Theresa Tolliver
Two young boys are left fatherless when an Air Force sergeant is gunned down by a pair of intruders in his San Antonio home.
Season 24, Episode 18
Originally aired: December 23, 2018
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Transcript
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When a U.S.
airman and a single mother fell for one another, their lives soared to new heights.
They hit it off right away.
It was just kind of like a ray of light enters her life.
He was tall, dark, and handsome.
They had a good family.
That is, until the stress of military service, coupled with parenthood, became too much to bear.
The ups and downs with your relationship, it just proved too much.
They both had moved on to other people.
Would they both get a second chance at love or would tragedy cut their opportunities short?
She was crying and crying and crying.
She said, call you away.
First thoughts that anyone had when they saw this was that it was a home invasion that got interrupted.
Was this really the work of a stranger?
Or would the old saying prove true?
If two's company, then three's a crowd.
Do they have a jilted husband on their hand?
Is he seeking revenge for someone dating his wife?
They did know that I was angry at their father.
She was scared.
We all stayed scared for years.
He was a sucker for them.
They loved having a fall guy.
Somebody else was pulling his strings.
I just thought they got away with murder.
It just made me sick.
November 20th, 2000, San Antonio, Texas.
At 8 p.m., Pearly Hannah and her children have just finished up a late dinner in their home not far from Randolph Air Force Base.
All of a sudden, my doorbell started
frantically ringing.
Somebody was pushing it and pushing it, pushing it.
And so I got up and I opened the door.
It's Lorraine Womble, the girlfriend of 40-year-old Derek Tolliver, Pearlie's next door neighbor.
Lorraine, she was crying and crying and crying.
She said, call 911, Derek's been shot.
When she called 911, she was very panicked.
I mean, very scared.
I said, my next door neighbor's been shot.
Can you please hurry up?
She goes, officers are on their way.
They were there fast.
And the cops came and started yelling at us to get in the house and shut the door.
So we stayed there with the door cracked and the cops went in the house.
Deputies are going to go in assuming that there is still a danger, assuming there's still a threat.
So the first thing they need to do is clear the scene.
They carefully went into the house.
As they walked through that same door that Derek Tolliver had walked through, they came across his body.
He was laying down non-responsive blood around his head head, and they could see the indications of a bullet having entered the back of his head.
By the time they had gotten there, there were no life-saving measures to do on Derek.
Born on September 15th, 1960, Derek Tolliver grew up in the working-class Chicago suburb of Gary, Indiana.
A gifted and mature young man, Derek was an inspiration to those around him.
My uncle Derek was one of my role models when I was a child.
He was a pretty impressive and imposing figure, even amongst his peers.
He was huge compared to me, so it was like having a giant for an uncle.
In terms of goals, I knew that he wanted to be stable, have enough security so that he could take care of himself.
After graduating high school, Derek was presented with a choice.
Derek's parents told him, hey, you know, we're proud of you, but now you need to either go to college or you need to go to the military.
And he chose the military.
Seeing my uncle in full uniform was really, really cool because it was like, hey, you know, military people and police officers and firemen, they're all superheroes to you.
Derek ended up at his first military base in Southern California, and off base, he runs into a woman named Teresa who was working in the service industry.
Teresa grew up in the military town of Victorville, California.
Like Derek, she had dreams of a bright future.
However, at the age of 17, long before she met Derek, an unexpected pregnancy put Teresa's dreams on hold.
And in 1980, Teresa gave birth to a little girl, who she named Hazel.
The father of the child was around, but his involvement was limited.
So Teresa really was doing this on her own.
Teresa was working around the clock.
There's a lot more expenses she has to cover.
So she was really struggling to make ends meet.
Two years later, at the age of 19, the single mother met handsome 22-year-old airman, Derek Tolliver.
She was clearly at one of the lowest points in her life.
And then all of a sudden, it was just kind of like a ray of light.
My uncle Derek, he was tall and caramel to brown skin, very handsome.
He did have a presence about him because, you know, he was muscular and he walked with confidence.
