Teresa Rodgers

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She was a divorced mother looking for another shot at love.

She was a cute little petite girl.

Like to have fun.

She met a smooth-talking salesman who promised her the moon.

He had a magnetic personality, a sweet talker.

He was definitely a ladies' man.

Beautiful couple together.

They were in love with each other.

But one April afternoon, their perfect union comes to a sudden and terrifying end.

I'd pull that sheet back.

He's cold as ice.

I heard the word suicide mentioned.

As detectives dig into the mysterious death, they will expose scandalous secrets.

Secrets that will lead them to an unlikely but lethal alliance.

I knew that he knew more than what he was telling me.

I said, I didn't know nothing about McGunn.

I don't know what you're talking about.

There were videos they had made of their escapades.

There was multiple people, different partners.

None of us knew that was even a lifestyle that they were living.

I received an anonymous phone call.

It was a man voice on the other end wanting to meet me and he said, you got to come alone.

He said, what's going to happen to me if I tell you something?

I just depended on what you tell me.

Did you take a weapon?

No, sir, I did not take a weapon.

Did you see a weapon?

I didn't see anything.

I didn't look for anything.

It just knocked me right in the gut.

April 20th, 2004, DeLand, Florida.

Just after 2:30 p.m., a call comes in to the Volusia County 911 Dispatch Center.

The man on the line is John Witten.

He says he's just found his brother-in-law, 48-year-old Phil Rogers, lying unconscious in bed.

I noticed a little blood around his mouth.

So that made me think he's had an aneurysm.

I said he's dead.

As John stays on the line with the 911 operator, first responders race to the scene.

When first responders arrive, they see John standing alongside Phil's stepdaughter, Jessica.

She's crying, and they both seem really upset.

Inside, first responders confirm Phil Rogers is in fact dead.

But as they examine the body, they discover something even more unsettling.

They found the bullet hole was just below the crown of the top of the head.

So now you're thinking, okay, well, maybe it's a suicide.

Did someone come in and remove the gun?

As that possibility hangs in the air, detectives from the DeLand Police Department head to the scene.

What they're about to discover will not only raise questions about Phil Rogers' death, but spawn a slew of suspicions about the people in his inner circle.

It was almost like a dream.

You know, like I didn't understand what was going on.

We all have dark secrets and I want everybody to see the real story, what really happened.

Far from the palm trees and mild sunny winters of central Florida, Phil Rogers grew up in the working-class grain belt of the Midwest.

My father was born in Carbondale, Illinois, of southern Illinois, and then they relocated to East Peoria.

Phil grew up in Illinois.

He got married.

He had a daughter and a son named Cheyenne, but the marriage didn't last.

Following the divorce, Phil wanted a fresh start.

Looking to escape the cold winters of East Peoria for good, Phil headed to Florida's sun-kissed Atlantic coast.

My father moved away from Illinois when I do believe I was five or six years old, and we talked frequently on the phone.

I would go down there for either Christmas or he would come up.

Phil settled in the cozy community of DeLand, midway between Orlando and Daytona Beach.

Once settled in, Phil landed a job driving a food delivery truck.

They sold ice cream, different foods to beverages.

You know, it was more of a door-to-door sales route.

If you seen them, you flagged them down, they would make their rounds to see if you needed anything.

Charismatic and friendly, Phil was a natural salesman.

I don't care what you say, he could talk you into buying ice.

If it was not good for you, he could sell it to you.

He always worked six days a week, which seemed like 52 weeks out of the year.

He never really took vacation.

It was always work, work, work.

He was determined to be the number one salesman in the Southeast, and he was doing pretty well.

When Phil wasn't working, he enjoyed his favorite pastimes, drinking ice-cold beer, watching NASCAR, and generally having a good time.

For my father, he loved Eleanor.

Kind of looked liked him too.

Phil was a funny guy.

He was fun to be around with.

You'd have a good time being around him.

He could go to sleep holding a can of beer straight up.

