Transcript of Murder Next Door

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This is Orchard Hill Subdivision. We're probably the best-kept secret in Columbia County, Georgia. It's pretty secluded off the main highway, and there's really only one way in and one way out.

This is a quiet neighborhood, kind of the all-American life that you would want.

Like a gated community without the gate. It's a nice little area.

I was one of the original people that moved into this neighborhood 30 years ago. The neighbors all know each other. We hang out together, we cook together, we go out to eat together. If somebody's got Girl Scout cookies for sale, we know about it. If there is a power outage, we know about it. If the cable goes out, we know about it.

Hey, Donnie.

You guys kind of wave around here to your neighbors?

All the time. I love this place. What can I say? We do have a neighborhood watch sign. We put that up after that incident happened that shocked our neighborhood. And up to that point, I can't even remember any crime.

It does make you question suburban life when something like this happens. You really don't know what secrets somebody living next door could be holding.

I'm out the back because I have some shopping to do and the stuff's broke in. I mean, the back glass is shattered out and everything. I'd like to get the police over here.

Early in the morning of March 25th, there had been a repairman who had gone to the home located in Orchard Hill subdivision and was there to do some work.

He knocked on the front door. No one ever came to the door.

He was trying to get the homeowner on the phone and he couldn't do that.

Eventually, he walked around to the back door and realized that the glass door had been shattered, had been broken.

You know, something was obviously very wrong here.

I called the owner, but she's not here, I don't think. If she's gone, I mean, I hollered in the door and I didn't get no response.

Yeah, I don't want you to go in. I'll get them on over there, hon.

Initially, another officer got the call and he needed backup. I got on the radio and I said I was close. I'll back him up. So when I pulled up, he was in the back. I never would have expected this to turn out the way it did.

And as you're walking up this way, what do you see?

The right side of that glass door at the time was shattered. So I knew something was up. When you clear a building, you always use two at a time, at least. So he was waiting on me. And I said, have you been in? He said, no. And I said, you ready? He goes, yeah. So we started going to residence.

The crime scene investigators were videoing the scene, trying to document every piece of evidence we had.

There's glass on the floor. And you can see in the living room there was a blood trail that went from the glass door, and the further you went into the residence, the heavier the blood trail got. It went at an angle at the corner to where a door was. We didn't know at the time, but that door led to the garage. That blood trail was telling me this is going to be bad. We slowly opened the door. We found a female laying on the ground. She was wedged up between the right front tire of the vehicle and the motorcycle. There was a lot of blood, a lot of blood everywhere. Both of us called, said we need an ambulance and we need them in a hurry. We're trying to take care of the victim. We didn't know who she was.

We were able to determine the victim was Kay Parsons. She was a 41-year-old mother of a son. She lived there with her husband, David Parsons.

What condition is she in?

We checked for a pulse. We thought we had one. That's why we were calling for an ambulance as fast as possible. Her face and head, you can tell, had been beaten. She was gurgling at the time, coming from her mouth and her nose.

Kay Parsons appears to have these defensive wounds. It was like she was in a fight for her life.

She's been attacked. For what reason, we don't know yet, but she's been attacked and she's been massively and brutally attacked.

You're, I'm guessing, inches from her.

Yeah, we're trying to talk to her, see if she can talk at all. Nothing. We kept saying, ma'am, can you hear me? Can you hear me? Say something. She couldn't say anything. It was— the injuries were too bad.

She was barely alive, so they put her in the ambulance, went straight to the hospital.

It sounds like at that moment Your whole point is, I want to save this person's life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, it's a gut-wrenching experience.

Do you find anyone else in the house?

No.

The crime scene guys are walking through and trying to make an assessment of exactly what happened.

Where was she at in the garage?

Over there? Right there.

Right front tire. Her head was up against the right front tire.

Okay.

She was in a fetal position and legs were out.

When I got to the scene, I could see her handprint on the garage door opener as she's trying to open the garage to get away from whoever this person is.

There's a baseball bat right beside the motorcycle, and it has blood on the baseball bat. Then on the ground, you see a claw hammer, and there was blood all over the claw hammer.

Anything is a possibility. You notate everything. And they're noticing things like rooms being ransacked and drawers being turned out that would indicate a burglary.

There was some jewelry missing from the house. Their house. The mattresses are flipped up off the bed.

I thought it was a burglary that went wrong. They thought nobody was going to be home and they didn't want to get caught, so they did something to the victim.

Kay Parsons had come home from taking her son to school that morning. She was still drinking her coffee when she was attacked from within her home.

I noticed there was a for sale sign in the front yard. It did stand out in my mind that they were You know, trying to sell their house and move.

It was like, all right, well, did they come to the house to view it, or was it just a random break-in? It could have been one of 1,000 different things that happened. We determined that bat and a claw hammer were the actual weapons that were used against Kay.

That hammer did not come from that house. As the struggle went out into the garage, we believe that the hammer had so much blood on it It flew out of the killer's hand. And then he picked up a weapon of opportunity, an aluminum baseball bat.

The baseball bat belonged to Kay Parsons' son.

Detectives are there investigating the scene. But Kay, she gets rushed to the hospital.

There was some hope that she was going to be able to pull through and tell investigators who did this to her.

And while we're investigating, we learn of a second burglary next door.

Naturally, the next-door neighbor being burglarized is going to be a pretty significant item of interest to them.

You got a burglary at two different places right next door. It was like, wait a minute.

Things like this just don't happen every day in a nice, quaint neighborhood.

The neighbors were just shocked. Could there be somebody on the loose that is attacking women in their homes?

Grovetown area woman is badly beaten.

Now deputies are trying to find out who did it.

Investigators say attacked after she walks in on her home being burglarized.

Investigators aren't sure whether or not the burglary in progress was random or not. There were so many sheriff's deputies, so many investigators, and so I knew whatever this was was big. There was definitely a sense in the air that, you know, something terrible had happened.

Law enforcement noted that there was blood all over the floors, all over the walls. It was very apparent that this was a very violent attack.

I've been in law enforcement for 30 years, and this is probably one of the worst scenes I've ever seen.

Kay Parsons was still alive, but barely. She was clinging to life. And was actually transported down to the hospital.