Teresa fell in love with Derek and Derek fell in love with Teresa and her little girl.
Derek Taliver kind of took Hazel as his own, treated her like she was his daughter.
The couple tied the knot in January 1983.
And shortly after that, Derek formally adopted little Hazel.
My uncle was a person of strong
and family values.
Not only would he play father figure to his new wife's daughter, but he would actually want to make the commitment and adopt my cousin, Hazel.
They just loved being parents to Hazel and they decided to grow their family and have more children.
They had two boys, Donald and Derek Jr.
He raised the boys like kids should be raised.
Don't take the easy way out.
Do it right the first time.
I knew he was a good person because his sons were good kids.
My uncle Derek had a really big heart, was very loving,
made sure I treated my mother and my aunt with respect.
When Derek received a commission at Randolph Air Force Base, the family relocated to San Antonio, Texas.
However, the move exposed some cracks in Derek and Teresa's relationship.
Specifically, Teresa found herself struggling with motherhood.
She was very isolated and sad and did not take care of herself the way she had.
She was very apathetic about many things in her life that had previously brought her a lot of joy.
Spending time with Hazel and her boys and her husband.
She wasn't a neighbor that was outside watering or doing anything in the yard.
She wasn't that kind of neighbor at all.
None of us really knew anything about her.
When Derek noticed the change in Teresa, he still remained supportive.
He cooked for the boys.
He cleaned the house.
He took the boys to practice.
Anything that he could do to keep his family running, Derek did it.
Derek was running himself tirelessly, trying to do his job as well as take care of his family, but at some point, his patience began to wear thin because it just seemed like no matter what he did, Teresa wasn't making any progress whatsoever.
As it becomes more difficult to pick up the slack, Derek becomes frustrated, small things become big things, and small arguments become something much greater.
Then, in 1997, Derek was deployed to Bosnia.
He hoped that in his absence, Teresa would step up to the plate and become her old self again.
Deployments are difficult on relationships and they strain them.
And so if you already are strained, it can be a breaking point for many couples.
It did seem to take a toll on the relationship.
The relationship of Derek and Teresa started to erode.
I'm sure there was a lot of strain.
After everything that Teresa and Derek had been through, the ups and downs with with their relationship, it just proved too much for them to get through.
They just couldn't recover from that.
In 1998, Teresa filed for divorce from Derek.
She agreed to give Derek full custody of the boys in exchange for weekend visitation.
17, she was a single mom.
At 19, she was married and she was married for about 15 years.
So now she's taking this time to just focus on finding herself and having fun.
That's when Teresa met a young man who helped lift her out of her doldrums.
Emmanuel Fonsi was 19 years old, I believe, and Teresa was 37.
So there was a significant age gap between the two of them.
Emmanuel Fonsi had come to San Antonio a year and a half or so before, was doing door-to-door sales and met Teresa.
Whereas Derek was mature and committed and respectful, Emmanuel had this edge to him.
He was just completely different than what she experienced, and she wanted to know more.
Teresa and Emmanuel spent the next several months traveling together, from California, all the way to Virginia, and finally back to Texas, so Teresa could be near her sons while the details of her and Derek's divorce were finalized.
By that time, Derek was also beginning to move on.
Derek finds himself back out on the market and he eventually finds love on the Air Force base, a civilian by the name of Lorraine.
It was raining one day and he took an umbrella out to her car and he said, here, I've seen you around and I just didn't want you to get wet and he was hitting on her.
Lorraine told Derek that she was estranged from her husband, another airman, Sergeant David Wombel.
Derek and Lorraine quickly progressed as a couple.
People who knew both of them saw how compatible they were.
They had great chemistry.
Essentially, Lorraine was the breath of fresh air he was looking for.
Everything was said and done.
I knew that they would get married.
I'm telling you, Derek had it going for him.
He had everything coming his way finally.
For Derek and Teresa, it seemed as though their lives were moving in different directions with different people, but they were happy.
