Wanda Stanley

Candice Rivera has it all.

In just three years, she went from stay-at-home mum to traveling the world, saving lives and making millions.

Anyone would think Candice's charm life is about as real as Unicorn's.

But sometimes the truth is even harder to believe than the lies.

It's not true.

There are so many things not true.

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I'm Charlie Webster and this is Unicorn Girl, an Apple original podcast produced by Seven Hills.

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Bravos, the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City are back.

Here we are, ladies.

I don't like it.

And they're taking things to the next level.

You know, some people just get on your nerves.

You questioned every single thing I have.

You're supposed to be my sister.

I am your sister.

You know, you're not.

We have to be honest about this.

I'm afraid.

You should pay the blossoms off.

No one sues the bottom.

They all go for the top.

Can I have the crazy pill that y'all took?

Apparently, you're already taking it.

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, September 16th, on Bravo.

And streaming, I'm Peacock.

They were an ordinary middle-class couple until a stroke of good luck changed their fortunes forever.

And that was certainly a substantial chunk of money.

She had diamonds.

She had fur coats.

She was living an American dream.

But when a horrific murder upends their world, it exposes a life of secrets.

and proves the adage that more money often means more problems.

He was, was, as we call, a street pharmacist.

When I say substantial, I'm talking about like a brick of cocaine.

Does he like to have sex with you when he's high or

does he force it on you?

Somebody took advantage of him, shot and killed him, and robbed him.

The person that she describes is a monster.

A complete monster.

December 26th, 2008.

In College Park, Georgia, an apartment resident is headed to her car when she spots a seemingly abandoned vehicle parked in a remote area of the complex.

A resident of the apartment complex had walked by.

They'd seen the vehicle, thought it looked out of place.

The vehicle had moved, and generally you know people are in and out of the apartment complex the woman peers through the window of the suv

what she sees inside takes her breath away a body was laid across the back floorboard of the vehicle

He was perfectly in the back seat.

I mean, his head was up against one door and his feet were up against the other door.

The woman immediately calls 911.

Within minutes, investigators arrive on the scene.

They find the man's driver's license in the front seat.

He is identified as 45-year-old John Stanley.

His cause of death seems clear.

He had a cap, a knit cap, on his head that covered part of his head, but it had a bullet hole in it.

So that would be the exit side of the projectile.

where it came out above the right eye.

The question now is, how did John Stanley end up in the back of an SUV with a bullet in his head?

The answer lies in a young love affair that started on the rough and tumble streets of Brownsville, Brooklyn some 20 years earlier between 25-year-old John Stanley and 18-year-old Wanda Black.

Wanda grew up in Ocean Hill, Brownsville.

She came from a two-family home with her mom and her dad.

She was quiet and she was a homebody, what we would consider just like a nice girl.

She would smile.

If you talk to her, she would talk back to you, but she wouldn't just strike up a conversation with you.

A wallflower for most of her teens.

During her senior year of high school, Wanda fell hard for a smooth-talking gentleman several years her senior.

She ended up pregnant, but the would-be father didn't stick around.

He lived in the projects.

He was,

as we call, a street pharmacist.

He made his money on the streets, and once he found out that she was pregnant, he didn't want anything to do with her at the time.

And he was seeing other females as well.

Though Wanda was prepared to raise her unborn child by herself, at a cookout in the summer of 1989, she was hit by a thunderbolt in the form of 25 year old aspiring boxer john stanley

we used to hang around the same area she would come over she would spend nights we would have girls nights meet her sister her cousin and that's how she met john unlike wanda john hadn't been raised in a stable two-parent household We grew up in a rough neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York section of Brownsville.

The 80s was a crack year, and everybody and their mother was a so-called dealer.

As if a life in Brownsville wasn't hard enough, John's small stature only made things harder.

Ain't a lot of neighborhoods like Brownsville, man.

You know, I love it, though.

A lot of good people came from it, but ain't had a lot of hard living in the neighborhood he was from.

John was always, he was always small, so he always had to stand up for himself and always be able to protect himself.

But rather than turn to a life of crime, John took up boxing.

It was a way to instill some type of discipline into him, but always be able to protect himself.

And he just, he loved it.

He loved boxing.