I learned from a neighbor that Kay's husband, David Parsons, was out of town on business. He's in Los Angeles and we're in Georgia. So I call him on the phone. He starts to get kind of frantic. I explained to him that she had been beaten severely and she was in the hospital and that he needed to come home immediately. It's our top story on News 12 First at Five. The normally quiet and safe neighborhood is shot.

Investigators do not have a suspect at this time.

While they look for clues, neighbors are on edge. I was the first reporter on the scene. There was a blonde woman that had a blanket around her shoulders, so I realized that she was somehow a victim in this. I found out her home had been burglarized, that she was the next-door neighbor, Becky Sears.

Becky Sears and Kay Parsons were real good friends with one another. When Becky arrived, of course, it's like, what's going on? What's happening?

She gets out of her car and she starts hysterically calling for Kay. She was asking me whether Kay was alive. Is she OK? Is she going to live?

Neighbors were just shocked. The consensus was this is unheard of. Nothing like this would happen here. Grovetown, Georgia is a quiet suburban area.

In Grovetown, we have very little crime. It's a very good place to raise a family.

Most of our crime was people breaking into cars or things of that nature. It is very safe.

It's not far from Fort Gordon, which is the military base, so a lot of military families live in the area.

So Grovetown, Georgia, it's about 20 minutes from Augusta, Georgia, and Augusta, Georgia is famous. Augusta, Georgia is where they hold the Masters.

It's here, everybody!

More than 40,000 fans expected to pour through the gates of Augusta National. For the Masters.

It's one of the most famous golf tournaments in the world.

Once a week every year in Augusta, there is one story, and that's the Masters.

If you mention Augusta, Georgia, the first thing somebody's going to ask you is, have you ever been to the Masters? In my case, yes, I have been twice. I'm David Durkee. My wife and I moved here in, in 1995. It's quiet. Most of the streets end up in cul-de-sacs, so there's not a lot of through traffic. The neighbors all know each other. Miss Parsons was blonde-headed. She was attractive. And when she was driving her red sports car, she would turn heads.

Kay and her husband David have lived in Grovetown, Georgia, for about 4 years.

Kay and David Parsons had been high school sweethearts. They had moved around the country for David's work in the military and had recently planted roots there in Grovetown, and he had taken a contract job at Fort Gordon. Kay Parsons had one son who was in middle school at the time. She worked at a local therapy office.

Just gonna loosen your back up a little bit. There you go, perfect.

My name is Jürgen Cowling. I'm the president and owner of Healing Hands Physical Therapy Clinics. I've been doing physical therapy for 40-plus years. We hired Kay as a front desk patient coordinator. Kay was very open and very personable. You could tell that she loved her family, she loved her son, she loved the life she was living. Kay was like your Little League mom. Her son was playing baseball, and she would always inform us of how he did. Oh, they won or they lost, she was very proud of her son.

Kay Parsons' next-door neighbor Becky had a son about the same age as Kay Parsons' son, and Kay and Becky got to know each other through Little League. They got to be such good friends that Becky actually got her a job at that therapy center.

Becky said, if we need another individual, I have somebody in mind, and it was Kay. They were best buds. I mean, gosh, They lived close together. Their sons played baseball together.

They did everything together— work, home, all of it.

They did Weight Watchers together.

It was like her and Kay went on this weight loss journey together. They had like a competition. Hey, I lost 10 pounds this week. How many did you lose?

Becky and Kay did go on vacations together.

Becky and Kay went on a cruise together. Becky was telling us all the partying that her and Kay did on this cruise. It was— like they had the best time of their life.

But now Kay has been brutally attacked, and Becky, who lives next door, her house had been burglarized. Now Becky lived there with her husband Tony, and they have 5 children. The 2 oldest are from a previous marriage, but thankfully no one was home at the time.

Crime scene investigators took videotape of the house. It's similar to Kay's house, the mattresses were flipped away off the beds, dresser drawers pulled out.

Law enforcement believed that this was some sort of opportunist that is going house to house burglarizing next door neighbors.

News 12 starts now.

We heard on the news that Kay was attacked. We were like, oh my word.

41-year-old Laverne Parsons, who goes by the name Kay, was beaten after she returned to find someone in her home. Investigators believe Parsons walked in on a burglary.

A home burglary turned violent.

I remember the next day seeing Becky. She was just in tears. She wasn't going to work. She was going straight to the hospital. My heart broke for her because that was essentially her best friend.

The doctors were pretty much telling me that it's not looking good. When I talked to Kay's husband, David Parsons, I don't know what it was. It was just something that was gnawing on me that just wasn't right.

And another person detectives want to talk to is that contractor who was there that morning.

I'd do anything in the world to help you submit a police report. Oh, I know you would.

He told me that there was a man sitting across the street, just sitting there staring at the houses. He kind of thought that was weird.

That made me kind of suspicious.

It's a brutal attack that started as a home burglary. It happens sometime before 9:00 AM this morning on Hot Springs Drive.

Investigators aren't sure whether or not the burglary in progress was random or not. The neighborhood was so frightened. Not just this neighborhood, but all of Grovetown really was worried there could still be someone out there burglarizing homes and attacking people.

Everybody in the neighborhood circling up the wagons, making sure that, you know, the doors are locked.

Kay Parsons' husband, he gave me a ride back in Georgia. I went to the hospital and spoke to him at the hospital. That's when he told me that things still weren't looking good for Kay. Kay was basically brain dead and being kept alive by machines, and you could see the tears in his eyes. He had to make made the decision to pull the plug, and he did.

A Columbia County woman badly beaten in her home has died from her injuries. 41-year-old Kay Parsons was attacked.

When Kay passed, it kind of took my breath away, and I remember going, just sitting down in silence for about 10, 15 minutes because it was just so overwhelming. I just couldn't, couldn't comprehend what transpired.

Everything really ramped up a lot from there.

Basically, there is a murderer on the loose. One of the first things that we try to do is to narrow down a time frame for the incident.

We were able to determine that she dropped her son off at school at 7:03, and at 7:20, She stopped answering her phone. Basically, we were able to whittle it down to about a 10- to 15-minute time period for when this attack occurred.

We go into kind of a canvas. You go throughout the area of the neighborhood, and you go knock on doors. And, you know, did you see anything? Did you hear anything?

There were police all up and down the entrance to our neighborhood asking what people had seen or you know, if anything unusual had taken place that day.