Unfortunately, it was a happiness that would be shattered on November 20th, 2000, just days before Thanksgiving.
The cops went in the house and then they came out and started putting putting yellow tape around trees.
He was lifeless with no vital signs at all.
Someone shot him not just once but twice.
He was clearly deceased.
Coming up, could there be more to this suspected robbery than meets the eye?
There was more of somebody trying to make it look disorderly, somebody trying to turn it into a home invasion.
Authorities are speaking with Lorraine, not as just a witness, but also to rule her out as a suspect.
On November 20th, 2000, investigators with the Bear County Sheriff's Department in San Antonio, Texas, have just discovered 40-year-old Derek Tolliver, a sergeant in the U.S.
Air Force, dead with two gunshot wounds to the head.
The master bedroom, everything had been kind of thrown around, tossed out.
The drawers had been gone through.
When you went into the living room, you saw that sofa cushions were displaced, things were out of order.
His wallet was taken.
The only potential witness is Derek's girlfriend, Lorraine Womble, who is hiding out at the home of Pearlie Hannah, Derek's neighbor.
She just started crying and crying and crying.
And I just had my arms around her.
And I said, did you see anybody?
She said somebody breaking into his house.
The first thoughts that anyone had when they saw this was that it was a home burglary that got interrupted.
All she saw was a five foot nine
thin male with a gray shirt on, essentially.
She didn't see a vehicle.
She didn't see where he fled to.
Just a very general description, not anything we could connect up to anybody, but it was something.
It was male.
She gave an approximate height.
Deputies put the street on lockdown and start canvassing for any sign of the shooter.
They had our whole street blocked off.
Nobody could come on or get off of our street.
There are a number of reports of deputies that drove around the neighborhood looking for suspicious vehicles or fleeing vehicles, people hiding, and they didn't find anyone.
A neighbor does bring detectives Derek's wallet.
He says he found it on the side of the road devoid of any cash.
Back inside Derek's home, investigators search the residence, hoping the killer has left behind some clues.
Usually in a situation where there is a burglary or people entered the home, they intend to take property, they usually take the items that have the most value.
There wasn't anything of value that was really taken from the house.
Things that a burglar would normally take, like TV, electronics, all those things were still there.
While it's true Derek could have surprised his assailant in the early stages of a burglary, something about the scene doesn't sit right with investigators.
It was more of somebody trying to make it look disorderly, somebody trying to turn it into a home invasion.
They looked at the objects that perhaps had been moved and threw black powder on those items looking for a print, and they did not find any prints.
The nature of Derek Tolliver's injuries also raises red flags.
When someone walks into a robbery, it's known in most reports that the gunmen will shoot just to flee the home.
But in this case, this person fired more than once.
The medical examiner was able to identify the two different wounds to Derek Colliver.
One was fired from a distance, one was a very close-range contact wound.
Kind of wound that you do where you put the gun right up to somebody's head, pull the trigger, and it leaves marks that are distinctive.
That look more like an execution than a random act of violence.
The first question is: who would want to kill Derek Tolliver?
He was known to be a nice, respectable man, and many of his neighbors were questioning what was the motive.
I didn't know who could have done this.
Just kind of makes you go crazy, kind of scared, you know.
It wasn't somebody just walking by.
It was a safe area.
Everybody felt safe there.
Authorities trying to get clues on what happened.
They start with Lorraine.
After all, she was there with him at the time of the murder.
They came over to the house and
they talked to Lorraine.
She says they want me to go downtown and make a statement and tell them what I saw and everything.
She just didn't understand why she had to go downtown.
I could tell she was scared.
At the station, Lorraine tells police that she and Derek had been looking forward to a few romantic days together after Derek's ex, Teresa Tolliver, picked up the couple's children for Thanksgiving.
November 20th was Lorraine's birthday.
So Lorraine tells authorities that they were out grocery shopping because he wanted to make her a birthday dinner.
Derek and Lorraine had some alone time and he wanted to take advantage of it.
When they drove up, he hit the garage door opener
and she said that he said,
stay right here.