He was very, very fast, very fast with his hands.

He was really good at it.

When I was training for a fight, John actually got into the ring with me one time.

And I thought I was something special until I got in a ring with John.

John's skill in the ring landed him a spot on New York City's prestigious Golden Glove Circuit.

But turning pro proved harder and less lucrative than John expected.

So in order to support his boxing dreams, John took a second job as a long-haul trucker.

I can remember him getting up at four in the morning, taking a shower, getting dressed, packing his lunch.

He packed his lunch as long as I can remember on time.

Never missed a day.

He was a hard worker.

He worked for what he had.

It wasn't like, it wasn't hustle money, no drug dealer money, none of that, never.

We didn't sell drugs, never did.

But every drug dealer knew us because we basically went to school together or something like that before they became dealers.

So you still kept a level of respect for each other.

The moment John laid eyes on Wanda, he was hit with Cupid's arrow.

Her and John started seeing each other.

She told him she was pregnant and he said it didn't matter.

I believe John felt that was a chance for him to be the father that he wanted to be.

So he stepped in and he helped her.

He tried to encourage her to finish school.

He was genuinely head over heels in love with her and that he felt like he could not be without her.

It was really like she was swept off her feet by him.

She was quite smitten with him.

My earliest memories of John and Wanda,

loving, loving couple.

I mean, I just remember them.

He was in love with her, you know, made a cute couple, you know.

When Wanda's son James was born in June of 1989, John was right there by her side.

When James was born, John basically stepped into the role of being James' father.

He took care of him from day one as if he were his own.

Over the next decade, John and Wanda added three more children to their family.

Wanda was very happy.

Both of them was very happy.

She was a good mom to them.

She was a good mom.

But in January of 2003, an unexpected accident took a toll on the Stanleys' life together.

While on his normal trucking route, John made a delivery to a construction site.

An unsecured overhead door fell on him, fracturing both of his shoulders.

He had multiple surgeries on his shoulders and limited mobility after that point.

Because of this limited mobility, he could not work.

He couldn't box anymore.

Boxing was really a big thing to him, so for that to happen was tragic.

With both his boxing career and his job as a truck driver wiped out in one fell swoop, John struggled to support Wanda and the kids.

It was definitely devastating for him.

He would be hurting, but you only would know that if he told you that.

But even when it was hurting, he's not going to call you a, man.

He wasn't a whiner.

He wasn't wimpy.

John decided to sue the construction company, and in 2007, he was awarded a life-altering $600,000 in damages.

That was certainly a substantial chunk of money for John and Wanda.

He knew that once he received the money, he'll be able to provide more for them.

He'll be able to give them a better life.

Suddenly flush with cash, John and Wanda decided it was time for a fresh start.

They moved to Atlanta and purchased a six-bedroom home in the cozy suburb of Locust Grove.

You can afford to buy a house in Atlanta,

a real house, a big house, for less than what you would pay for an apartment in a place like Brooklyn.

Wanda adapted well to their lifestyle.

They had this huge house, a bunch of money, decorating the house, going shopping with the kids, and things like that.

I actually cried when I saw the place for the first time.

I couldn't believe that he lived in a house like this.

I mean, compared to New York City, it was like a castle to a little girl.

It was beautiful.

I felt like they were completely happy with one another.

John and Wanda's new fairy tale life wouldn't last forever.

John was found dead inside of his SUV in the parking lot of an apartment complex.

Coming up, as the investigation into John Stanley's death unfolds, it becomes clear that not everything in the Stanleys' life was quite so picture-perfect.

He probably was was shot

without even knowing what hit him.

In 2008, New York City natives John and Wanda Stanley parlayed a personal tragedy into a fresh start in Atlanta, Georgia, after John received a six-figure workers' comp settlement.

John showered Wanda with all the finer things in life.

They did vacations all the time.

She had diamonds.

She had fur coats.

She was living an American dream.

She had this big, huge house.

But that dream is shattered when John Stanley is found shot to death in the back seat of an SUV SUV at an apartment complex in College Park.

Inside the vehicle was a black male laying on the floor between the driver's seat and the second row of seats.

You find the body and you have to go back and you have to recreate how that body or that person could have been killed.

