Crystal Weimer

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Speaker 5 Hi, I'm here to pick up my son Milo. There's no Milo here.

Speaker 2 Who picked up my son from school?

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Speaker 7 I'm gonna need the name of everyone that could have a connection.

Speaker 8 You don't understand. It was just the five of us.
So this was all planned.

Speaker 2 What are you gonna do?

Speaker 7 I will do whatever it takes to get my son back.

Speaker 8 I honestly didn't see this coming. These nice people

Speaker 8 killing each other.

Speaker 1 All her fault.

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Speaker 2 Crystal Weimer was a young mother doing her best to make ends meet.

Speaker 5 I was a single mother raising three girls, and I had a part-time job.

Speaker 2 Curtis Haith was a young man trying to make it on his own.

Speaker 9 He worked in a factory for a little while, kind of struggled a little bit.

Speaker 2 Their paths crossed one night at a party.

Speaker 5 Everything was going good. We were drinking a couple beers, socializing.

Speaker 2 And that night of drinking would change both of their lives forever.

Speaker 10 A neighbor heard gunshots.

Speaker 11 Curtis Haiths was found lying outside of his apartment.

Speaker 7 He was severely beaten and also shot in the face.

Speaker 2 Within hours, the police were at Crystal's door.

Speaker 12 Someone had come to the police and said, well, I know I saw these people together.

Speaker 2 But did that mean she had something to do with Curtis's death?

Speaker 7 The investigators found Crystal covered in blood.

Speaker 13 You gotta look at her as a suspect.

Speaker 2 But why would Crystal kill someone she barely knew?

Speaker 12 They got a lot of conflicting stories.

Speaker 11 There had to be a reason.

Speaker 2 The search for that reason would haunt investigators in this small Pennsylvania town for years.

Speaker 12 They were forced to try to figure out who was lying and who might actually be culpable in this crime.

Speaker 2 And many fingers were pointing at Crystal Wyman.

Speaker 13 Here's the thing about investigations: you look at a suspect to exclude them, and when you can't exclude them, then you know you got them.

Speaker 2 January 27th, 2001, Connellsville, Pennsylvania. 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, the mountains that surround this town of 8,000 once fueled the furnaces that forged America.

Speaker 14 It has a deep history of coal, so it has seen a lot of boom and bust over the years.

Speaker 2 But by 2001, the mines were mostly a memory as the fading town struggled to survive.

Speaker 16 There's some people that have been there all their lives that would never leave. Some people just want to get out.

Speaker 12 It has its fair share of crime.

Speaker 2 And at 4:50 that Saturday morning, a neighbor of 21-year-old Curtis Haith made a harrowing call to 911.

Speaker 10 A neighbor heard gunshots, heard Curtis pleeing for his life.

Speaker 2 And when Connellsville police arrived on the scene minutes later, they found Curtis lying on the sidewalk outside his apartment on the city's south side.

Speaker 12 He had been beaten very severely, and there was a gunshot wound to his face.

Speaker 2 Despite the efforts of EMTs on the scene, Curtis didn't make it.

Speaker 6 The patient was dead at the scene.

Speaker 15 The patient was the victim of some type of external trauma and possibly gunshot.

Speaker 2 As paramedics packed up, investigators at the crime scene began looking for clues that might indicate what had happened in the moments before Curtis was beaten and shot.

Speaker 11 In a case like the Haith murder, the crime scene obviously is very important.

Speaker 2 Although beyond the fact that Curtis had been both beaten and shot, the investigators had little else to go on.

Speaker 12 There were witnesses who lived next door who said that they had heard some noises, but they weren't able to identify anything that had happened.

Speaker 2 Which meant that the only option for the investigators was to try and retrace Curtis's final steps and interview the last few people to see him alive.

Speaker 2 A list that would include 23-year-old Crystal Weimer.

Speaker 2 Born in 1977, Crystal Weimer grew up in a working-class Connellsville family, back before the mines and mills closed down.

Speaker 5 My father worked on a shipyard growing up and my mom was always at home with us and she always cooked and made sure we were off to school and things like that. She was there for us.

Speaker 3 She was a sweet little girl.

Speaker 3 Had a lot of friends she played with.

Speaker 3 She was a sweet little girl growing up.

Speaker 3 Never gave me no problems.

Speaker 2 And one of four sisters, Crystal had no problems standing out in a crowd.

Speaker 5 I was very outgoing. Whenever I was in school, I was involved with softball.
I played on the cheerleading squad, and I also was on the swimming team.

Speaker 5 Whatever sports or whatever I could get involved with, I was ready.

Speaker 2 However, it wasn't just athletics and cheerleading that made Crystal's school years memorable.

Speaker 3 She got pregnant when she was 16.