Something doesn't look right.
Just as soon as he gets in through the door, she sees another figure come by.
She saw a man about five foot nine, gray shirt with a black winter stocking cap come up from behind derek sure to pop
she was hysterical she wasn't sure what was happening
she takes off running to the neighbors for help and as she gets to the neighbors she hears another pop
and that's all she could tell them
Lorraine's story raises an unsettling question.
Why would the killer make sure to finish Derek off, but didn't even bother to pursue the crime's sole eyewitness?
Authorities are speaking with Lorraine, not as just a witness, but also to rule her out as a suspect.
Sometimes the person who's with the victim or the person who's closest to the victim could actually be the person behind the crime.
That was a lot for her to go through.
He was dead and now she's being looked at.
She was very scared about that.
Following Lorraine's interview, Bear County detectives have the difficult duty of notifying Derek's sons and estranged wife, Teresa Tolliver, about his untimely death.
When they arrive at the apartment that Teresa now shares with her new boyfriend, Emmanuel Fonsi, investigators find Teresa already trying to console her two sons.
I do know it hit the news, and I know the junior saw it on the news.
The boys clearly loved their father and had a good relationship.
Authorities spoke to the two boys and asked them if they knew of of anyone who wanted to hurt their father.
That's when Derek's sons tell police that there is one man who might be capable of the crime.
Each of them brought up the name David Wombel, which would have been Lorraine Wombel's husband.
According to Teresa and her sons, when Derek and Lorraine started their relationship in July 2000, David and Lorraine were still married.
Lorraine's estranged husband, who also worked on Randolph Air Force Base, caught wind that Derek and Lorraine were dating and he did not appreciate it.
David Wombel, as they described it, would just barge into the house and have an argument with their father and with Lorraine on at least four occasions.
And although the boys never saw any overt threats or any violence, they did know that David Wombel was angry at their father for dating Lorraine.
So that was a critical piece right from the beginning.
Do they have a jilted husband on their hand?
Is he seeking revenge for someone dating his wife?
Could this be a motive for her husband to actually take Derek's life?
Coming up, a new witness comes forward.
I was shocked.
I was thinking, I gotta tell somebody what he said.
And stunning new details emerge about the day of the murder.
But will they be enough to put a killer behind bars?
The fact that that particle was there doesn't mean anything except that that vest had been in close proximity to a fired firearm.
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On December 19th, 2000, one month after 40-year-old Airman Derek Tolliver was gunned down in his own home, detectives track down Sergeant David Wombel for an interview.
Derek's soon-to-be ex-wife Teresa Tolliver and her sons have informed police that David had been seething over Derek's relationship with David's wife Lorraine for quite some time.
David spoke to authorities and he was quite candid.
He informed them that originally he confronted Derek at his house two times about the relationship.
However, David tells police that Derek is not the only man he's had to confront during his marriage to Lorraine.
This wasn't the first rodeo, if you will, Lorraine has cheated on him in the past.
David let authorities know that after trying so many times to make it work that his marriage was over, he made the decision to accept it and move on.
He had no animosity toward Derek.
Not only was he okay with her relationship, but he had moved on himself.
They weren't fighting.
Lorraine's husband had a girlfriend as well.
As for where he was the night of November 20th, 2000.
David essentially had an airtight alibi.
He clocked in and out of work at the Air Force base, and then he spent the night and morning with his new lady friend.
Officers contacted that woman and spoke to her, and she again was cooperative and confirmed David Wombel's account.
They were able to determine that David didn't have anything to do with this.
If David Womble isn't behind the shooting, then who is?
Deputies turn their attention back to the crime's sole eyewitness, Derek's girlfriend, Lorraine.
Lorraine didn't flee the scene.
She cooperated with them.
She stayed around and answered everyone's questions.
She looked to be a witness to a crime.
Authorities feel that everything that she told them is credible and she was just doing everything to provide every bit of information to help find the murderer.
So she was quickly ruled out as a a suspect.