We didn't really come up with a whole lot during the canvas. We're left pretty quick with a whodunit. When anybody can be a suspect, then the first people you got to look at are the ones that are right there, what we call in the little— in the little close circle, those right around the victims.

Of course, the husband is one of the persons that is looked at.

Initially, when I talked to David, I don't know what it was. It was just— I had a gut feeling. It was something that was gnawing on me that just wasn't right, that I wasn't getting all the information I should be getting from him. But we were able to verify that he was in Los Angeles. We knew he couldn't have done it.

When law enforcement is trying to consider if anybody had some reason or trouble with Miss Parsons, they were unable to find anyone who wanted to hurt Miss Parsons. Everyone described her as being a very pleasant woman.

And another person they want to talk to is Mitch Cozart. He was that contractor who was there that morning.

Hey, I'm sorry, and I'm Wynn Howard.

Mitch Cozart was the one that alerted us to the break-in at the Parsons house.

I mean, I'd do anything in the world to help. Oh, I know you will.

I know you will.

And we appreciate you coming here. I mean, it sickens me, you know. I mean, I couldn't even sleep last night just worrying about and thinking about that woman.

He indicated that he was hired to come in and do some work there at the house because Parsons had it on the market.

And I seen the glass all over the patio, and I said, hmm, this don't look good. I walked up and I hollered, I said, "Hey, is anybody in there?" And anyway, I didn't hear nothing. I mean, I dialed the other number and it was her cell phone. I said, "Kay, I said, this is Mitch Coase. I don't know what's at your house. I said, I think you've been broken into. So give me a call as soon as you can." He was pretty much matter of fact about it.

I mean, it was nothing that would give any indication that he was involved in anything other than exactly what he was there for.

Ms. Cozart also told me there was a man sitting across the street on a big rock in somebody else's yard. He was just sitting there staring at the houses. He kind of thought that was weird.

Then I seen that boy sitting— the next-door neighbor sitting down on a rock across the street. And that made me kind of suspicious right there, because I mean, I said, what if the guy's a lookout right here? I mean, it might be still, you know, something going on here.

It had my interest piqued. It was a large rock, and he was sitting on it just sitting there waiting. I actually had him sit down on the curb.

We ended up finding out that that was Michael Bowers.

Michael Bowers is Becky's oldest son, and Becky lives right next door to Kay.

Investigators do an interview with Michael Bowers just to figure out, you know, what time did you get here? Where have you been?

We're going to be talking to Michael Eddie Bowers. Michael, you stated you live at Grovetown, Georgia, and you stated you're 22 years of age.

Yes.

Michael Bowers was the first person really on the scene before even the maintenance man showed up and called 911. Michael arrives, he realizes his home has been broken into.

I walked up through the yard, I found the front door open. It was kind of weird that it was open. I kind of pushed it open just a little bit more. I took one step in and I saw the golf clubs laying right by the door, so I knew something wasn't right. And so I stepped back out out the house and I called my mom. That was at 8:35. And she told me, you know, don't go inside. Wait, I'm on my way home.

The first call he made is not to 911. It's to his mom.

Which is kind of odd. You know, you got, you know, two houses broke into and you don't call the police, but you call your mother. Just kind of didn't make sense.

The morning of the murder, Michael Bowers told his mom he had a job painting a house. And she dropped him off, actually.

Have you been to the house yet to even start them?

No, not yet.

So when did you tell your mom you had this paint job? When did you tell me?

You told her a little while ago. Um, this morning.

But Michael Bowers tells detectives that the paint job didn't happen because it ended up raining that day.

But it started raining, so we weren't going to do that. And I went ahead and I just walked back down to the house.

He told detectives he had gone back to the house at 8:30 in the morning, and that's when he noticed that there was a break-in at the house.

Now, I went down and sat on the rocks, and then that other guy pulled up about maybe 5 minutes, 10 minutes after I was there. I heard him go around back yelling to the house, was anybody home? And didn't get an answer. And I heard him, so I started— I walked up the hill to him. I was like, yeah. I said, did you say something about a burglar? He said, yeah. I was like, well, I think somebody broke in my house too.

I wasn't buying his story from the get-go because it wasn't raining. It just didn't have the ring of truth to it. Let's put it that way.

I'm not saying you're lying, but there's something bothering you. It's just certain things don't add up. I just feel like that there's something that you're, you're not telling us.

So while investigators are focused on Michael, this case is about to take another stunning turn.

Then we got a phone call from our newsroom that said, hey, you won't believe this, there had been a shooting at Healing Hands.

Like, wow, like, this is wild.

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Investigators do an interview with Michael Bowers. Mr. Bowers is the oldest son of Rebecca Sears.

We found out that Michael was kind of the black sheep.

Well, have you ever been arrested for anything?

Yeah, I've had 2 DUIs and driving was suspended.

Like, no burglaries, theft by taking, nothing like that?

Michael Bowers had struggled with some addiction issues, and he was currently taking methadone trying to curb his addiction, but did not have a job and was really struggling at the time.

They became best friends.

Michelle Amerson, she knew Michael well, and she told me that she was actually really good friends with his mother Becky.

Michael, we did— he just became one of my boys, and you know, he was a lot of fun. Jonathan, my son, and they were very, I'd say, best friends.

What sort of issues did you see with Michael?

They just got into, I guess, like probably some drugs.

And Michael seemed to struggle with that?

Michael did.

Michael has a history with drugs, and that automatically kind of puts him kind of up on the, on the map as being a potential suspect.

We were looking at a time frame, you know, that we had for when this assault occurred on Kay. So we wanted to make sure where we knew he was at, at that time frame.

The morning of the murder, Michael Bowers told his mom he had a job painting a house.

We started pressing him on details of, you know, paint colors. And if you had a job that you were about to do, these are things that you would know, you would have answers for.

So what would be there if we drove up to the house today that you were going to use today to paint with?

Uh, paint and just a couple paintbrushes.

What color you painting the outside?

I don't even know what color it is. They picked it out.

Oh, they did?

They bought the paint and everything for you? You just show up and paint? How much is Frank going to pay for this paint job?

Oh, really? I haven't even discussed it yet.

The story he was telling just really wasn't making very much sense.

I'm getting the vibe from you that there's something that's either bothering you, something you may feel like may be the truth, and you may not want to tell me because you might be worried about street credit. You— I don't know what it is, dude. I've been doing this. I've been doing it.