Speaker 2 Crystal gave birth to a little girl, but never finished school.

Speaker 3 She She stayed home taking care of her baby until she got old enough, and then she got a job at Wendy's.

Speaker 2 And over the next couple of years, Crystal and her boyfriend had two more children, but the relationship eventually ended.

Speaker 5 We wasn't very compatible. Therefore, I wasn't ready for marriage and stuff.

Speaker 5 So we just went our separate ways.

Speaker 2 Crystal was left a single mom, and to support her family, she traded part-time fast food work for a full-time job at a local factory.

Speaker 5 I worked at Sony and I worked online assembling the TVs but after I was there for a while they ended up moving the company and the whole corporation got sold out.

Speaker 2 By 2001 the 23 year old was struggling to get by.

Speaker 5 I was a stay-at-home mom taking care of my children. and raising them and working part-time.

Speaker 13 She was barely getting by, just like a lot of people in the dried-up coal country area of the United States.

Speaker 2 Although as hard as things were for Crystal, her sisters faced even tougher obstacles.

Speaker 14 Her family, she has several sisters and a lot of them have had trouble with the law.

Speaker 2 Still, for all their troubles, Crystal remained close to her siblings.

Speaker 2 And on the evening of January 26, 2001, They got together at her sister's house in Uniontown, a small community 20 minutes from Connellsville, to hang out and catch up.

Speaker 5 We were at a party at my sisters and we had a few friends over there that night.

Speaker 2 One of those friends was 21-year-old Curtis Hayth.

Speaker 2 Although born in Michigan, in his teens, Curtis and his family had moved to Connellsville, his mother's hometown.

Speaker 9 I was in Detroit, Michigan, really struggling, you know, to raise my children. And Detroit seemed like such a rough city to raise them.
And so that's what bring me back to Connesville.

Speaker 2 The family didn't leave their struggles behind, though. While Curtis's single mother worked multiple jobs to support the family, young Curtis took over the family meals and soon showed a flair for it.

Speaker 17 He loved to cook. I remember him went in a big package.
It was like steaks, a big steak package and things like that. And he was just happy about that.
And we ate steaks like all day.

Speaker 2 and when he graduated high school his passion for food took him to culinary school in pittsburgh he went to pittsburgh he wanted to manage some sort of restaurant or something so he went to college in pittsburgh it was a shock to me that he was going to go away because none of us ever really been away from home but i was so happy it was only pittsburgh but despite his ambition he wouldn't stay there long

Speaker 2 We couldn't afford it, so then he came back to Continentsville. Back home, Curtis took a job to make ends meet, but his dreams of being a chef slipped further and further away.

Speaker 9 He worked in a factory for a little while. He kind of struggled a little bit.

Speaker 2 Still, he wasn't bitter about the disappointment.

Speaker 9 He was just as sweet as could be, you know, kind heart,

Speaker 9 would do anything for you.

Speaker 2 And while he'd only been living in Pennsylvania a few years, he'd built a strong support network too, which included a cousin of Crystal's.

Speaker 5 Curtis had gone to school and grew up with my cousin, and that's whenever I first met Curtisy.

Speaker 2 That was on the evening of January 26th, when Curtis and Crystal's cousin dropped by the party at Crystal's sister's house in Uniontown.

Speaker 5 We were drinking a couple beers, socializing, talking about, you know, our life and different things, and we were enjoying ourselves. Everything was good.

Speaker 2 However, despite the good time, Curtis was eager to get back to Connellsville, where he was supposed to meet up with some friends for a belated birthday toast.

Speaker 9 His birthday was January the 8th, and he was having a celebration out and about in Connysville.

Speaker 2 So around 10 o'clock that evening, Crystal's cousin drove Curtis Haith the 12 miles back home to Connellsville, and Crystal tagged along.

Speaker 2 Curtis did eventually arrive at the bar and celebrate with his friends, and they would end up continuing the party back at Curtis's apartment.

Speaker 2 But the mystery of what exactly happened in the final hours of that night would raise questions for years to come and be the central missing piece in a murder investigation.

Speaker 2 Coming up, is Curtis's murder, a drug deal, gone bad?

Speaker 15 Two little polyvinyl packets of marijuana.

Speaker 2 Or will a surprising discovery point police in a different direction?

Speaker 5 Officer Haverty told me either you come with me for questioning or I'm going to the local magistrate to get a warrant.

Speaker 2 It was around 4.30 on the morning of January 27, 2001, when a neighbor of 21-year-old Curtis Haith made a harrowing call to 911.

Speaker 10 A neighbor heard gunshots, heard Curtis pleeing for his life.

Speaker 2 And when Connellsville police reached the scene minutes later, they found Curtis lying on the sidewalk outside his apartment on the city's south side.