Outside of Lorraine's partial description of the alleged shooter, investigators have no way to identify him.
They hope that Derek's neighbors can supply them with additional information.
It's essentially back to the drawing board for authorities.
You're going back to the neighborhood, canvassing the area for clues, and speaking with neighbors to see who else they can talk to.
That's when investigators make contact with Pearlie Hanna, Derek's neighbor, who made the initial call to 911.
While Pearlie says she didn't see anything unusual the day of Derek's murder, she has since learned someone else in her household might have.
My son played with his boys.
According to Pearlie's son, at around 2.30 p.m., just hours before Derek's death, he saw Teresa Tolliver's car pull into Derek's driveway.
My son saw Teresa, her boyfriend Fonzi, another guy out in the front yard the day of the murder, and he saw the boys get out of the car.
Pearlie's son tells police that he asked Teresa if her boys could come over and play.
They couldn't because they were leaving.
They just went to get clothes, he said.
The plan was for Teresa and Emmanuel to take the boys and have them all week.
Since they were out of clothes, Teresa took them to Derek's home so they can get a pair of clothes and some things to take to the house.
However, Pearlie's son claims that everyone, the boys, Teresa, Emmanuel Fonsi, and the other man, who he didn't recognize, went into Derek's home and stayed for approximately 30 minutes.
A fact that, based on what Pearlie Hanna understood about Derek and Teresa Tolliver's pending divorce, seemed highly unusual.
Emmanuel and Derek did not have a relationship, and so it wouldn't be usual for Emmanuel to go inside of the house instead of just waiting in the car.
They weren't supposed to be there.
She wasn't supposed to be there unless Derek was there.
I was shocked.
And apparently, Pearlie Hannah's son wasn't the only person that saw Teresa's Oldsmobile that day.
Another neighbor, Stephanie Espinoza, tells police that at 8 p.m., the same time that Pearlie Hannah was calling 911, she had been driving home from the dry cleaners when Teresa's car flew past her at top speed.
She actually saw two black males driving in the car that was described, and she actually identified Emmanuel as the driver.
Having the neighbors that had seen Teresa Todiver's car in the neighborhood at the time of the shooting was a major piece of evidence.
There was something about that that there's no way you can ignore it.
The following morning, investigators arrive at Teresa's apartment, where they find Emmanuel Fonsi and his friend, Arkansas native Jeremy Farr.
Jeremy and Emmanuel have known each other since they were kids, childhood friends, grown up together.
Police want to know what brought him to Texas.
According to Jeremy, he had arrived in town earlier that week.
He was actually visiting his friend Emmanuel from Arkansas and he was in the area looking for work.
Emmanuel Fonsi and Teresa Tolliver invited him to come to San Antonio and see the city.
He'd never been here before.
And he decided to take them up on that.
So a week before they had sent him a bus ticket, he didn't have plans to stay long.
Given the timeline of Derek's murder, Jeremy's story seems awfully convenient.
So investigators decide to question the two young men separately.
In their respective interviews, both Emmanuel and Jeremy say that on November 20th, 2000, they picked picked up some clothes for the kids at Derek's house.
And then, after dropping Teresa and her children off at the apartment, they enjoyed a guy's night out.
Emmanuel was going to show Jeremy the town and they drove off in that same car and were gone a few hours.
They came back around 8 o'clock.
Jeremy's statement kind of correlated with Emmanuel Fonzi's.
He said that they went and played basketball somewhere, that they had gone bowling together that night, but he, as well as Emmanuel, kind of put themselves together the whole night.
The story they gave was pretty darn identical.
Emmanuel tells police that even though he's Teresa's boyfriend, he had no reason to want Derek dead.
He didn't come across as having any ill will or animosity toward him.
When authorities talked to Emmanuel's friend Jeremy Farr, he let them know that he had never even met Derek.
As to the allegation that the two men had been seen speeding away from the crime scene, Emmanuel and Jeremy say it's simply not true.
To prove he's telling the truth, Emmanuel consents to a search of the apartment.