I understand.

I've been doing this longer than you've been alive, man. You know, one year longer than you've been alive.

What happened? That's when he finally told us that he didn't have a job.

Probably ain't much painting stuff at Frank Ford's house.

After we find out he's lying about the painting job, the first thing that pops in my head is, why is he lying?

The reason why is because that's what I told my mom. And this, this was right—

this was right now.

Your mom is the last thing you need to worry about right this second. Yeah, I mean, you're telling me that there's a woman, your neighbor, is laying over there?

Yeah, that's pretty—

you're more worried about your mom getting pissed at you because you told her you have a job you didn't have? Dude, you got to be up front. This ain't no time to be worried about your mom finding out you've told her a fib. We find out that you've held anything back back because you're worried about your mom, because you're worried about your friends, because you're worried about whatever, you're going to be made accessory to this crime. And I don't want to see that happen. You've got problems enough.

It was hours and hours that he was there, and so we kind of started feeling uncertain in what was happening.

Did it make you think maybe he's a suspect?

I was thinking, you know, are they thinking he's part of it?

Detectives have been talking Michael, but detectives now want to talk to his brother Christopher. They want to see if he knows anything about this situation.

All right, this is a safe interview with Christopher Bowers. You understand you came up here of your own free will?

He was about 19 at the time. He seemed to have things together. He had a house, he had a job, and he seemed to be, out of the two brothers, the one that had more going for him.

He had his life together a lot more than Michael. The two were exactly as polar opposite as you could get.

That interview mainly consisted of talking about getting more information on Michael, his brother.

He always lies about, um, I got this job to do today. Well, because—

Well, does his—

when your mother drops him off, does your mother think he actually has a job to do?

Yeah, she actually does.

He was not really helping his brother at all.

I'm afraid you might have some doubts about your brother.

I do.

I don't believe in the psychic hotline, and the good Lord is not going to come down and roll time backwards. And I don't believe when Superman flew around the Earth 4 times and got him to get Lois Lane alive again. So this is what I'm saying: whatever's happened has happened. I can't change it, you can't change it, nobody can change it. I don't even want you to leave this room thinking you could have told— you should have told me something, but you didn't because you didn't think I'd believe it. The only thing that—

if you—

and I can obviously tell if you told me that you're catching some kind of vibes from me.

I am.

Um, but more so from his brother, and I just want to make sure you ain't sticking up for something with your brother, but go ahead and tell me what he's fixing to do.

He has had a problem in the past with the drugs.

Honestly, today looking at him, I think he might have picked him up again.

If he went in to burglarize the house, Kay would have recognized Michael, and so in order to prevent her from identifying define him as the burglar, he could have easily, you know, taken her out of the equation.

Do you think your brother did this, or do you think—

Absolutely not.

I don't think my brother has it in his heart. He said, no, my brother would never be able to do anything like this. But he's kind of waffling on what he's telling me about his brother. I was still focusing on Michael pretty heavily.

So there were a lot of things pointing investigators straight to him. I remember them, you know, asking him to lift his feet.

For some reason, asked him to let me see the bottom of his shoes.

What he finds on Michael's shoe, I mean, this is pretty damning. It could put him inside Kay's house at the time of the murder.

How can you explain that?

Solving this case is really what neighbors are hoping for.

I know, uh, All the neighbors are on, you know, high alert and, you know, are wanting to— are anxious to find out what actually happened.

This had now gone from an assault case to a murder investigation. And Michael Bowers looked like he could be the prime suspect.

As I was talking to Michael out there at the scene, I just, for some reason, asked him to lift his feet up. Up. So he does that, and I start seeing little broken pieces of glass in his shoe treads that look like it came from the back door of Kay's house. You broke the glass or you walked through the glass to go into the house. As far as glass that was found in your shoes, how can you explain that?

Glass in my shoes?

Uh-huh.

I guess.

I don't know.

What did you see when you walked around there?

I saw that the door— all the glass was busted out of the door.

But you never actually walked up to the concrete? How far back from the patio was approximately— were you and Mr. Cozart standing?

Uh, 4 or 5 feet.

4 or 5 feet in the grass?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Then he remembered when his mother got there that he walked up there with her.

My mom, she walked up and was going like right behind the cop through Kay's back door. She actually stepped in onto the glass and was calling her name, and I walked up over there and grabbed her arm.

Now you're stating that she did go on the patio?

Yes, I guess I was pretty close enough to get the last one.

I'm just getting a bad vibe from you, okay? That bothers me.

That really bothers He was feeling like he was a suspect. He didn't know anything.

I'm not saying you're lying, but there's certain things don't add up, and I'm not sure what it is. And if you don't tell us and we have to find it out on our own, if we hunt, peck, and dig, and the sheriff has to pay 4 or 5 investigators a bunch of man-hour overtime, he's going to be pretty pissed.

Yeah. Michael was the person of interest. He was the first one on the scene. And then, you know, he has the glass and the shoe, then he— During the interviews, he's lying.

But now he's got a new story for detectives. Now he tells them that instead of having a painting job, he just went to hang out with his friend Tony Criscione at the time of the murder.

So how long did you talk with Tony there?

About an hour until he left.

So there is a Tony. There is a Tony that exists.

I'm going to be honest with you, Mike. I don't believe you. And I'm not going to quit till I find out who did this. And I will find out who did it.

I hope you do.

Once we got the information from Michael about what he was doing, we're going to go back and check his story out and make sure everything falls in line with what he's saying, or he's going to have a lot more explaining to do.

I went to interview Tony Christiani. I wanted to know if Michael was there. I also wanted to know if he was involved. Oh, listen, this is Investigator Jimmy Edmond. How you doing?

Christiani?

Is that close? That's close enough, sir.

Jimmy, he agrees to take the polygraph. When I explained to Tony that he failed the polygraph, he immediately got really upset. That's— no, you didn't even come close to passing that polygraph.

Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not lying about it. I told him I'd take another one.

I mean, I'm—

if I was lying, why the hell would I have said I'd take it? But the more important part is, strange thing, in fact, I'm sure— well, I'm telling the truth.

Michael Bowers said he was at his house. Tony tells me that, you know, after Michael gets there, they sit down, they're talking for a little bit, watching TV. What time Michael get to your house?

6:45, roughly.