When he woke up, he could drink it because he didn't turn it over.

When it came to women phil was equally as skilled he had a magnetic personality he was definitely a ladies man

one of phil's customers was so charmed by phil that she introduced him to her daughter 30 year old teresa puckett teresa was tan and pretty a florida girl born and raised she was a cute little petite girl, you know, she liked to have fun and so they just hit it off.

Teresa grew up in DeLand.

One of four kids, she was the rebel in the family.

Teresa was mischievous.

She would push it to the limit.

There was times that I took a lot of whippings forward to cover up for her.

When she graduated high school, Teresa got a job at a commercial greenhouse.

There, she found a steady paycheck and eventually a husband.

She was a secretary at one of the fern growers.

That's actually how she met her first husband.

He was quite a bit older than her.

She was pretty much young when he married her.

When it first started out, everything was

real good.

Teresa and her husband had two kids together, Jessica and Josh.

With his rambunctious spirit, Josh took after his mother.

He was fun.

He had a great personality.

I mean, I think he had that headstrongness, you know.

After 10 years of marriage, Teresa's romance with an older man lost its luster.

She filed for divorce and moved out.

Her son Josh and daughter Jessica continued to live with their father.

She had visitation and, you know, she had holidays and things, and they were over at her house all the time.

Now single and only seeing her kids on weekends and holidays, Teresa struggled to find purpose in her life.

She was kind of lost.

She didn't want to be with her ex, but she didn't want to be alone.

Then in the early 90s, when Teresa's mother introduced her to Phil Rogers, she was immediately smitten, and the pair soon started dating.

Neither one of them wanted to be alone in that they both just liked to have fun.

And he was nice.

He worked hard and he, you know, everybody liked him.

He doted on her when they dated and he put her on a pedestal.

It wasn't long before Phil asked Teresa to marry him.

Teresa didn't hesitate.

It was a cute wedding, you know, at the Grant Bly house, and she asked me to be the matron of honor.

It was a very pretty wedding.

They were a beautiful couple together.

She's a very beautiful bride.

When they got married, you could see that they were in love with each other.

It was good for him and good for her.

Following the wedding, Phil and Teresa did their best to make Josh, Jessica, and Phil's son Cheyenne feel welcome in their home, especially during the holidays.

I mean, they went nuts.

When it come time for Christmas, Christmas tree with 3,000 lights?

He spent all that time putting them lights on there.

She couldn't put them up because she didn't get them straight enough.

He had to do it all.

My dad had to have the biggest Christmas tree.

We're talking eight-foot ceiling with a 10 and a half foot Christmas tree.

Phil, Teresa, and their children celebrated the next decade of Christmases together.

By 2004, Teresa was now 42 and Phil was 48.

Phil's son Cheyenne had moved to Florida, while Teresa's children, Josh and Jessica, also lived nearby.

As for the couple's relationship, Phil still treated Teresa like a queen.

They had a nice home, and he constantly showered her with gifts and jewelry, and she was his trophy wife.

I don't think I ever seen him love anyone else as much as he loved her.

But on April April 20th, 2004, Phil and Teresa's love story comes to an abrupt end.

I walked into the house.

There were some police officers in the room.

I heard the word suicide mentioned.

Some people just want to guess at things.

My nature is to look at everything and then make my determination to find out really if it was a suicide.

Coming up, a closer look at the crime scene brings forth a new theory.

Then the left hand is going to go numb and probably not drop the way it did drop.

And if so, where's the gun?

And bizarre behavior makes detectives question an unexpected suspect.

I'd never been on that side of the law.

April 20th, 2004.

Florida first responders have just discovered Phil Rogers dead in his master bedroom with a single gunshot wound to the head.

When you have somebody that's died of a gunshot, especially to the head, there's always a thought, well, maybe it's suicide.

You just start collecting as much evidence as you can.

As police process the scene, word of Phil's death soon reaches his wife, Teresa Rogers, who's currently being cared for at nearby West Volusha Hospital.