For investigators, this mystery began five days earlier on the evening of December 21st, 2008,

with a 911 call from Wanda Stanley.

Wanda Stanley called Henry County Police, let them know that her husband had gone out and he was missing and she didn't know where he was.

John left the residence and he did not return.

Ms.

Stanley reported he had some friends and he was going out to a club or a bar somewhere up in the Atlanta area.

Wanda explains she doesn't know the name of the club where John was headed, nor does she know the name of the friends he planned to meet up with.

Officers tell Wanda there's no need for her to assume the worst, at least not yet.

In this particular case, 40-year-old man not coming home the next morning wouldn't have been very suspicious.

It happens very often, honestly.

Most times they go missing for a while, and then they do come back.

So you don't put a lot of your manpower out there trying to find a missing person 10, 12 hours being gone until things start developing,

evidence starts developing that they're, well,

this may not be your typical missing person type report.

But when Wanda calls John's family in New York, they immediately begin to worry.

She says, Curtis, your brother went out

and

he didn't come home.

Maybe he didn't come home.

In 45 years, John has never gone anywhere without someone in his family knowing where he is.

He loved his kids.

It would take an army to stop John from getting to his kids.

Over the next few days, friends and family try in vain to contact John.

I remember I called for about three days straight.

I called his phone, I called his phone, please pick up, answer the phone.

We called day in and day out, leaving messages, begging and pleading, please call somebody, let someone know you're okay.

Maybe he was in a car accident and nobody found the car.

Georgia is a dark place at night and he's new to the city, so maybe he just didn't know his way.

But when Christmas Day rolls around and there's still no word from John, the family's concerns turn to panic.

So we can't just sit here.

We have to look for him.

My mom said, enough is enough.

I'm going to look for my child because something ain't right.

The next day, John's mother Lillian and his sister Shaniqua travel from New York to Atlanta.

After meeting Wanda at the couple's Locust Grove home, they dive into action.

My daughter and I, we went to Atlanta and we put up some posts in the train station and different places and we check every hospital, every prison.

Then, on the afternoon of December 26th, Wanda gets a call from police with terrible news, and she immediately informs John's family.

She was crying.

She was sniffling.

So that's when I knew something was wrong.

I heard the words, he's dead.

I didn't know how to process it.

I don't even know how long I stayed on the floor and I cried.

It was just like, wow, our brother's gone.

I'm never gonna see.

I'm never gonna.

laugh at one of his jokes again.

You know, my my son is never gonna see his uncle again.

I couldn't even cry because it was so tragic.

I just, I never expected it.

I, I thought like we would find him, like maybe he just went to a friend's house or something.

I didn't expect to find him like this.

As John's family is reeling from the news of his murder, investigators in College Park are taking their first hard look at the scene.

It was pretty straightforward as far as being able to determine the trajectory.

It was a single gunshot wound in the back of the head and it had a slightly downward trajectory.

It could imply some type of an execution type situation.

And the direction of blood splatter found inside the vehicle suggests John never saw his killer coming.

Approximately five inches inside of the door, there was blood splatter,

indicative of that being the area where the impact took place.

The assailant would have to be standing outside of that open door.

He probably was shot without even knowing what hit him.

There were certain items that were missing from John's person.

Credit cards, cell phone, and other things were missing.

His pockets were pulled out of his jeans

as if someone had been looking for valuables.

Robbery had become detectives' first possible theory for the murder of John Stanley.

and proves even more likely given the location where his body had been found.

It's one of the rougher areas outside of Atlanta and definitely rougher as far as the Henry County area was concerned at that time.

He was just up there and somebody took advantage of him, shot and killed him and robbed him.

But when detectives speak with John's family, they find it hard to believe that this street savvy ex-boxer from Brooklyn would have ever let anybody get the best of him.

We survived in the streets of New York City, Brooklyn, New York, Brownsville.

You killed him, but you'd had to fight first.

John will fight the devil himself.

John had no fear.

He wasn't afraid of anyone.

Although his family does acknowledge that ever since John arrived in Georgia, his 600 grand in settlement money had been a magnet for more than a few freeloaders.

Then he got down there, everything just changed.

It was all about the money.

They didn't feel the same way about him that he did about them.