And I pushed him, pushed him pretty hard, and he finally tells me that the reason Michael came over was to ask for methadone.

I'm on methadone. Um, you know, I'm not a I was a junkie.

I got my shit straight.

Michael, I guess, was sick or whatever, and he came by begging. Told him no, and he begged and begged some more. And finally I told him, take your ass downtown, you know, go get on methadone, you damn self.

I'm talking to the other investigators that have been talking to you. I mean, I didn't want you guys knowing I was on fucking methadone, dude.

It's embarrassing.

But well, right now there's a little bit more to worry about than being on methadone.

I want the scumbag who did it to pay. To go to jail. I promise you.

Well, so do I.

Well, then we're both in the same boat.

No, not really. All I had was his word and I had Michael's word. And if they're in this together, of course they're both going to lie for each other. How do you explain the polygraph?

I can't explain the polygraph. I want— I mean, you explain it to me.

I can explain it to you as long as I've been working here. You know, I've been here a long time.

Right.

13 years.

And nobody's ever failed who wasn't telling the truth.

I've never seen it wrong.

Dude, I hate to call y'all liars, but I don't think I failed, dude.

I think y'all are trying to railroad me. I mean, I do. I wish I had more information for you, dude, but I'm giving you all I got.

Why in the hell would I do that? I haven't even said shit.

Because you think I know something. Because y'all think I can give you something. And dude, I'm telling you, if I could, if I knew Michael did it, I'd fucking testify. I would. I'd tell him in court. But I can't tell you something I don't know for sure.

All right, tank top right here.

Yes, sir.

Now Jimmy's partner sits down to push harder on that failed polygraph test.

I'm not saying that you did this, dude.

I don't know nothing about this.

I am saying that according to that polygraph test, right, there's something that's bothering you. There's something that's making you— when that question's asked, there's something that's making your body functions that you can't control, right? I don't know if it's maybe Michael Michael said something to you in passing. I don't know if Chris said something to you in passing. I don't know if you just have a real strong idea who did it and you just don't want to tell us, but something's bothering me.

I told the polygraph man that, dude, I, I don't think Michael's got the balls to do it, but I don't get— dude, if he did it, get him.

You understand this is a death penalty case?

Yes.

Whoever did this deserves what you give, what they—

what the judge gives and what the jury And they deserve it. They'll get it.

Tony Christiani, when we started talking, he was combative there for a little while. He's a wild, high-strung individual and he's just bouncing off the walls all the time. Well, you know, I'll be honest with you. I don't think you're a stone cold killer. No, I'm not, dude.

You know, I'm not.

But I think you might be a stone cold killer.

I can pick somebody better than her if I wanted to kill somebody. Well, you know, kill my wife's boyfriend.

He's a fucker. I'm kidding.

Yeah, I'm kidding.

I said, look, I need to know where you were. Did anybody see you? Can anybody prove you were there?

Is there anything at all that y'all did that one other person saw y'all do during that hour and a half?

Yes, yes, yes. Terry, my next-door neighbor. Hey, as a matter of fact, I won't say nothing else. Um, Terry is my next-door neighbor. He saw me and Mike. Well, he doesn't know it was Michael. He said he didn't know it was him, but he knows I was out back.

I ended up sending an investigator over to talk to the neighbor, and the neighbor verified it. So Tony got ruled out as a suspect pretty quick.

And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we get a call that there had been a shooting. We're thinking, wait a minute.

The Thursday night shooting happened here at the Healing Hands Physical Therapy Center. How could this be that two women could be attacked in 48 hours?

There is something far more nefarious going on here.

That kind of blew a whole big can of worms open. Now what do we do? It was Wednesday morning, about 10 AM, when Leslie Jennings-Priore's colleagues became concerned she hadn't come to work.

In 2001, Leslie Prier was living in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. when on a spring morning, the unthinkable happened.

There were signs of a struggle, but no forced entry.

This woman was strangled and she was beaten.

She was found in the shower with the water running.

For the next 2 decades, Leslie Prier's case remained unsolved, and the shocking truth about the real killer stayed hidden until very recently when new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. I'm Stephanie Ramos, and this is Blood and Water, a new series from ABC Audio in 2020.

And he almost got away with it. He almost got away with it.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

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Welcome to Get Real.

I got something to say.

A weekly talk show for the reality TV obsessed. Oh my God, he's got to be deliciously desperate.

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Well, she has a soft spot for troubled men.

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Augusta 911. What's the exact location of your emergency? I was leaving my office and somebody came out from behind the trees and he shot me.

We got a call. It's about 10:00 at night in reference to shots fired with one person being hit.

Okay. Do you know where you get hit at? Uh, my leg.

Okay.

Okay.

I don't want you to hang up.

Okay? Just stay on the line. What's your name? Becky Sears.

Becky Sears is shot at her place of business. And we're thinking, wait a minute.

I was shocked because her neighbor Kay had just been severely beaten to death. Those are red flags all over the place.

I don't think he— I don't know if he shot me, if he missed me. There's a hole in my boot. Tell me what happened. I was leaving my office, going to my truck, and he came out and he chased me back to the door and he shot me. Did he say anything to you? He said if he didn't get his money, the next time it would be my face. We got units coming to you as fast as possible, okay? Uh-huh.

And while she waits for help, she's talking to her husband Tony on a Okay, it's not that bad, Tony.

It's just my foot. It's just my leg. I can't stand up on my leg. Tony, I have to hang up the phone. I'm too tired.

My partner Steve and I responded.

But when we arrived on the scene, it was just uniquely dark. But as we got out and started walking into the scene, It wasn't until we got around the back corner of the building that we saw the ambulance there and saw Becky Sears in the back of the ambulance being treated.

Laying out on the crime scene right in this area right here was a pair of boots that belonged to Rebecca Sears. In front of one of the boots was a.25 caliber spent shell casing, and then the actual projectile was right here. So we interviewed Ms. Sears in the back of the ambulance. She advised that a subject came out of the bushes over in this direction. She couldn't describe him other than to say he had a white hat wearing all black.

She knew it was a man but didn't know who it was. She was unable to provide a meaningful description of a suspect.

This walkway is the entryway to into the back of the building that Ms. Sears would have come out of when she was leaving.

She told me that the shooter came from this direction over here, from all these thick bushes, and made his way up here and surprised her as she was coming out the door.