Teresa had been admitted to the hospital two days earlier.

She was recovering from a minor surgery, and she was supposed to be released the following day.

I remember looking at her in the bed, and Phil had given her flowers, and she was holding on to the base of flowers.

And she was saying, you know, what happened?

What happened?

I can't believe this has happened.

What happened?

And I just remember trying to calm her down.

While Teresa's sisters try to comfort her, investigators with the DeLand Police Department are assessing the scene at the Rogers residence.

Almost immediately, they hear whispers that the 48-year-old Phil may have taken his own life.

Phil got to where he drank pretty heavy, and he was always aggravated when he was drinking.

I figured what he done is he got ticked off and got to drinking and pulled that gun.

As much as he drank,

I thought, well, maybe he could have, you know.

But as Detective Richard Rockburn studies the scene, he begins to question the notion that Phil Rogers took his own life.

Where the bullet hole was just below the crown of the top of the head and right below it, pretty much in the center.

You know, that's not a normal place to shoot yourself if you're going to do it yourself.

Why would his arm still be underneath the pillow?

You know, so if he shot himself with the left hand, then the left hand is going to go numb and probably not drop the way it did drop and if so where's the gun

some people commit suicide by using car exhaust some by taking pills whatever but if it's a if it's a firearm the firearm's still going to be there pretty much you're going to rule out suicide if you don't find the weapon

now suspecting foul play Investigators search the rest of the Rogers home for clues about the crime.

Everything is in order.

Everything is immaculate, except for the kitchen.

There was some change in different things on the countertop.

And there was a couple drawers that were left open in the kitchen.

And I thought may have been planned that way.

So the kitchen seemed to catch my eye.

Was the killer looking for something in Phil and Terese's kitchen?

If so, what?

There were no signs of forced entry.

It didn't look like the home had been ransacked.

But if the killer was looking for something, it looked like they knew exactly where to find it.

Investigators turn to the two people who were present when police first arrived at the scene.

Phil's 17-year-old stepdaughter, Jessica Puckett, and his brother-in-law, John Whitting.

They find John on the front lawn, trying to console Jessica.

She put her hand up on the tree and leaned against it and started crying.

And she cried and she cried.

And I tried hugging her.

I tried to help her.

She was so upset.

Jessica tells detectives that her mother had asked her to feed the dog while she was in the hospital.

Jessica says she fed the dog and it looked like Phil was sleeping in the master bedroom.

Jessica says that after she fed the dog, she left the house where she ran into her uncle, John Widden.

She was standing outside in the front yard near the tree when I got there.

She said she'd been in to feed the dog, but she said she hadn't went to his room.

She didn't want to disturb Phil.

So I told her, I said, you stay outside.

I'll go back in and check on him.

I'll come back and let you know.

Investigators are curious to know what brought John over to his brother-in-law's house that day.

Kathy, my wife, had called me, and she's the one that Teresa had called and asked if I could go over and check on him.

Phil is supposed to have a dental procedure done that morning, like a

root canal or something.

And so, when she wasn't able to get a hold of him, she called me to see if my husband would go by there.

John tells detectives that when he walked in the bedroom, everything seemed to be in order.

Nothing looked to be out of place.

So I walked in to the inside of his room.

I seen him leaned over over on the side of the bed, which made me a little curious, so I walked back over to him.

He had no shirt, just his shorts, laid over in the bed with his face turned down.

I shook him, but when I did, I jumped back.

He was cold.

Ice cold.

John says he called 911 and headed outside.

But before help arrived, he decided to go back into the house for another look.

When I went back in there, I looked a little closer.

Then I realized.

That he'd been shot back in the head.

I didn't know what to think.

I was numb.

Once I realized what had happened, I didn't really know what to say, to be truthful with you.

It just happened so fast.

But who would want to murder a kind, outgoing husband and father like Phil Rogers?

According to John and Jessica, Phil was well-liked and had no enemies to speak of.