People was following the money.

You know, you get a feeling about someone, you just don't trust them.

I didn't trust people.

John's family tells police that even with people who barely knew him, John was often generous to a fault.

If you was his friend, he would have died for you.

If John can help you, John gonna help you.

When John got that money, John, look out for his friends.

When detectives reach out to Wanda, she says the three men who most often sought out John's generosity went by the nicknames Cash, Wayne, and G.

Each week, they came to John with a new sob story.

And at one point, John seriously considered paying off Wayne's mortgage in order to save his house from foreclosure.

Police consider the possibility that one of these men might be willing to do whatever it took to get their hands on John's money.

There were some rumors that it could have been the people that he met in Atlanta that he had just became friends with.

Maybe jealousy over the money.

What's even more suspicious is that according to Wanda, all three men, Cash, G, and Wayne, have all been MIA since the morning John disappeared.

Isn't it weird that his friends are out of town and he goes missing?

John was possibly too involved in his new life in Georgia.

I had a concern that there may be a financial motive to this.

Coming up, disturbing new evidence will suggest John Stanley may have gotten involved in a dangerous new business venture.

When she called, it was, hey, you're not going to believe this.

It gave all indications that it was a drug deal gone bad.

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Detectives in College Park, Georgia are less than 24 hours into the murder investigation of 45-year-old John Stanley.

Thanks to a tip from John's wife, Wanda, investigators are searching for a trio of men who may have targeted John in an effort to get their hands on some of the $600,000 John had recently come into.

When I heard about it and how they found them, I said, well, maybe someone down there got wind of the money he had and

decided to kill him.

The brother in me was angry.

The brother wanted revenge.

The brother wanted to hurt whoever hurt my brother.

Police scour the city for any trace of the three men, identified only by their nicknames, Cash, G, and Wayne.

They also begin monitoring John's credit cards and bank accounts in case one of these suspects tries to withdraw cash.

Police usually start investigating by saying, okay, well, we got a cell phone missing.

We've got

credit cards missing.

Let's check his bank accounts.

Has there been any activity on those?

But there's no phone activity on his phone.

There's no bank activity.

Another fact about the crime scene further contradicts the robbery theory.

The issue that they're first going to sort of look at is, well, but the car is still here.

The most valuable thing that John may have had would have been the vehicle.

They found his body there with the car, rims on the car,

gps system radio system none of this is missing and then it all just done like

that a lot of times will make them more suspicious say okay maybe this isn't a robbery

with the robbery theory in question and three potential suspects still in the wind Investigators try and piece together the hours that led up to John's disappearance.

Wanna couldn't remember the name of the club.

She just knew they were going to go to a club.

We would follow up on any leads.

If she had a particular location where he would have gone to, we would have followed up with that location.

Not only are investigators having a hard time figuring out which club John was headed to, as his family is picking out a suit for his funeral, they notice something that adds even more fuel to the mystery.

All his jewelry was still on a dresser in the house.

What guy goes to the club without his jewelry?

That's where you wear your jewelry.

So I thought that was kinda...

weird.

So if John wasn't going clubbing the night he disappeared, where had he been headed?

And how had he ended up dead in an apartment complex miles from the bright lights of the Atlanta club scene?

The area where he was found, he was found in an apartment complex, parking lots, a known drug area, very high in drug crimes.

And they said they found his body.

They said that they found it like in his car in a rough neighborhood or something like that, like in the projects or something.

And

I know my brother, my brother wouldn't go into no projects, especially in Georgia, in a place where he's new by himself.

He had no reason to be in the projects.

They have a lavish life.

They have the car, they have the house.

But if you already have that, what sense does it make for you to sell drugs?

John was never a drug dealer or a drug user.

Is there another another side to John that his family hadn't seen?

On December 30th, four days after police had discovered John's body, Wanda calls the station with a startling discovery.

I do note when she did call the police that it was, hey, you're not going to believe this.

I have found, you know, some cocaine in our house.

She had found a fairly substantial amount of cocaine.

And I'm talking about like a brick of cocaine.

At least over $500 worth of drugs, if not considerably more than that.

It was automatically assumed that it belonged to her husband, or her husband had something to do with it being located in the house.