Speaker 12 He had been beaten very severely, and there was a gunshot wound to his face.

Speaker 2 And by the time the paramedics arrived, the extent of Curtis's injuries meant that all they could do was pronounce him dead.

Speaker 6 There was what looked like oozing out some brain tissue in that area. Limited the chances of resuscitating and saving this gentleman.

Speaker 2 And while the paramedics packed up and left, the crime scene investigators went to work searching for any clues that might shed some light on why Curtis had been killed.

Speaker 2 And almost immediately, the investigators found something that might be significant.

Speaker 15 In one pocket, he had two little polyvinyl packets of a grassy substance, suggestive of marijuana.

Speaker 2 The investigators found more incriminating evidence when they went inside the apartment.

Speaker 10 There was drug paraphernalia in his home.

Speaker 2 Was Curtis's death the result of a drug deal gone bad?

Speaker 11 There had to be a reason for him being beaten and shot. Possibly a drug transaction.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately for the investigators, there were no eyewitnesses who had seen what happened.

Speaker 2 Even the neighbor who called 911 admitted that paralyzed by terror, she hadn't looked out the window or even dialed 911 until after she heard a car door slam and tires squealing as it sped off.

Speaker 2 However, while the neighbor couldn't identify the killer or the getaway car, she did have some additional information for the investigators.

Speaker 2 She told them that Curtis had people over prior to his death.

Speaker 11 The reports were that he was at a party and then later come home and some of the people came to his home.

Speaker 2 And according to the neighbor, the murder occurred only a few minutes after the party broke up.

Speaker 10 From witness statements, the last partygoers from his party left his house for 4.30.

Speaker 2 Could one of the party guests be the killer? The neighbor said that she hadn't noticed any trouble prior to the shooting.

Speaker 12 Everything seemed to be okay. He was having a good time.
There wasn't any problems.

Speaker 2 Curtis's mother was just as adamant that her son wasn't a troublemaker when she arrived on the scene later that morning.

Speaker 9 My aunt called me and said, oh my god, they just found Curtis dead. And so I jumped in a car and went out to where he lived at.

Speaker 2 And while they didn't have any leads, the investigators did what they could to reassure Curtis's mother.

Speaker 9 When I went to Curtis's apartment, the first detective told me, promised me, I'm going to find out who did this.

Speaker 2 Although at that point, all the investigator could do was track down and talk to everyone who'd been seen with Curtis the night before and and hope for a lead.

Speaker 9 They really didn't know who might have been involved.

Speaker 2 And the list of people Curtis had come into contact with that night included 23-year-old Crystal Weimer.

Speaker 7 Friends had told investigators that Crystal and Curtis had been seen earlier that evening party.

Speaker 2 When they knocked on Crystal's door that afternoon, All the investigators were hoping for was a little insight into Curtis's movements in the hours prior to his murder.

Speaker 7 Investigators were just simply working through a list of people who had been seen with Curtis that evening. This interaction with Crystal was just supposed to be another routine interview.

Speaker 2 But that all changed as soon as Crystal came to the door.

Speaker 10 It appears as though there is blood on her clothing.

Speaker 17 She had dirt on her, she had a black eye, and she had a broken toe.

Speaker 2 And the blood and dirt immediately led the investigators to an inescapable conclusion.

Speaker 13 Even if you've never investigated a murder in your life, you have to look at Crystal Weimer. You've got to look at her as a suspect, right?

Speaker 2 And based on her appearance, investigators asked her to come down to the station.

Speaker 5 Officer Hagerty told me that I was coming with him, that there was a crime committed last night and a murder. And that's whenever I said, well, I'm not going anywhere.

Speaker 2 Crystal's refusal to cooperate triggered a stern response from the investigators.

Speaker 5 He threatened me, either you come with me now for questioning, or I'm going to the local magistrate to get a warrant.

Speaker 2 Facing possible arrest, Crystal accompanied the officers to the Connellsville police station.

Speaker 2 And once there, Crystal explained to the police that, yes, she had seen Curtis the night before his murder.

Speaker 17 He was with Crystal's cousin. They were hanging out and were drinking and everything.
And so that's how Crystal came around in the area for them to all be together that day.

Speaker 2 Crystal said that she and her cousin had last seen Curtis at around 10 o'clock when they dropped him off at a bar in Connellsville.

Speaker 2 But if that was the last time she saw Curtis, the investigators wanted to know how she'd ended up bloody and bruised.

Speaker 7 According to Crystal, the fight that she had been in occurred after she had dropped off Curtis and she returned to Uniontown.

Speaker 13 Her story is, I was brutalized by an ex-boyfriend, right? She got a broken toe.

Speaker 13 She walks with a limp. She got a black eye.
She got blood all over her shirt.