However, John tells detectives that he and the rest of the family had worried for years that someone might come after Phil for an entirely different reason.

Every night after his shift, Phil would come home with a large amount of cash from the day.

John tells investigators he'd warned his brother-in-law to be careful.

I said, you know what, somebody could knock you in the head and take that money.

Oh, I ain't worried about it.

I ain't worried about it.

I had thought really somebody followed him home, and I thought they had robbed him.

Is John Witten correct?

Or did someone kill Phil for more personal reasons?

Given the seemingly staged scene in the kitchen, investigators wonder if John himself might be responsible for the crime.

Now, it is possible whoever killed Phil could have been after his money, but police also know that John could very well be trying to throw them off his track.

I did not know anything about these people.

What investigators do know, though, is that someone knew how to get in and out of the Rogers home without making forced entry.

That's kind of suspicious.

I didn't want to speculate, but automatically my mind went to thinking.

It has to be an inside job.

It's a fact that only deepens the suspicion around Phil's brother-in-law, John Witten.

Detectives also notice that the longer they question John, the more agitated he becomes.

John's showing signs of stress.

He's looking a little suspicious.

He said, I need to go look at your truck.

I said, okay.

he pulls the seat out of the way scatters my tools there i said what are you doing i said don't scatter my tools that made me angry i was not happy in the position where i was at i'd never been on that side of the law

he said we want you to go downtown with us and ask a few questions

coming up police press john witten for more answers i was scared I was mad.

And a shocking discovery raises even more questions about the murder of Phil Rogers.

There were videos they had made of their escapades.

They were apparently part of a swinging lifestyle.

It just knocked me right in the gut.

None of us knew that was even a lifestyle that they were living.

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The death of 48-year-old husband and father Phil Rogers has turned into a full-fledged murder investigation.

With Phil's wife, Teresa, recovering from surgery in a nearby hospital, detectives have zeroed in on Teresa's brother-in-law, John Witten, as a possible person of interest.

John Witten is Phil's brother-in-law, and he was questioned at the scene by police.

He He seemed angry and uncooperative.

Investigators ask John to accompany them to the station for further questioning.

They had me ride in the back of the car.

He was asking me, if you got something to tell me, you tell me now on the way to the station.

Because once we get the station, ain't nothing I can do for you.

I looked at him.

I said, what do you want me to tell you?

I don't know.

I don't know nothing.

What do you want me to tell you?

Once at the station, detectives continue to press john right now we've got a person who more than likely had a bullet gun through his brain and we've got no murder weapon and we needed to find out did you take a weapon no sir i did not take a weapon did you see a weapon i didn't see anything i didn't look for anything once i felt him cold like he was i backed back out of the room The harder they push, though, the more John stands his ground.

If somebody was to move anything in a crime scene like that, that would be a felony.

That would be tampering with.

Right.

I wouldn't do that.

I was mad i was scared and i remember telling five i don't know nothing dude i don't know what you want me to tell you i can't tell you something i don't know i just ended up on the scene checking on my brother-in-law

after intense questioning detectives are beginning to believe that john is telling the truth but there's only one way to be sure they took my hands and sprayed it with this stuff to see if there was any gun residue, asked me if I'd shot a gun in the last five days.

The GSR test comes back negative, giving police confidence that John Widden isn't the shooter.

With John no longer a suspect, detectives revisit the theory that Phil Rogers may have been robbed.

At the end of every workday, Phil essentially came home with a sack full of cash from his deliveries.

Investigators receive word from the crime scene that a full search of the Rogers home is complete.

They also learn that officers there discovered an important piece of evidence.

They found Phil's collection back from work that day and it was still full of cash and checks.

The discovery shuts down the theory that Phil was robbed.

However, officers on the scene also make another discovery and this one holds a treasure trove of evidence.

They found this giant trunk that was full of sex toys and videotapes.

It's the content of the videotapes that truly gets their attention.