The other members of John's family are floored by Wanda's discovery.

In 45 years, he has never sold drugs.

He's worked every day of his life, never done drugs.

That's not him.

Not at all.

It's one thing about anyone in my family never sold drugs.

Everyone worked.

My grandmother worked very hard to tell me that he was buying drugs.

No, that's not him.

Wanda explains to police that due to his accident and his later surgeries, John's pain was becoming unbearable.

He couldn't really move his arms the way he needed to anymore.

It bothered him.

Wanda tells police that John had turned to drugs to cope with with the pain.

Wanda had made several claims that John was addicted to cocaine,

powder cocaine.

He could no longer do the things that he could have done before in the career that he had because of the injury.

That's when Wanda drops another bombshell on police.

The way she put it all is that he was a drug dealer.

He was trying to get into drugs.

And maybe John had gone there to purchase drugs and

something negative transpired, which led to him being shot in the head.

Wanda also informs police that John's burgeoning cocaine habit was how he met his so-called friends, G, Cash, and Wayne.

You do have a lot of individuals coming from New York going to different states selling drugs.

So in their mind, yeah, they probably did say this was a drug they were going back.

Was he there to sell drugs?

And his drugs got stolen from him, and then they might as well take whatever, you know,

property he had or anything of value he had.

You know, he was dead.

The gunshot wound in the back of the head, it gave all indications that it was a drug deal gone bad.

We had no evidence at all that he had any connections to College Park.

Why would you be there other than for drugs?

Investigators may have honed in on the theory that John's murder was drug-related, but his brothers and sisters aren't buying it.

They're To try to paint my brother as a drug dealer is

absurd.

It's absurd.

My brother wouldn't know an ounce of Coke from a bag of weed.

That's not us, that's not our blood.

No one in my mother's family has ever took that road.

To us, that's the easy road out.

If you're gonna sell drugs, you're gonna sell drugs when you don't have money.

You don't sell jokes when you got money.

But when family members confront Wanda, she insists she's seen a side of John they never knew.

Because you don't know your brother, he met this weird white guy he was hanging out with.

The toxicology report conducted during John's autopsy seems to support Wanda's assertion.

He had cocaine in his system at the time of the autopsy.

The presence of cocaine in John's house and his bloodstream brings the narcotics division into the case as well.

On December 30th, 2008, they conduct an extensive search of the Stanleys' home in Locust Grove.

Again, they were looking for additional narcotics because the original powder cocaine was already located.

There was belief that there may be more in the house.

Coming up, while the narcotics team is searching the house, Wanda pulls one of the agents aside and tells them something that will alter the entire scope of the investigation.

There were records of domestic abuse.

When Wanda and John Stanley moved to Atlanta in 2008, it felt like they had won the lottery.

But two weeks after John was found shot to death in his car, that dream had wilted.

And according to Wanda, the person most to blame for this tragedy was John himself.

He had cocaine in his system at the time of the autopsy.

It seemed very plausible that...

That was the reason why John went over there is to purchase illegal drugs.

First impression would be that, hey, hey, a drug deal gone bad.

Either he was up there selling and was shot and ripped off and killed up there, or he was just up there and somebody took advantage of him, shot and killed him and robbed him.

But as narcotics agents searched the Stanley residence for more cocaine, lead investigator John Sacker receives an unexpected call.

My sergeant notified me that the suspect had been identified and was being held at that time.

Myself and the sergeant got in his patrol car and we drove off to the house, to the Stanley household, where our narcotics team was.

We got briefed immediately by narcotics agents that were there.

They then informed me that Wanda was waiting to speak to somebody else.

Wanda said,

I did it.

I was very shocking.

I felt that it would be more appropriate that we speak back at my office.

She seemed very calm and relaxed at that time, not too nervous.

I let her know that I'd like to discuss with her what had happened.

In an interrogation room at the Henry County Police Department, Wanda tells investigators that while John may have appeared to be a doting father and husband, there was another side to him.

He always threatened me.

Did you ever take it seriously?

It was going to hurt you.

Yes.

I just got tired of him.

Got tired of the abuse and stuff.

She says she'd been abused verbally over the years by John.

But Wanda also claims that over time, the alleged verbal abuse turned physical.