Speaker 2 Was she telling the truth? There was one way to find out.

Speaker 7 Investigators asked for Crystal's clothing. They wanted to determine if indeed the blood on her clothing was Curtis's or not.

Speaker 2 Would the forensics exonerate Crystal? It would take time to get the results. So that night after sending Crystal home, the investigators reviewed the results of Curtis's

Speaker 2 It revealed that the gunshot wound to his face had passed painfully but harmlessly through his cheek.

Speaker 15 The gunshot wound didn't turn out to be lethal as would expect.

Speaker 6 The critical cause of death here was the significant blunders trauma.

Speaker 2 Curtis had been beaten to death, or was it possible he'd been kicked to death?

Speaker 12 She had a broken toe.

Speaker 9 It was too coincidental.

Speaker 2 And when the analysis of Crystal's clothes came back from the crime lab, the mud on her garments added another unlikely coincidence.

Speaker 11 It's consistent or similar to the dirt that was found outside of his apartment.

Speaker 2 But while the mud on Crystal's clothes put her at the crime scene, would the blood analysis make the case complete?

Speaker 7 As it turned out, the blood on her clothing. was not Curtis's.

Speaker 10 It actually didn't implicate her.

Speaker 2 In fact, rather than Curtis, the the blood matched her ex-boyfriend's DNA, just as Crystal had claimed.

Speaker 7 The investigators were shocked to find out that the blood on Crystal's clothing did not match Curtis. It appeared to actually confirm that alibi and that she wasn't involved in the case at all.

Speaker 2 It looked as if the investigators' only lead had turned into a dead end. But new evidence would soon surface that would take the case in a stunning new direction.

Speaker 2 Coming up, investigators discover a detail that was missed during the autopsy.

Speaker 18 On Haith's hand, there was a bite mark.

Speaker 2 And an eyewitness comes forward.

Speaker 12 He was in the car the night that Curtis Haith died.

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Speaker 2 By October of 2002, it had been nearly nearly two years since 21-year-old Curtis Haith had been beaten to death outside his Connellsville, Pennsylvania apartment.

Speaker 12 The case went cold because there wasn't any indication of how he ended up dead in his yard.

Speaker 2 Initially, the investigators suspected that 25-year-old Crystal Weimer had been involved.

Speaker 12 Someone had come to the Connellsville police and said, well, I know I saw these people together.

Speaker 2 And when they found her the next morning still wearing bloody clothes, Crystal became their lead suspect.

Speaker 2 But then the test results came back from Crystal's clothes.

Speaker 10 They tested it, and lo and behold, it in fact was not what the government thought or hoped it would be. The source of it was an ex-boyfriend that she got into a skirmish with that evening.

Speaker 2 It seemed as if Crystal was off the hook, and police were back at square one with no leads on Curtis's killer.

Speaker 12 The police have a lot of public pressure with people saying that, you know, we don't feel safe until you find this person.

Speaker 2 Was it possible something had happened between the time that Crystal and her cousin dropped Curtis off at the bar around 10 p.m. and 4.30 that next morning when Curtis was killed?

Speaker 2 Something that had led to murder.

Speaker 13 Here's the thing about investigations. You don't look at a suspect to include them in a crime.
You look at a suspect as a detective to exclude them.

Speaker 2 But Curtis's family wasn't convinced that Crystal Weimer should be excluded.

Speaker 17 It's always been Crystal Weimer

Speaker 2 from day one.

Speaker 17 If you didn't know anything, you would sympathize with the family members, you know, and you would want to help some type of way. I never seen that from Crystal.

Speaker 2 Never.

Speaker 2 But would Curtis's family be able to prove Crystal was involved?

Speaker 9 I thought some stuff would come out eventually because it's a small town. I thought maybe people would start talking about it.

Speaker 2 And in October of 2002, more than a year and a half after the murder, someone finally did.

Speaker 2 The person who talked was 35-year-old Thomas Jefferson Beale.

Speaker 7 Bill was an ex-boyfriend of Crystal's, but he was not the ex-boyfriend who she had apparently gotten to a fight with on the evening of the murder.

Speaker 7 According to Bill, Crystal had confessed to killing Curtis one evening to him.

Speaker 2 Had the investigators been right about Crystal all along? Beale's story seemed to back it up, but they needed more than the word of a convicted criminal.

Speaker 2 In fact, when Beale reached out to the investigators, he was sitting in the Fayette County jail on burglary charges.

Speaker 11 Joe Hosniches are looking for something, and sometimes they're telling the truth, but you have to be very leery of that.

Speaker 2 What the investigators needed was something to confirm Thomas Beale's story.

Speaker 10 They really had no physical evidence tying her to it.

Speaker 2 Or did they?