These tapes show Teresa and Phil having sex, but not just with each other.

They're having sex with lots of different people.

They were apparently part of a swinging lifestyle.

There were videos they had made of their escapades.

There were other men involved, other women possibly involved.

So that piqued everybody's interest, obviously.

With the discovery of the tapes, investigators investigators are eager to talk to Phil's widow, Teresa Rogers.

They head to the hospital, where Teresa has been a patient for the past several days.

I introduced myself to Teresa, and she started crying.

I took her face and my hands, and I just looked at her.

I said, listen,

we're going to find out who did this.

We're going to find out what's going to happen.

Detectives start by asking Teresa about the trunk full of tapes and toys, which catches both her and her sisters off guard.

Then she started unveiling some things about, you know, being in the swinger stuff.

I thought I was going to throw up everywhere.

It just knocked me right in the gut because none of us knew that was even a lifestyle that they were living.

That was just all shock.

Teresa tells detectives that Phil was the one who'd initially suggested they explore the swinger's lifestyle.

At first, it was fun.

But Teresa says that over time, Phil's sexual entreaties became more frequent and began to look more like ultimatums than requests.

There was multiple people, different partners.

She always had to be accessible to Phil and anybody that he brought over, whether she wanted to or not.

She still loved him, but it wasn't the same.

Their lifestyle, which we knew nothing about until everything was over, had come between them.

Teresa explains there was another unintended consequence of her and Phil's sexual escapades.

One that, from Teresa's point of view, wasn't all bad.

She had fallen in love with one of the people that they were swingers with.

They met through the swingers.

Phil brought him home, and it backfired on Phil.

The man Teresa had feelings for was named Gary.

He was very jealous.

He didn't want her to see him anymore.

And in fact, she had planned on moving out of the house phil told teresa he would never give her a divorce so he would not let her be with him

as investigators listen to teresa's account they have to ask themselves had gary taken it upon himself to free teresa from her unhappy marriage

Might have been him because that would have been his motivation is to get rid of Phil, thinking he's going to get Teresa.

After speaking with Teresa, detectives head straight to the home of her lover, Gary.

I went to his house and I told him who I was, told him he was not under arrest.

Basically, he said he was in love with her.

She was the love of his life.

I was asked to swab his mouth for DNA.

He signed a release for that.

He was very cooperative.

But despite his cooperation, Gary's demeanor gives detectives pause.

He was very upset.

He was sweating, very nervous.

And I knew that he knew more than what he was telling me.

And I was just trying to pull it out of him.

I would say, I can see you're nervous.

Do you have something that you need to hide or that you're really afraid of?

That's when Gary gets a call on his cell phone.

We were standing outside talking and Teresa had called him from the hospital.

Gary talks to her for a few minutes and then hangs up.

Then he explains to detectives that she just asked him to bring her something.

She wanted Gary to bring her his hairbrush.

And

I thought that was strange.

And I said to him, I said, you know, with this phone call with the hairbrush, it sounds to me like Teresa's trying to set you up.

That's when Gary breaks down.

and gives Detective Rockburn the information he's been pushing for.

Gary said, what if I tell you something?

What's going to happen to me if I tell you something?

Depending on what you tell me.

Gary said there were people

planned on killing Phil.

Coming up, detectives zero in on a surprising new suspect.

I think I want to finish talking about this whenever I have a lawyer present.

Just hours into the murder investigation of 48-year-old Phil Rogers, detectives in DeLand, Florida have uncovered a secret relationship between Phil's wife, Teresa, and another man named Gary.

Teresa and Phil were swingers, and Teresa had fallen in love with someone who they'd been swinging with.

While Detective Rockburn has Gary in the hot seat, an unexpected phone call comes in from Teresa.

She's calling Gary when I'm still with him to bring her his hairbrush.

The detective tells Gary, it looks like she's trying to frame you for murder.

I said, you're in love with Teresa so much, you're going to be in prison and she's going to be out here.