They searched the entire apartment.
At that point, they're hoping to find anything, any piece of physical evidence.
A gun, some shells, some shell casings.
They collected a number of clothing items, particularly the items that matched any part of the description that Lorraine had given.
The crime lab did some forensic analysis on the clothes, and there was a particular vest that they tested.
They examined the clothing for gunshot residue.
As it turns out, we did get one particle of gunshot residue.
It was found on Emmanuel Fonsi's clothing.
I think that the investigators had their main suspects, which were Emmanuel and Jeremy.
However, a single particle of gunshot residue isn't enough to warrant formal charges.
Suspicions don't equal beyond a reasonable doubt, and in this case, not even probable cause.
There's just not enough.
The fact that that particle was there doesn't mean anything except that that vest had been in close proximity to a fired firearm.
Due to the lack of concrete evidence, detectives are at an impasse.
And two days after the interview at Teresa and Emmanuel's apartment, authorities have no choice but to let Jeremy Farr return to Arkansas.
They've done all the interviews they needed to do.
They've searched the places they can find to search.
We needed to hope for a break.
Thankfully, detectives will soon discover the possible motive they've been looking for.
Authorities do some digging into their financials, and what they find is quite alarming.
Teresa was struggling to make ends meet.
Coming up, investigators grow suspicious of someone's unsettling behavior after Derek's sudden death.
They went to Disney World for like three months.
Three months in Disney World.
And will a new piece of evidence put the brakes on the killer's fun?
Bobby Jones was in possession of information on this case and served them up on a silver platter.
January 2001.
It's been more than two months since the murder of Derek Tolliver.
Detectives from the Bexer County Sheriff's Department in San Antonio, Texas have a hunch that 19-year-old Emmanuel Fonsi and his childhood friend Jeremy Farr could be behind the murder of the 40-year-old airman.
But proving it is another thing altogether.
They just didn't have enough evidence, even though they were the main suspects.
And if these two men were involved, detectives can't help but wonder how much Teresa Tolliver, Derek's ex-wife, and Emmanuel's current girlfriend, knows about the killing.
Jeremy Farr would have no reason to come from Helena, Arkansas to San Antonio, Texas to kill some tech sergeant without doing it for someone else.
So authorities know it was just a tough financial period for her.
And Emmanuel, 19 years old and had a limited education, so things were really tough for them financially.
Teresa and Emmanuel Fonzi were certainly not living in a nice apartment.
Teresa had bounced a check.
She wasn't working.
Any money coming in was barely enough to get by on.
Detectives also discover that Teresa was on the verge of receiving a serious financial windfall.
He had already had a serviceman's life insurance policy that he had purchased as part of being a soldier in the military and had benefits close to $300,000 that would accrue and be payable to a beneficiary who was Teresa Tolliver.
But as detectives discover, Teresa's window of opportunity to collect on the policy was rapidly closing.
They were just about to finalize their divorce.
According to Derek and Teresa's agreement, their divorce was scheduled to be completed on November 27th, just one week after Derek was shot to death.
Once that divorce paperwork is finalized and signed, she doesn't get the insurance proceeds.
Those don't come to her.
They'd go to the kids.
But since Derek died before the divorce was finalized, Teresa, and by extension, her live-in boyfriend Emmanuel Fonzi received the entire payout from the policy.
The authorities definitely saw this as a red flag.
Detectives also discover that when Teresa finally did receive Derek's insurance proceeds in February 2001, she didn't exactly set it aside for her children's future.
All of a sudden, there's this huge influx of cash, and she was treating these life insurance policies as if she won a lottery.
It was her jackpot, and she was just spending money left and right.
They bought that new car that was tricked out, and then we found out that they went to Disney World for like three months.
Three months in Disney World.
Though the insurance payout definitely suggests a viable motive for murder, without additional evidence connecting Teresa to the crime, neither detectives nor Derek's family can put a stop to her spending spree.
When they never got picked up or anything, I just thought they got away with murder.
It just made me sick.
The case eventually goes cold.