Speaker 2 After Thomas came forward claiming that Crystal had confessed, the investigators went back over the case file and found something they'd previously overlooked in the autopsy photos of Curtis's body.

Speaker 18 On Haith's hand, there was a bite mark, and it was sent away for analysis with the dentist.

Speaker 7 It may have actually been missed during the first autopsy.

Speaker 2 Could it be the evidence the investigators needed to confirm Thomas Beale's confession story and link Crystal to the murder?

Speaker 2 In early 2003, two years after Curtis Haith's murder, investigators were back on Crystal's doorstep.

Speaker 7 Investigators asked Crystal to provide dental impressions in the hopes of confirming who actually made the bite marks on Curtis's body.

Speaker 2 Would comparing the dental impressions to the bite mark be another bust like the bloodstains on Crystal's clothing? In May of 2003, the crime lab came back with its results. It was a match.

Speaker 17 It was Crystal who bit my brother because the bite mark

Speaker 17 and the impression matched up. Her teeth were straight in his arm.
You know, it matched right up. They showed his teeth impressions and her bite mark.
It matched perfectly.

Speaker 2 And since the identity of the bite mark appeared to confirm the information provided by their jailhouse snitch, the investigators were finally convinced they'd found Curtis's killer.

Speaker 7 All the evidence the investigators had, Tom Beale's story, the bite mark, they both pointed to Crystal.

Speaker 2 Not long after receiving the lab results in August of 2003, Investigators got another break in the case when an inmate at the Fayette County Jail contacted the investigators and claimed to have information about Curtis's murder.

Speaker 7 The informant, who just happened to be locked up in the Fayette County Jail, was an old friend of Crystal's, Joey Stanger.

Speaker 2 And a month earlier, in July of 2003, while Joey was in the Fayette County Jail on burglary charges, he'd allegedly talk to his cellmate about Curtis Haith's murder and Crystal Weimer.

Speaker 13 He's in jail. He says, she did it.
I was there. I saw it.
Here's what happened.

Speaker 12 He said he was in the car the night that Curtis Haith died.

Speaker 17 Joseph Sanger said that evening he was out at the bar. He said he was drinking and having a good time.

Speaker 2 But according to what Joey told his cellmate, as he left the bar later that night, he ran in to Crystal.

Speaker 17 Crystal pulled up and said, hey, get in. I need to talk to you.

Speaker 2 And allegedly, when Crystal pulled up outside the bar to speak to Joey that night, she was already sporting a black on.

Speaker 17 Crystal told him, hey, there's somebody that put their hands on me.

Speaker 2 And according to what Joey told his cellmate, that someone was Curtis.

Speaker 17 He hit her, is what she said.

Speaker 12 There was some indication that she may have had a fight with him earlier in the day.

Speaker 2 And it was a fight that Crystal apparently aimed to finish.

Speaker 17 I want to go do something. Take care of her, whatever.
You know, would you ride with me?

Speaker 2 According to what he'd allegedly told his cellmate, Joey had gotten into the car with Crystal, and together they'd driven to Uniontown.

Speaker 16 Joey Stinger's story was they picked up a couple guys who are still unidentified.

Speaker 2 After that, Joey, Crystal, and the two men had allegedly driven to Curtis's apartment.

Speaker 10 Crystal, as Joey tells it, walked up to the door, lured him out.

Speaker 2 And when Curtis came downstairs with Crystal, her two friends were waiting in ambush.

Speaker 16 Then they beat him with a baseball bat and a crowbar.

Speaker 10 And they beat Curtis to death, all while Crystal watched.

Speaker 2 It was far more damning than Thomas Beale's claim that Crystal had confessed to killing Curtis.

Speaker 7 Joy was not only a witness, he was a participant. He was someone that could give the jury a direct account of just how Curtis died.

Speaker 2 But could the investigators and prosecutors get him to cooperate?

Speaker 7 When the investigators went to the jail and confronted Joey with his cellmate's story, he denied the whole thing.

Speaker 2 Did that mean the cellmate's story wasn't true? Not necessarily.

Speaker 7 Over the next few weeks, several of his friends, including his own mother, told investigators they had heard him say the exact same story.

Speaker 2 The fact that several people who knew Joey basically confirmed his cellmate's claims once again gave the investigators confidence in their jailhouse snitch.

Speaker 2 And on January 20th, 2004, the investigators drove back out to Crystal's house, placed her in handcuffs, and told her she was under arrest for the murder of Curtis Haith.

Speaker 5 I was literally sick. I was sick to my stomach.
I was more than in shock.

Speaker 5 And crying, I was so upset. I just kept crying.
I lost it. Like, I was so nervous and upset.

Speaker 5 It was a lot.