That's when Gary admits he knows more than he's been letting on.

Basically, what he said was there were people

planned on killing Phil.

I says, you need to come back to the police department with me.

Back at the station, Gary tells detectives that since February, he'd been spending a lot of time at Phil and Teresa's house, especially when Phil wasn't around.

Obviously, Gary spent a lot of time with Teresa, but he also spent some time with her 18-year-old son, Josh, and his friends.

Gary tells detectives that Josh's friends are 23-year-old Curtis Rhodes and 20 year old Justin Tucker.

According to Gary, starting back in February, the topic of conversation whenever they got together centered around one thing, how unhappy Josh's mom Teresa was in her marriage to Phil.

Teresa was miserable.

She wanted out and she wanted to be with Gary.

Gary tells them that divorce wasn't an option.

Not because Phil was playing hardball about it, but because the couple was deeply in debt.

She had gone to her attorney and her attorney told her, if you get divorced from Phil, you're still going to be liable and to pay your half of debts that you guys incurred during your marriage.

So that was not a way out for her.

But if Phil died, Teresa could collect his life insurance.

Gary tells them that Teresa, Josh, Justin, and Curtis often brainstormed about ways to take Phil out.

They talked about robbing and shooting him while he was on his route.

They talked about killing him while he was walking the dog.

They even talked about killing him in his sleep.

Gary says he never participated in the talk, nor did he take it seriously.

Gary said that he just blew it off as idle talk, that they really wouldn't do it.

Gary's statement opens up even more questions for detectives.

Namely, did Teresa conspire with her own son to murder her husband?

Detectives start by looking into the allegation that Teresa and Phil were deeply in debt.

They soon learn that Phil's tastes in particular far exceeded the family budget, especially when it came to cars.

Phil went to the car dealership.

There was a Dale Earnhardt edition of a Monte Carlo on the

showroom floor and he was a big Dale Earnhardt fan.

He asked how much and the salesman said you can't can't afford that.

Well, that was the wrong thing to say to Phil.

So he brought that car home.

I believe the payment was like $750 a month.

There was no way they could afford a mortgage payment and a car payment like that.

According to financial statements, Phil and Teresa quickly fell behind on their house payment.

And within a matter of months, it was in foreclosure.

At this point, the only safety net Teresa had was Phil's life insurance policy.

Teresa was standing to gain anywhere from $677,000 to $690,000 in insurance.

Between her love affair with Gary and the lucrative life insurance payout, it seems Teresa Rogers has ample reason to want her husband dead.

There's no doubt that Teresa had a motive, but she was in the hospital on the day that Phil was murdered.

So she couldn't have fired the shots that killed her husband.

Instead of going back to Teresa, detectives turned to her son, 18-year-old Josh Puckett.

According to Teresa's lover, Gary, Josh had often helped his mother brainstorm ways to get rid of his stepdad.

We're trying to talk to everybody who knows anybody, knows anything, has heard anything, and so on and so forth.

Just want to make sure you knew you weren't arrested.

You ain't going to handcuffs on.

You can leave.

The door is open.

Detectives ask Josh to describe his whereabouts on the day of the murder.

Josh explains he had been visiting with friends at the time of the crime.

We just hung out and everyone, uh,

we just hanging out till like six o'clock in the morning.

We all went to sleep.

Josh claims he didn't know anything about Phil's death until his sister Jessica called him later that day.

As far as his relationship with Phil, Josh says it was just fine.

Would you like your stepfather?

Yeah, no problem.

Eager to find out if Josh is holding back, detectives play play hardball.

You know we know the truth and everything here.

You know why we're asking these questions before we get into them?

Josh doesn't budge.

Did you ever have any discussions about the death of

your stepdad before it happened?

So what do you think, though?

I think I want to finish talking about this.

I have a lawyer present.

Other than Gary's statement, they didn't have any other evidence against Josh.

So they had to let him go.

After releasing Josh, detectives seek out his friends, Justin Tucker and Curtis Rhodes.