Then, on January 7th, 2004, more than three years after Derek's murder, the Bear County Sheriff's Department receives a phone call from Special Agent Barry Roy.
An agent in Helena, Arkansas named Roy had been approached by an individual, Bobby Jones, who was in possession of information on this case.
Bobby Jones did know both Emmanuel Fonsi and Jeremy Farr from Arkansas, and so he was familiar with both of them.
He had heard that Emmanuel Fonsi and Jeremy Farr had committed this crime together.
He took it upon himself to try to get a confession out of Jeremy Jeremy Farr.
On January 20th, 2004, agents from the Bear County Sheriff's Department arrive in Arkansas to get Bobby Jones' story in person.
I believe Bobby was at a party with Jeremy.
He knew Jeremy would talk once he'd given him a little bit of time and a little more alcohol.
Bobby Jones was very good at getting Jeremy to talk and he did.
And Jeremy during that conversation admitted that he killed Bear Calaveri.
Bobby tells police that Jeremy told him that the murder had been a paid gig set up by Jeremy's childhood friend, Emmanuel Fonzi.
Emmanuel contacted Jeremy and told him he had a job for him that would get him $50,000.
So he said, well, what kind of job is it?
He's like, oh, you just have to kill a guy.
And he was like, well, let me speak to the person who's behind this hit.
And it just so happened to be Teresa Tolliver.
Bobby Jones served them up on a silver platter.
It was very good information for them to reopen this case and pursue justice for Derek Tolliver.
Bobby Jones tells police that he didn't just hear Jeremy confess.
The statement itself had been recorded.
So we have a recording of Jeremy Farr saying things that implicate him in the murder.
It was enough at that point for us to be able to say, not only do we have Jeremy Farr saying it to somebody, but we have something to really back it up.
However, it's only enough evidence for one arrest warrant.
It was simply a case against Jeremy Farr at the time.
We didn't have enough evidence to go after Emmanuel Fonzi or Teresa Tolliver.
His admission would not have been admissible against Teresa and against Fonzi, but it confirmed all the suspicions officers had again.
That ended up being the impetus to issuing a warrant for Jeremy Farr.
On January 20th, 2004, Jeremy Farr is arrested for murder and extradited back to San Antonio.
Jeremy Farr himself, when he was confronted with the evidence against him and the admissions he made to Bobby Jones, just invoked his right to counsel.
Jeremy said nothing at that point.
He stuck to his story of I didn't do anything.
Y'all don't have a case.
And I'm ready to go to trial.
In 2005, five years after Derek Tolliver's murder, Jeremy Farr's trial begins.
We were real specific with the jury that this is an individual who came into our county and killed one of our members of the society and did it for money.
Their defense was we couldn't prove that it was him and the tape.
You couldn't really hear the tape that if anybody did this, it wasn't their client, Jeremy.
In the end, it's a defense that falls flat with jurors.
The jury didn't have any problem problem convicting Jeremy Farr.
Jeremy's sentencing is scheduled for the following Tuesday.
He was facing up to life in prison, and we were fairly confident that the jury was going to give him a high number, if not lie.
Once he's waiting for punishment, I think I was as shocked as anybody that Jeremy Farr told his attorney to ask us if he could help.
In 2005, 24-year-old Jeremy Farr was found guilty of the shooting death of 40-year-old Air Force Sergeant Derek Tolliver.
Now, just days before his sentencing, Jeremy tells investigators that he is willing to sell out his alleged co-conspirators, Teresa Tolliver and Emmanuel Fonsi, for a price.
It was time for Jeremy Farr to look after Number One, and that's what he he and his attorney decided that he needed to do.
He entered a plea of guilty to the crime of murder of Derek Tolliver with this agreement of a cap of 40 years conditioned upon him testifying truthfully at the trials of Teresa Tolliver and Emmanuel Fonsi.
While Jeremy Farr pulled the trigger, somebody else was pulling his strings, and that was Teresa and Emmanuel.
And we really wanted to see them brought to justice.