Speaker 2 Curtis's family was relieved that three years after the murder, the police had finally made an arrest.

Speaker 9 It was frustrating to wait that long to have her brought in.

Speaker 2 And the family hoped that more arrests would follow.

Speaker 9 I thought maybe that she would give up the names of the other two people because she knew who they were.

Speaker 2 But would Crystal's arrest finally bring closure to the case?

Speaker 2 Coming up, Crystal is determined to stand trial.

Speaker 5 I didn't take a plea deal. I believed I was coming back hope because I didn't do anything.

Speaker 2 But will an expert witnesses testimony make Crystal regret her decision?

Speaker 9 Everything just fell into place.

Speaker 2 By April of 2004, 26-year-old Crystal Weimer had spent three and a half months in jail, awaiting trial on murder charges.

Speaker 2 Crystal was charged with orchestrating the death of 21-year-old Curtis Haif, who'd been beaten to death outside his Connellsville, Pennsylvania apartment in January of 2001.

Speaker 17 When Crystal was arrested, I was excited.

Speaker 9 I was ready.

Speaker 17 I wanted to know what happened. I wanted some justice.

Speaker 2 But after years of waiting, would Curtis's family finally get the closure they so desperately sought?

Speaker 2 The case against Crystal was a complicated one, based on a single bite mark on Curtis's arm and testimony from a series of informants and witness statements.

Speaker 14 The Connellsville police just had a lot of conflicting stuff, and they're trying to piece it all together.

Speaker 2 And the key to piecing it together was 22-year-old Joey Stinger.

Speaker 2 In February, he'd also been arrested on murder charges after numerous people told the investigators that he'd been with Crystal on the night of the murder and helped her pick up the two men who'd actually killed Curtis.

Speaker 10 He is the one that in the process of not only implicating Crystal, implicates himself. And he says that he was part of this alleged conspiracy.

Speaker 2 Earlier, when confronted with what he'd apparently told others about the crime, Joey had denied everything. But that changed once he was booked on murder charges.

Speaker 7 After his arrest, Joey finally broke down and told the investigators that his cellmate's story was true. He was involved in Curtis's murder.

Speaker 2 Joey's decision to cooperate was a major break for the prosecutors. And they would need it too, because they would soon be short a witness.

Speaker 2 That April at a pre-trial hearing, the prosecutors put their first jailhouse informant on the stand, Crystal's ex-boyfriend, Thomas Beale.

Speaker 7 Thomas Beale was the boyfriend that claimed Crystal had confessed to killing Curtis.

Speaker 10 They brought him forward, expecting him to implicate Crystal in this crime.

Speaker 2 But instead, Thomas made a confession of his own.

Speaker 10 As it turned out, he shows up on that day, tries to take the Fifth Amendment. The court won't let him, and he ultimately recants his entire testimony.

Speaker 10 In the process of recanting it, looks down at the prosecution's table and says that the detective, the lead detective, is the one that told him what to say.

Speaker 10 And in fact, he goes so far as to say, I just wrote whatever he told me to put down.

Speaker 2 Confronted with Beale's bombshell allegations, the judge had no choice but to drop the charges against Crystal.

Speaker 10 That demonstrates the weakness of the prosecution's case.

Speaker 2 But was it only a temporary reprieve? While Thomas had recanted his story, Joey Stener remained in custody.

Speaker 2 And in September of 2004, when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges for his role in Curtis's murder, he not only admitted that he had been present when Curtis was killed, Joey confessed that he was more involved than he'd originally let on.

Speaker 13 He has one hell of a story to tell.

Speaker 13 He says, I shot Curtis.

Speaker 11 He said he didn't mean to hit or shoot Hayes.

Speaker 11 He said he saw the beating going so bad, he tried to stop it, got out of his car, fired his weapon toward that area.

Speaker 2 And in all the confusion, Joey said that he accidentally shot Curtis.

Speaker 17 It looked like his confession was genuine to me.

Speaker 7 If he's not telling the truth, why is he willing to go to jail for it?

Speaker 2 Joey Stener's confession was the break in the case that investigators had been waiting for.

Speaker 18 I don't think there was anything really that the state could have gotten any better than what they had. I mean, you had an individual who was there, Stinger, who described the beating in detail.

Speaker 18 the gunshot and the getaway.

Speaker 2 On September 27th, three days after Joey pled guilty, the investigators were back on Crystal's doorstep with a new arrest warrant charging her with Curtis's murder.

Speaker 5 I was very upset.

Speaker 5 I was above and beyond being upset because of them ripping me out of my life again, away from my kids for the second time for something I hadn't done.

Speaker 2 But just how confident were the prosecutors in their case against Crystal?