The round, when it was fired, hit one leg, grazed off of her, and hit the other leg and went through her boot. There is a hole in the boot where the round went through and actually landed and stopped on the sidewalk. Her wounds appeared to be more of like a deep scratch on both of her legs. We conducted a canvas of the area. We were unable to find any sort of cameras or surveillance systems that would have caught the incident or anybody fleeing the scene. Rebecca Sears said that her next-door neighbor had recently been murdered, and she thought that this may somehow be tied to that.

I got a call from our newsroom that said, hey, you won't I can't believe this, but Becky Sears was just shot outside of her office. My jaw hit the floor when I realized I had interviewed Becky Sears. I was doing a story about car insurance and just happened to be at a gas station. She's seen here filling up a white Ford F-250 truck.

$6,000 in car insurance a year, so—

She was a hardworking businesswoman with kids at home and just a mom trying to do it all. I could never have guessed that just a few months later we'd be talking about something like this.

Her younger children, she doted on. She loved them. And she was that mom that was always there, like, always participating in the things.

Jessica Lundy was a child care provider for those kids. And she was also a friend of Becky's.

She was very outgoing. Very energetic. When she walked in the room, you would know because very boisterous, very loud.

Becky was a lot of fun. I had boys and she had boys, and we had a lot of things in common, you know, with our friendship because of our children. Trying to keep them from fighting, trying to keep them from, you know, eating all the food up, you know, there was just a lot of laughter Becky, I've never seen her not put together.

Hair was always done perfectly. Makeup was already finished. So she always was always well put together when she would drop off her kids.

Becky married Tony Sears a few years earlier. This is a photo from their wedding. What can you tell me about Becky's husband Tony?

Tony did a lot of get-togethers and grilled out and You know, Tony was a lot of fun, and he was just a good old guy.

I know that Tony traveled a lot for work.

He did. He was a truck driver, so he was gone a lot. So, you know, it was kind of a way of life. You know, you got to make a living.

Becky's husband Tony, we spoke to him in person as well, and he had nothing to do with anything, and he had no knowledge of anything.

And with her saying that her next-door neighbor had been killed, obviously there was more more to this story. So after we left here, we contacted the Columbia County Sheriff's Office.

Jimmy got the phone call and he said that she had been, you know, that Becky had been shot. We all were, you know, looking at one another like, that kind of stuff doesn't happen. Now you're starting to get out there in that Twilight Zone kind of thing. Now what do we do?

Somebody just out for these people.

How could this be that two neighbors could be attacked in 48 hours?

Could the same person that killed Kay be the same person that now is accosting Becky?

What did they get into that could cause all of this destruction and chaos around them?

And then I get a phone call from one of the jailers over at our jail. They said, we have an inmate over here that wants to talk to affected you badly. Me telling you this will probably estrange me from my family, that I feel like I need to come forward and tell the truth. Let's go ahead and start again.

Two Columbia County women are attacked in two days, and they happen to live next next door to one another.

Hey Parsons and Rebecca Sears both worked at the same company, Healing Hands Physical Therapy Center. So this is just a big coincidence? Yeah, that's what they're saying right now, but again, they are still investigating. That really kind of blew this story wide open. Sears, shown on video with deputies here, was also the victim of a crime the day before. Her house was burglarized along with 41-year-old Kay Parsons. Parsons Kay Parsons was beaten in her home after she apparently walked in on the burglary.

We were like, this is the craziest thing ever.

And all of a sudden now we've got two victims. We've got Kay Parsons and we have Becky Sears. And now her name is really in the forefront.

You learn that Becky's been shot. What's your reaction during all of this?

Shocking. Did not expect anything else like that to happen. And her son Michael got so upset that he could barely breathe.

Something's targeting this woman, this family. What did they get into that could cause all of this destruction and chaos around them?

The ambulance had taken Becky Sears to the hospital where I conducted a formal interview with Becky.

Present is Investigator Douglas and Miss Rebecca Sears. Miss Sears, take Take me back to the last thing that you were doing that was normal.

I took a couple of steps actually into the parking lot, and then someone came running out of the bushes towards me. I turned and ran back towards my office, and I heard what I thought was a gunshot, and then I fell.

She seemed very nervous.

Nervous.

And what do you remember about his clothing at all?

The only thing I remember, everything was black except for he had on a white ball cap.

But he didn't grab your purse?

I didn't have my purse, it was in my car.

I don't know if it was the hour or the stress of the event that had possibly taken place, but she just seemed very tired. So as far as you know, you can't think of any reason why anybody would have took a shot at you for just for whatever reason.

Nope.

So Eva Mullins is a friend and coworker with Becky Sears at Healing Hands. Since she was on the phone with Becky when the incident took place, I interviewed Eva at the hospital.

I guess she started walking, and I just— she just started screaming, just, "Ahh!" And I just thought maybe she saw a bug on the floor, and I was like, "Becky, what's wrong?" What's wrong? And then she's like, he's, he's, he's got me. And, and, and after that, I just lost her.

And then the phone connection went dead, right?

She pretty much corroborated what Becky Sears had told us about the phone call portion of what took place.

I just got home and just got in the bed. My phone rings, and it's one of the other investigators. And he said, Jimmy, you're not going to believe this. I was like, what? He said, Becky Sears is at the She's just been shot. I said, you have got to be kidding me. I said, OK. I said, I'm getting in the car. I'll be down there in a few minutes. You know something's going on. Katie's dead. I know. If there's anything you can tell me, tell me.

I said, I don't have any idea.

All I was doing was going to do the payroll. What did he say to you?

That he wanted his money or next time he It would be my face.

What money is she talking about?

I have no idea.

We don't owe anybody any money.

While I was interviewing her, I was focusing on the threat about, you know, I want my money or next time it'll be your face. I'm trying to figure out, you know, do I still need to keep looking at Michael or one of Michael's drug dealers?

I don't think Michael— unless he owes money from the past, I don't think he owes any money now. I don't think he's in debt to anybody like that.

It was the insinuation that we got was that she was accosted by somebody that Michael owed money and that they want to try to get it from Becky.

I think he's trying to stay away from all of that to better himself.

I don't want you to be the next one dead. I don't want someone in your family to be the next one dead. Because it's not just random that they break into your house and break into her house. They kill her, and then they shoot you the next day. I don't want your kids getting hurt.

I don't want anybody to get hurt.

