evidence, prosecutors lay out the motive for the shooting.

They had basically killed him to rob him.

I don't think this was a result of a mental illness.

I think this was a result of she wanted money and she wanted the pills and she was willing to kill to get them.

We testified, we went through all the videos.

We watched her whole interview.

The jury got to see every bit of evidence we had against both of them.

Faced with an overwhelming amount of evidence against their client, Susan's lawyers make a case that she should not be convicted of felony murder.

The argument was from the defense that she was guilty of reckless homicide.

And basically what they argued was that the robbery was an afterthought.

It really wasn't felony murder.

It was a theft.

occurring after the man had died.

After several days of testimony, Susan Baker is found guilty of felony murder, aggravated robbery, and setting fire to personal property.

It only took them 15 minutes to convict her.

15 minutes.

If you're convicted of felony murder in Tennessee, it is an automatic life sentence.

Susan Baker will not be parole eligible until she has served 51 calendar years.

My mom hates that she chose the path that she did, and she's just facing the consequences.

It's all she can really do

for Cliff's children.

The verdict proves little relief from the pain they continue to experience from losing their father.

He did not deserve this.

By no means, he did not deserve this.

My dad

was a loving,

caring father

a loving and caring grandfather that's clifford cardin

he was the kindest most gentle

person and i want people to remember that how much he

he loved everyone

susan baker is currently serving her sentence at deborah kay johnson rehabilitation center susan will not be eligible for parole until 2064.

She will be 89 years old.

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