Speaker 2 With her trial date looming, they approached Crystal with what appeared to be an incredible offer, a mere two to four years sentence if she pleaded guilty and named her alleged co-conspirators.

Speaker 10 She'd already spent almost two years in Fayette County Prison at that point in time. So in essence, she could have been offered to be able to walk out that day or soon thereafter.

Speaker 13 What does she do? She refuses the deal.

Speaker 2 No matter how much her court-appointed attorney tried to convince her to take it.

Speaker 5 The public defender just continued to come over to question me like every day until I went to trial. Are you sure, Crystal, you don't want this student for?

Speaker 5 I said, no, I'm going home and I'm not taking something I didn't do.

Speaker 10 She absolutely believed in her innocence.

Speaker 2 It was April 3rd, 2006, more than five years after Curtis's murder, when Crystal finally stood trial.

Speaker 2 In the prosecutor's opening statement, she argued that Crystal had been the mastermind who orchestrated Curtis's murder.

Speaker 9 They said that her and Curtis might have had a falling out and she was upset.

Speaker 2 That's what Joey Stanger claimed when he took the stand for the prosecution.

Speaker 18 He indicated Weimer was involved and that she wanted revenge because Hayes had struck her at an earlier time.

Speaker 17 No one made him say anything that he didn't want to say.

Speaker 2 And then, to build on Joey's testimony, prosecutors called Dr. Constantine Karazoulis, a forensic odontologist and bite mark expert, to the stand.

Speaker 7 In his testimony, Karazulis stated that the bite mark on Curtis's hand was definitely Crystal's. He also found that the bite mark must have occurred within seven minutes of his death.

Speaker 2 It was powerful testimony.

Speaker 10 With respect to expert testimony and expert witnesses, I think that if you're listening as a juror and you hear a prominent witness coming in from out of state, I think that's compelling.

Speaker 2 And then, after five long years dogged by accusations that she was a killer, Crystal took the stand to tell tell her side of the story to the jury.

Speaker 5 I told the truth

Speaker 5 when you dropped Curtis Hayes off at the Arch Cafe,

Speaker 5 and that was the last time I seen him.

Speaker 5 I was never at Curtis Hayes' house.

Speaker 2 Crystal's impassioned testimony did little to sway Curtis's friends and family.

Speaker 12 There was a lot of people that

Speaker 17 was just shocked. that she could still be claiming that she was innocent.

Speaker 2 But would her words be enough to sway the jury? When the jurors retired to consider their verdict on April 6th, Crystal was confident.

Speaker 5 It took

Speaker 5 like, I believe, four hours into one day and like two and a half hours maybe into the next day. And I thought, maybe that's a good thing.
The truth has come out and I'm going to go home.

Speaker 2 But would her hopes be validated?

Speaker 7 When the jury came back, they found Crystal guilty of murder.

Speaker 2 After waiting so long for justice, the verdict was an emotional moment for Curtis's family.

Speaker 17 I was in the court when they found Crystal guilty. I was happy.
You know, I wanted to thank people.

Speaker 9 I was pretty sure that she was going to be convicted and everything just fell into place.

Speaker 2 Crystal, on the other hand, was surprised by the outcome.

Speaker 5 When the jury came back and they're just like, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, I was just like, what?

Speaker 3 I just felt empty because I knew that she wasn't involved involved and they convicted her

Speaker 13 i was just devastated

Speaker 2 because in the end there was no way she could overcome the evidence that the prosecutors had presented to the jury

Speaker 18 you had an eyewitness actually not just an eyewitness you had the one of the perpetrators and he was testifying about what role crystal weimer had in it and then the bite mark evidence.

Speaker 18 Very bluntly, that was very, very strong evidence to convict her.

Speaker 2 After the verdict, the judge sentenced Crystal to 15 to 30 years in prison.

Speaker 5 I was in shock. I couldn't believe it.
I was more than heartbroke. I was like, where is the truth at in this place? Like, nobody's hearing me.
What is going on?

Speaker 2 The sentence may have been a shock to Crystal, but Curtis's family found it far too light.

Speaker 9 At the end of his life, he suffered. You know, and I just think people should pay for that.

Speaker 17 I couldn't understand it because how do you only get 15 to 30 years for something you, you know, plan to do?

Speaker 2 Crystal maintained her innocence, however.

Speaker 5 I was confident I swore in my heart and I believed I was coming back home because I didn't do anything.

Speaker 2 And once in prison, she was determined to prove it too.

Speaker 5 I got access to Law Library and I know the only way you can come home is to fight your case in case law and educate yourself on it.

Speaker 13 She begins become her own lawyer, studying her case, obsessed with proving her innocence.

Speaker 2 And the result of all that study was an 80-page handwritten letter that she sent to government officials across the state of Pennsylvania, arguing that the Connellsville Police Department had ignored dozens of witnesses and scientific evidence that supported her innocence.