I don't want either. Much less my children.

Just when you think you're going in one direction, and then all of a sudden, there's that twist.

Investigators are working around the clock. They get a phone call from an inmate, Jerry Jacobs, that's currently at the Columbia County Sheriff's Office jail.

Let's go ahead and start again.

And he has information that he needs to get off his chest.

You moved up here, moved in with your sister Becky? I did.

And it ended up being this inmate was Becky's brother.

And he was in there on a misdemeanor bench warrant on a traffic charge. He said, me telling you this will probably estrange me from my family, that I feel like I need to come forward and tell you and tell tell the truth.

She come to me one day there in the parking lot crying, and I was like, you know, what's wrong? And that's whenever she told me she was having an affair. I said, how long has this been going on? She said about 4 months. Because I asked her, because I couldn't believe she was gonna say that. I couldn't believe she told me she was having an affair.

Now it's kind of like, okay, this took a seedy turn very quickly.

She was having an affair. With somebody, but she wouldn't tell him who it was.

But when detectives find out who Becky was having an affair with, it changes everything in this case.

I didn't know at the time who it was, and I could just tell by the way they— body language, looked at each other. I was like, well, if it's anybody, it's this guy.

Oof.

Now we got something kind of to work with.

This essentially made the entire investigation —go in a different direction.

That was a huge bombshell.

This is a very big deal for my investigation.

Stuff that's just so fantastical, you wouldn't think it would happen, but here it is. It happened.

Investigators, they go and they interview Jerry Jacobs. Who is the half-brother of Becky Sears. And that took the investigation in a whole different direction.

She come to me one day, or there in the parking lot crying. And I was like, you know, what's wrong? And that's whenever she told me she was having an affair.

It's a huge bombshell that there had been an affair happening.

But it's who Becky was having an affair with that shocked police.

Then I found out later on that he lived right next door.

Becky Sears had been having an affair with David Parsons, who is the husband of Kay Parsons.

She'd just call and say, well, something like, you know, Tony, he don't— he don't do this for me, he doesn't do that for me, and David does. I've fallen in love with David.

I was shocked because I knew Becky wasn't exactly happy in her marriage, but I didn't I didn't think she was having an affair with anybody.

I didn't suspect anything, you know, other than they were all good friends.

Becky and David would go over there to her mom's apartment and I guess did what they had to do while her mom was out of town.

Do you have any idea how long they've been in there?

She told me about 4 months. An affair between married neighbors, that can happen. Happened. But it's what Jerry says Becky asked him to do next that shifts the investigation.

She was crying, and she had asked me if I knew of anyone, or if I knew a way that we could do this to kill Kay and make it look like an accident, like cut her brake line on her car or do something in that effect.

Becky had been asking her brother for a while to take care of Kay, to get her out of the way so she and David could be together.

She's like, I really want her dead. She said, can we do this? And I'm like, no, we can't.

I asked him, what are you hoping to get out of this? He said that that woman did not deserve that. And I feel like I need to come forward and tell the truth.

He also had provided information to investigators that Rebecca Sears had had the same type of conversation with Christopher Bowers, the younger of her adult children.

Christopher's name coming up really shocks police because they had been taking a hard look at Michael, Becky's other son. But now what Jerry Jacobs tells them has them looking at Christopher in a whole new light.

And then Christopher, he'd tell me, he's like, you know, Mama called me. In the middle of the night last night crying. And, you know, she says if we could get away with it, you know, it would sure make everything better on her because she loves David so much.

He tells investigators that Christopher would do anything for his mom and that he was a mama's boy.

Becky seemed to dote on him, you know, always did. Went out of the way to make sure that Christopher had a place to stay, money, would buy him gifts.

She's been dumping a lot of money on us lately, and him too, mostly him. She just bought him a brand new 2009 Suzuki 250 dirt bike. Becky said, "All right, y'all look for y'all a house." And we did, we found one. She got us that house. She paid the rent.

Christopher wanted to do anything to please his mom. And so she would frequently call him crying about Kay and wanting to be with David.

And then of course Christopher coming to me a couple of times, not asking me to help him do it, but just saying, you know, mother would be a lot better off, she said, if Kay would just disappear or somebody would just come kill her.

That was what broke everything wide open.

With Chris's name now on their radar, cops are wondering if there's actually two brothers involved.

Yeah, and then discussions with Michael about, like, you've had with Christopher.

Not like with Christopher, no. Police have to be sure about this.

Have a seat right here.

So before talking to Christopher, they bring in Becky's son Michael again to be absolutely sure about what he knows.

Michael, it's over, okay? I'm not playing games anymore. I know about the affair with your mom and David, okay? My mom— don't play stupid with me. Don't play stupid with me. I'm telling you right now, it'll get ugly real quick. You need to come clean and tell me what the hell is going on. Tell me your involvement, who else's involvement, now. Don't fuck with me, I'm telling you.

I'm not, sir, I promise you.

Listen to me. Listen to me. I know what's going on, okay? I know your mom wanted Kay dead, okay? Don't give me eyes like that. I'm telling you, I know what's going on. Do you want to go to prison for the rest of your life? Huh? No, no, no. This is a very big deal for my investigation. Some of these questions I've had early on are starting to make sense. You need to start talking here and now, okay? What opened the gates is what Jerry Jacobs told us about the affair. And some of these puzzle pieces start fitting together. Becky hasn't told us once about this affair. And I brought Michael back in for an interview. Interview, and it was a pretty strong interview. Don't think you can play me and get away with this. It's not going to happen. I'm hoping to either get a confession or what his knowledge is of Becky and David Parsons having an affair. You know what has been going on with her and David?

I didn't know it was . I swear to you, all she did was show me the phone and just showed me like 2 text messages saying something like happy birthday or something like that and said like I love you or something. I didn't know who it was from or anything like that.

He didn't know anything, and he couldn't give them the answers that they were looking for because he was unaware.

I never saw her and David together by themselves. She never made any indications to me, you know, that I noticed that she had any feelings for David or that it was David.

You have lied to me from the get-go. You know that, have you not?

I did. Have you not? Yes, sir, I did.

The lies in his story, the lies he was telling to me and to other people that we were catching him in. That's why we were looking at him pretty heavy. For God's sake, if you can help yourself now.

You need to do that.

You know anything about that, what went on in the house that morning, no matter who was involved in it.