But before police can track the two young men down, Detective Rockburn receives a mysterious call.

I received an anonymous phone call.

It was a man voice on the other end wanting to meet me.

He said, you got to come alone.

If we see any other cops,

we're not going to talk to you.

I'm like, okay.

I picked a place.

I told them, I says, meet me there at one o'clock.

I went to two other cops that I respect their talents and said, you need to hide.

Don't be seen.

You can't be seen because that could get me killed.

Just before 1 p.m.

on May 4th, Detective Rockburn arrives at the meeting spot, the parking lot behind a local Walmart, wearing a wire and unsure if he's walking into an ambush.

I'm looking for escape route or exit routes.

You try to cover all your bases,

but you never know what you're getting into when you meet people.

At precisely one o'clock, the mystery caller arrives.

This truck pulled in with three males in the front, and I didn't really know who they were.

As the men get out of the truck, Rockburn discovers that one of them is Teresa's son, Josh Puckett,

along with his friend, Justin Tucker.

It was Josh and Justin, and then the third guy, I had no clue who he was.

He just stood back like he was the muscle guy.

That's what I'm thinking.

So I kept my eye on him.

They were hesitant at first, but then they started talking.

And they said, we want to confess because we can't sleep.

One of them said that they had killed Phil.

I said, you know, you need to come down to the station and make a statement.

Coming up, detectives learn the full scope of how and why Phil Rogers was murdered.

I said, what did you do this for?

And he said, $20,000 in a Monte Carlo.

And as the truth unfurls, the crime's real mastermind is finally revealed.

They started turning on her.

There were seven other cops with me now.

They came out from behind the trees.

I told her to turn around.

She was under arrest.

Do police have the right suspect in custody?

The judge says, I believe that you're not the one to pull the trigger.

In a stunning twist, on May 4th, 2004, Teresa Rogers' 18-year-old son, Josh Puckett, and his friend, 20-year-old Justin Tucker, confess to killing Josh's stepfather, frozen food salesman Phil Rogers.

They said they can't sleep.

I asked them how they did it, and they said it was a gunshot.

Detective Rockburn escorts Justin and Josh back to the police station.

They go back to the station.

Justin and Josh are separated, and they are both individually questioned.

According to Josh, the seeds of this conspiracy were planted a few months earlier when his mother told him that her marriage to Phil was on the rocks.

Josh says as his mother confided in him, it wasn't the couple's money woes that concerned him.

She had told Josh that he had been physically abusive with her.

He said he did see bruises.

Teresa is telling her son that Phil is abusive.

Then it became, wouldn't it be great if Phil was just gone?

We'd have all this money.

I'd end up with Gary.

Josh tells detectives that eventually another one of his friends, 23-year-old Curtis Rhodes, offered to help Teresa out.

Apparently, Curtis Rhodes approached a couple of people about killing Phil, but those conversations, they never went anywhere.

Then, according to Josh, a few weeks back, at the beginning of April, his mother offered to pay a large sum of money if Josh would kill Phil himself.

I said, what did you do this for?

And he said $20,000 in a Monte Carlo.

Josh says he agreed and they asked Justin Tucker to help.

Josh says his mom believed her upcoming hospital stay would provide the perfect opportunity for them to commit the murder.

Teresa gave them a key to her and Phil's house and on the night of April 19th, Josh and Justin put the plan into action.

Teresa has Phil take a sleeping pill that night so that he would really be out.

Teresa had talked to Phil that night and Phil told her, yeah, I did take it.

That information from Teresa was related to Justin Tucker and Josh Puckett.

Around 1.30 in the morning, Josh and Justin arrived at the home.

Josh tells police that he took on the job of comforting the couple's dog.

The dog didn't like Justin.

So, Josh, how to hold your dog?

Josh says, while he was holding the dog, Justin entered the bedroom where Phil was sleeping.

And Josh says a few moments later, he heard a gunshot.