Speaker 12 It was clear that she was very desperate to get her point across.

Speaker 2 She was calling it a fundamental miscarriage of justice, but her desperate calls for help went unanswered.

Speaker 12 She wasn't able to get representation for the appeals that she was making, and so she was having to do it on her own.

Speaker 2 As a result, Crystal spent nearly a decade in prison. Her three daughters grew up and started families of their own.

Speaker 2 Then, in 2014, her 80-page letter eventually found its way to the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, whose staffers were surprised by what they read.

Speaker 10 It spoke to me that here's a woman who is confident in her innocence and needs a voice.

Speaker 10 And then substantively you started looking at the facts of the case and seeing that they just simply had the wrong target of their investigation since the beginning.

Speaker 10 And when you add all of that up, you see an innocent woman that's lost a decade of her life.

Speaker 2 Determined to get justice for Crystal, the Innocence Project took her case.

Speaker 5 That's whenever I knew the windows were opening. And I knew there was hope.
So I knew that God was hearing my prayers.

Speaker 2 and in october of 2015 almost 10 years after her conviction with her new attorney at her side 38 year old crystal weimer was back in court hoping to convince a federal judge to grant her a new trial

Speaker 5 we went into that courtroom and i knew i was coming home and the jury was gonna set me free

Speaker 2 coming up a witness makes a stunning reversal he told me jeff i would have told him whatever they wanted me to say. And Crystal's case takes a surprising turn.

Speaker 13 Where does justice lie?

Speaker 13 Are we ever going to find justice in this murder?

Speaker 2 On October 1st, 2015, 10 years after her conviction for the murder of Curtis Haith, 38-year-old Crystal Weimer was back in court preparing to make her case for a new trial.

Speaker 5 Since day one, the proper investigation was never done.

Speaker 2 And the attorneys from the Pennsylvania Innocence Project agreed with her.

Speaker 10 You asked yourself, you know, how is it this possibly could lead to a conviction?

Speaker 2 At Crystal's 2006 trial, a forensic odontologist had testified that a bite mark found on Curtis Haith's body matched dental impressions made from Crystal's teeth.

Speaker 13 The state's expert on the bite mark, who was so sure about it 10 years ago, now says, you know what? I misinterpreted the data.

Speaker 15 I was wrong.

Speaker 11 I've never seen an expert witness ever recant their testimony at a later time.

Speaker 2 Curtis's family was stunned by the reversal.

Speaker 17 I do not understand how a scientist can support one thing and say, hey, this is what I support, and then change his mind.

Speaker 2 The testimony was enough to convince a judge that Crystal's case should be retried.

Speaker 2 But would Crystal ever stand trial again?

Speaker 2 Because in 2016, when the prosecutors started preparing for the retrial, they ran into trouble when they reached out to Joey Stener, the friend who'd claimed he'd ridden along with Crystal on the night Curtis died.

Speaker 16 Stener's attorneys said his client was going to plead the fifth.

Speaker 2 And the reason was obvious, according to Crystal's attorney.

Speaker 10 He made the whole thing up. He told me, Jeff, I would have told him whatever they wanted me to say.
I was looking for a deal, and it didn't matter.

Speaker 10 I know it's wrong, but the reality is I was willing to say whatever they wanted me to say to help myself.

Speaker 2 And with that, the entire case against Crystal collapsed.

Speaker 16 The district attorney said, we're just going to dismiss the charges. We don't have the sufficient evidence to proceed.

Speaker 2 After 11 years behind bars, Crystal could finally go home.

Speaker 20 I was just so overwhelmed and happy that God had finally set me free.

Speaker 12 I was just so

Speaker 20 more than overwhelmed and so thankful.

Speaker 2 But the victory was bittersweet. Not only had Crystal lost a decade of her life, Curtis's murder remains unsolved.

Speaker 13 If Crystal Weimer didn't kill Curtis,

Speaker 13 his killer is still walking this planet, free from this crime.

Speaker 2 Which means that for now, all Curtis's family can do is cherish his memory.

Speaker 9 and i think he would have did really good things with his life

Speaker 9 as we have

Speaker 17 and continue to hold out hope that justice will eventually come i know this isn't over i believe in my heart that one day that the truth will be out

Speaker 2 it is finally over for crystal though almost 40 and finally out of prison She's making a fresh start.

Speaker 5 I'm grateful and happy that the truth set me free and that I'm home. You know, I have each moment to be grateful and thankful for.

Speaker 2 Crystal Weimer has been fully exonerated for the murder of Curtis Haith. Crystal lives in Connellsville with her three daughters and three grandchildren.
Curtis Haith's murder remains a cold case.