There was some evidence that sort of supported her accusations that John had been very abusive toward her.

In New York, they were able to obtain what we call TPOs, which are temporary protective orders.

Does he have a history of domestic violence, physical violence, where he's been arrested?

Yes.

She indicated that she made countless numbers of 911 calls in New York to report this violence.

She had been to the hospital.

There's at least one example where I believe her shoulder got dislocated.

Wanda claims the cycle was always the same.

The courts would issue her a restraining order.

John would be asked to leave the house, but would eventually sweet talk his way back into her life.

Things seemed calm at first, but after a while, the violence would resume.

It was really the only relationship that she had had pretty much all of her adult life.

And so

when that's your situation, that abusive scenario can become a kind of normal for you.

Wanda tells police she'd hoped the move to Atlanta would be the catalyst that helped put an end to the violence.

But according to Wanda, things only got worse, and the situation finally came to a head on the night of John's murder.

You move in the closet where the stuff was at.

What stuff are you referring to?

Gotten cocaine.

Was this powder or crack or what kind of cows?

It was powder.

She did say that when John was on cocaine, he got very sexually excited and there was no stopping him.

Does he like to have sex with you when he's high or

does he force it on you?

The person that Wanda describes is a person that I have never met in my life.

The person that she describes is a monster.

A complete monster.

According to Wanda, on the night of December 20th, 2008, John demanded that they go out dancing.

They're going to have fun, have a, you know, just have a good night out.

But Wanda claims John had more than dancing on his mind.

He had told her not to wear any underwear.

So while you're putting on your boots,

sitting in the chair in the master bedroom, he goes into the closet and he gets his cocaine.

And what happens?

Okay, then he comes back out and he goes in that bathroom.

He goes in the bathroom, but he shuts the door.

How long was he in there?

Like a little like five minutes or so.

He comes out.

How does he act when he comes out?

He's acting like anxious, like brushing me, like, and then once I told him I don't want to go to go, that's when he started really, that's when he started acting crazy.

When he started doing the cocaine, then that's when she became fairly certain it was not going to go well for her.

She, at some point, when he's using cocaine, realized that he was going to rape her.

He was like, you think I'm playing?

That's when you came over to me.

You think I'm playing stupid bitch, you coming with me.

After I had my books and everything, when I was sitting in a chair, that's when he grabbed me and was taking me down the stairs.

He started to get angry with her, started to yell and raise his voice and verbally berate her.

But Wanda says that after nearly two decades of abuse, she'd had enough.

I can't take this no more.

I'm going to snap.

I can't take no more.

She was done.

It had to end.

I was like, okay, okay.

I'm going to get you.

That's how I felt.

I was like, I'm going to get you.

So I went and got his gun and put in my pocketbook.

She had taken a gun there for her protection, anticipating that he was going to become very physically violent.

So he tells you in the middle seat.

He was insistent on the two of them having sex.

Juan's position was, I was in imminent danger.

I felt that he was going to rape me.

Where were you seated?

In the back seat.

In the back seat, where were you?

Right in the back of it.

And while you're in the rear seat, what do you do?

That's when I took you to the animal pocketbook for Charlotte.

She put it to the back of John's head as he sat there unsuspecting and pulled the trigger.

Wanda indicated that after she had shot him, she got scared.

She panicked.

She drove with the vehicle.

She got on I-75 and drove north.

Just picked a random exit, exited the highway, and found herself at this apartment complex in College Park.

She did make it look as if he was a robbery victim.

Wanda says from there, she got a taxi back to Locust Grove and the following morning reported John missing.

John was found a couple of days later in College Park.

Drug deal gone bad, that kind of thing is the angle you're wanting the police to believe is some drug dealer shot him over a bad drug deal or something.

Do you regret having done it?

Are you happy that John is no longer able to hurt you the way he is?

Only thing I can say now is I regret that I did it, but it's like I got a peace of mind with my kids.

I just want my kids to live a nice, decent life.

That's all I want.

I know I'm sure.

That's all any mother wants, right?

That's the truth right there that I gave you.

That's the guy on this truth.

She seemed very calm.

She had an, I guess, an aura about her that she was happy.

Kind of weird to say.