Jeremy tells investigators that a few days before Derek's murder, Emmanuel and Teresa had paid for Jeremy's bus ticket to San Antonio.
They told him he was going to get $50,000 and wanted him to come down and help take care of this.
Jeremy says that Teresa Tolliver was tired of being broke and she was afraid that Derek Tolliver may get custody of her children.
And this was all Teresa's idea.
She had every detail ready to go.
Around two or three the afternoon of the murder, they went over to Derek Tolliver's house,
Jeremy and Emmanuel the layout of the house.
When the time came, Fonzie says it's time.
They got in the car and they drove out to a residence.
And they go into the house.
It's dark at that time.
They go in through the window and they wait.
Derek Tolliver came home
and when Derek Tolliver came in the house, Jeremy crept up behind him, shot him once.
He goes down and then Jeremy shot him again at close range.
Jeremy realized at that time because he saw the garage door, he realized somebody else was there.
And after shooting Derek, they make a quick escape.
After the murder, when Emmanuel sent him home on the bus back to Arkansas, they gave him $500 and told him that they would get the big money, the insurance policies, at a later time.
However, Jeremy says that as the months passed, his promised $50,000 payout never materialized.
He had seen Emmanuel Fonzi and Teresa Tolliver in town after the murder a couple of times, and he wasn't happy that Emmanuel is driving around town in a brand new, pimped-out Durango with rims and TVs inside.
And so he kind of hunted Emmanuel down that time and was able to find him.
And I think he only gave Jeremy at that time a couple hundred dollars and then put him off.
And I think that really made Jeremy mad.
The authorities gave him a chance to flip on them so he can get a lesser sentence.
He obviously jumped at the opportunity.
He literally gave authorities everything they needed to pursue Teresa and Emmanuel for murder.
On August 7th, authorities locate Teresa Tolliver and her boyfriend, Emmanuel Fonsi, at a motel in Killeen, Texas, some three hours north of San Antonio, where the couple is living with Teresa's sons.
What's ironic about this is that Teresa's need for money, or her greed, if you will, allowed her to hire someone to kill Derek Tolliver.
And by the time authorities had enough evidence to bring her in, she was living in squalor.
They didn't have any of the money left from Derek Tolliver's life insurance.
They'd spent it all.
She didn't care about those kids just like she didn't care about Derek.
All she cared about was money.
That's all she cared about.
In January 2008, almost nine years after the murder, Emmanuel Fonsi goes to trial.
In addition to Jeremy's testimony, prosecutors use Emmanuel's first police interview against him.
Emmanuel, in his statement, places himself with Jeremy the whole night.
So if Jeremy is now saying he did it, Emmanuel is with him.
The jury didn't have any difficulty in finding the facts sufficient to convict him of capital murder, and his sentence was automatic, life without the possibility of parole.
Now it's Teresa's turn.
Teresa's was tricky and we always knew it was going to be tricky to convict somebody who we can't necessarily place at the scene.
However, in October 2009, a jury finds Teresa guilty.
She is sentenced to life in prison.
For investigators, prosecutors, and Derek's loved ones, it is a fitting end for a woman who was willing to risk it all to get rich quick.
The whole thing is sick.
I was asked if I thought the three of them got the right penalty and I said no.
I think they should have all been given the death penalty.
All of them.
Greed and selfishness basically led to her downfall several times over.
She did not want to lose that money, so much so that she put her own selfish needs before her children and before her ex-husband and his family.
That made it so much worse and maniacal for the woman that he said I do to and had two children with that she decided that he must die because she needed some money.
I don't know if justice would ever be served for my Uncle Derek because I don't know what justice in this instance looks like.
My uncle lost his life in an act of violence.
My cousins lost their father.
Jeremy Farr is scheduled to be released from prison in 2034.
He will be 52 years old.
Teresa Tolliver and Emmanuel Fonzi are not eligible for parole.
They will spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
Derek and Teresa's sons still have contact with their mother.
For more information on Snapped, go to oxygen.com.
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