At that point, Josh and Justin, they flee the scene, and they end up driving to the St.

Johns River, where they toss the gun.

I says, was it worth it?

And he goes, no.

And he laid his head down on his arm on the table.

In a nearby interview room, Justin Tucker tells a similar story to investigators, except for one crucial detail.

Justin says, yeah, I helped in this murder, but I didn't pull the trigger.

He says, Josh did.

They're pointing fingers at each other.

As to who actually pulled the trigger, it didn't really matter.

They both admitted to taking part in the crime, and they were both placed under arrest and charged with murder.

With the confessions of Josh Puckett and Justin Tucker in hand, detectives head to Teresa Rogers' house the following morning.

Her dad opened the door and I said, would you please send Teresa out here?

She came out and by this time there was probably five or seven other cops with me now.

They came out from behind the trees or whatever.

And I told her to turn around.

She was under arrest for the murder of Phil.

And she started crying.

I guess I'll never forget.

I was coming out of Walmart.

And my mom called me and said, you need to get over here right now.

They've picked up Teresa.

I was more shocked that Joshua would be involved in that, you know.

I mean, he's just a young kid.

The arrest of Teresa and Josh for Phil's murder isn't the only shocking revelation.

The abuse allegations lobbed at Phil take those closest to him by surprise.

I have a hard time believing that.

I never once saw my father

get physically abusive.

As for Teresa, she refuses to admit any wrongdoing.

That is, until she realizes realizes a jury trial and subsequent guilty verdict might land her on death row.

Teresa did not want initially to make any sort of confession, but this is first-degree murder and we still have the death penalty in Florida.

They started turning on her.

And once she was faced with all that evidence, she did finally take the plea deal.

Teresa ultimately pleads no contest to solicitation and conspiracy to commit murder, armed robbery, and second degree murder.

Josh Puckett and Justin Tucker also take deals.

They plead to second degree murder, solicitation and conspiracy, and armed robbery.

In February 2006, they are each sentenced to 25 years.

However, at the last minute, there's yet another surprise twist.

At the sentencing, the judge had asked Josh, did you pull the trigger?

And he said, no, sir, I did not.

When he asked Justin that Justin hung his head the judge takes Justin's reaction as a sign that he is in fact the trigger man in turn he reduces Josh Puckett's sentence from 25 years to 20.

And the judge says you know just from the demeanor of everything I believe that you're not the one to pull the trigger.

That same month 43-year-old Teresa is sentenced to 40 years in prison, a sentence twice as long as her son's.

Does she need to pay the price for what she's done?

Absolutely.

But to give somebody 40 years for that when you were not even in there and it's never been proved that you were even the mastermind behind it.

That's a lot of years to give to somebody.

For those closest to Phil and Teresa, the lingering question will always be,

why?

Why did you guys need other people instead of cherishing each other?

You know, it's just questions like that

will never be answered.

We still have their picture in our living room.

And from time to time, I do stop and look at it and wonder if things could have been a lot different.

For the better, there were no winners.

Teresa Rogers is scheduled to be released from prison on March 27th, 2040.

She will be 78 years old.

In February 2006, Curtis Rhodes pled guilty to solicitation to commit murder.

He was sentenced to two years, eight months in prison.

For more information on Snapped, go to oxygen.com.

On Boxing Day 2018, 20-year-old Joy Morgan was last seen at her church, Israel United in Christ, or IUIC.

I just went on my Snapchat and I just see her face plastered everywhere.

This is The Missing Sister, the true story of a woman betrayed by those she trusted most.

IUIC is my family and like the best family that I've ever had.

But IUIC isn't like most churches.

This is a devilish cult.

You know when you get that feeling where you're just, I don't want to be here.

I want to get out.

It's like that feeling of, like, I want to go hang out.

I'm Charlie Brent Coast Cuff and after years of investigating Joy's case, I need to know what really happened to Joy.

Binge all episodes of The Missing Sister exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.

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