Wanda's story is that of a woman who acted purely in self-defense, but detectives still need to compare her version of events to the facts at the crime scene.

John had a history as a boxer, and it would be plausible that he was a violent man.

Her story is that she actually killed John herself, but that she did it in self-defense.

But as investigators weigh Wanda's story with the forensic evidence, one detail about her account doesn't add up.

And looking at the impact spatter on the headliner, it was possible to line all that up and to determine where he was and how close and where the shot came from.

They would have been located at that side door and shot into the vehicle from the outside.

To investigators, the fact that Wanda shot into the vehicle with John seated inside facing away from her suggests she was in no immediate danger.

The evidence did not suggest that there was any imminent threat to Mrs.

Stanley.

She could have easily walked away and started a new life.

She put a gun to the back of his head and shot him execution style.

As for the motive, investigators think Wanda shot John as much for the money as for anything.

I'm his wife, so if he is no longer here, it all goes to me.

You wanted the money.

You wanted it all to yourself.

You don't want to have to share it with John any longer.

It wasn't a crime of passion, by all indication that

this was a premeditated murder.

On January 7th, authorities in Georgia charge Wanda Stanley with murder.

She was somewhat surprised.

She thought she was justified in the homicide.

She thought she was going to go home.

When John's family gets word of Wanda's arrest, they're floored.

My reaction was total shock.

I didn't believe that, and I didn't want to believe that anyone could be

that cruel, that cold.

For her to commit murder, and it's my uncle, her own husband, it's just, it made me sick to my stomach.

Coming up, if the Stanley family was hoping the wheels of justice would turn swiftly in this case, they were sorely mistaken.

I wasn't comfortable with it.

She could have got away Scott Free.

38-year-old Wanda Stanley has just been arrested for the murder of John Stanley, her husband of two decades.

But Wanda claims she shot John purely out of self-defense.

She says she was defending herself the night that she shot him.

He had cocaine in his system at the time of the autopsy.

Of course, there's no evidence to show how it got there, but he did, and we had to acknowledge that.

Armed with the best attorneys her husband's settlement check could buy, Wanda filed every motion she could to have her case thrown out.

All to no avail.

Finally, in January 2012, nearly three years after her arrest, Wanda's trial begins.

In anticipation of trial, you always go and look at every piece of evidence.

You want to make sure that nothing happens during the trial that you are surprised by.

In their opening statement, prosecutors assert that Wanda's real motive was money.

She probably didn't want to be with John anymore, but she wanted John's financial security.

But the defense claims to have proof that Wanda had suffered abuse at the hands of her husband.

A temporary protective order was issued by the court.

John is obviously not here to speak on his own behalf.

And you have this woman who presumably has no history of violence before this.

On February 7th, 2012, Both sides rest their case.

As the jury adjourns to deliberate, everyone is waiting anxiously for the verdict.

And waiting.

And waiting.

The longer that they deliberate, each side is going to start questioning, okay, well, what are they talking about here?

The next day, with the jury still deliberating, Wanda's attorneys reach out to the prosecution.

Ms.

Stanley's attorneys approached us and asked us if we would consider maybe a plea.

After that length of time out, it just appeared to be, you know, a situation where, you know, we thought that it was worth discussing.

On February 8th, 2012, Wanda Stanley agrees to plead guilty to the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Rather than spending life in prison, she receives a sentence of 10 years, plus five more on probation.

I wasn't comfortable with it, but I'm just grateful that she didn't walk completely.

I was very happy Wanda didn't walk.

At least she did time.

The jury could have came back and said, oh, not guilty.

And she could have been there with the money, with the house, with everything else.

She could have got away scot-free.

And while both sides still dispute the events that led to that fateful night in December of 2008, no one disagrees about all that was lost.

My Uncle John sort of kept us all together.

So

when he was gone, it was just everyone drifted apart.

We're not as close as before.

There's not as much family barbecues.

And even at family barbecues, the whole family is not there.

It's not the same.

Abuse is never okay.

If you or someone you love is in an abusive relationship, there is help available.

Call the domestic violence hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE.

It's your man, Nick Cannon, and I'm here to bring you my new podcast, Nick Cannon at Night.

I've heard y'all been needing some advice in the love department.

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