They kind of knew that Michael's story was— they went over and over and drilled him.

I was on the phone with Mama by this point, and she was like, don't go in the house, you know, I'm on my way home.

Rebecca had been called to the scene by her son Michael.

I walked to the neighbor's driveway, stood there, and was kind of just watching, and I started thinking to myself, you know, maybe I shouldn't be this close to the house if somebody's in there. The maintenance guy pulled up and he walked straight to the back, and then I heard— I heard him yelling to the house. I walked up to him and was like, you know, did you just say something about somebody breaking in over here? And he's like, yeah. I was like, well, I think somebody broke into my house too.

We were verifying some from his story as well, as far as his alibi and stuff goes.

And then mom pulled up, and the cop pulled up just right after her. The cop walked in. She walked right behind him calling Kay's name. She stepped back out, and he come back in— come back out and was like, y'all go to the front. This is a crime scene.

They were really coming down hard on him and asking him a lot of questions.

Everyone is going to remain a suspect until they're not.

I'm not playing games anymore. That woman was murdered. That last interview with Michael, I went at him pretty hard, you know, showing him pictures of Kay and hollering at him and cussing at him. Look at her head. Look at her head. Do you want to tell me what's going on? I've told you. No, you have not. You have not.

The only— the only other thing is that I did hear Mom say, I had a comment about which, you know, you know, something about somebody dying.

You know how you can sit here? Listen, I know it's your mother, okay? I know it's your mother, and I know you want to protect your mother. All right, you're 22 years old, right? Yes, sir. You might want to look out for number one right now.

I heard her make those comments about, you know, wishing somebody would just die or drive off a cliff somewhere or something like that.

She has asked you specifically if you would kill?

No, she has not. She's never mentioned Kay's name at all.

He admitted to knowing about an affair, but he never said that Becky asked him to do anything to Kay or mentioned to him about doing anything to Kay. Let me ask you this, though. Did she specifically ask you Would you be willing to help get rid of somebody?

She kind of insinuated it. She didn't directly ask me that, but she kind of insinuated that, yeah.

Michael Bowers, while he did give some false information to law enforcement when he's initially interviewed, 95% of his story lined up with what they were able to corroborate.

So even though police were at times skeptical suspecting him. It sounds like in your mind it could not have been Michael.

No, I did not ever feel like he was involved at all. I never ever had that feeling.

By the time I got done with that interview with him, I believed him. I didn't believe he actually had any part in it. Do you think Chris would ever do something like that?

No, I would really hope—

be involved in something like that or get somebody to do something like that?

I would really hope not. But honestly, you know, it's possible.

Now we got some rock-solid information to follow up on with Becky and then now with Christopher.

It seems like Chris Bowers is moving up police's potential suspect list. But first, they have to talk to one other person about that secret affair.

I'm not going to beat around the bush with you here, okay? We've figured out what happened.

I swear to you, I would never ever, I never ever want anything to happen again.

It's an interview with Mr. David Parsons.

When we first talked to David, David was upset. You know, he was playing the role of the bereaved husband. Then all of a sudden, now you find out he's been having an affair.

What I need you to do is tell me about your relationship with Becky.

The end of August, Becky and I started talking, and we ended up starting to see each other.

He pretty much came clean to everything at that point as far as, you know, the affair.

She would come in Fort Gordon and see me.

So she would come around lunch every day? Right. You were intimate with her in your home? Two times. Twice.

Where would the other locations be? Um, most of the time in one of our two vehicles. Uh, at her mom's house.

I think investigators initially have to determine, you know, what's relevant, what's not relevant. And unfortunately, that is a common thing. You know, people have flings on the side. They have relationships on the side.

How long did y'all's relationship last?

From August— in August till middle of February, where it was physical and everything.

And about that time, Kay Parsons out of nowhere starts getting text messages from an unknown number saying, "Do you know where your husband is?" and some mysterious, ominous text messages about her husband and some infidelity.

We don't know where they came from. There was no phone number attached to it. What'd they say? If you want to see who your husband's been with, come to this parking lot at work right now. I hope you see him get out of her Infiniti. Are you going home to have sex with your husband now like you used to have with her?

We did a search warrant at Healing Hands, And we found some cards and some lingerie in Becky's desk drawers. And the cards were from David Parsons. They were love letters to her.

Becky did confess the affair to Tony, her husband, in a moment of weakness.

So this thing is getting messy. So now Tony decides he's going to call Kay Parsons and tell her about the affair. And now the secret's out. Kay found out. She knew about it.

We talked about it. We were going to work through it, me and her stay together. And that's the real reason we were trying to get, you know, sell the house and move from there. She didn't want to stay there with him, her living right there next door.

Now that everybody knew about it, he had to put an end to it.

She knew the whole time that I didn't want anything to change with my situation with Kay. And so I just even got to the point of just escaping. I didn't want to continue on doing it.

At the time that Kay was murdered, David was all the way across the country on a business trip in California. So physically, we knew he couldn't do it. But that doesn't mean that he couldn't have tried to set it up and work with other people.

Naturally, they want to discover whether or not Mr. Parsons had any knowledge of the murder of Ms. Parsons. Was he involved in this?

It was common practice if he was out of town for business, he always called his son before he went to school every day. And he called Kay first, his wife, and he called her several times and couldn't get her on the phone.

I kept trying to call, trying to call, and I texted her and, you know, said, why aren't you answering your phone? And kept trying to call. And I started getting worried. I thought maybe she's in an accident or something.

David's calling around frantically to see what happened to Kay. Surprisingly, the first person he calls is the person he says he broke the affair off with, Becky Sears.

Did you call Becky that morning?

Yes, I called her. She said that her and Kay had left about the same time and she seen her following her out and she went to school and she turned the other way to take her son somewhere, her older son.

Why he would call Rebecca to check on his wife considering that they had just been caught in an affair. I don't think his wife would have wanted to hear from Rebecca.

I had my suspicions whether he knew what was going to happen or not. Did you talk to Becky Monday or Tuesday from California? Yes.

Tuesday night, we had a one-on-one conversation. We just talked for a little while about what was going on, and then we got involved in, you know, having sex over the phone.

He says that the affair had been over for a while. Come to find out that he and Becky Sears were having phone sex the night before Kay was killed.

It's so critical that you do not withhold any information, okay? Because I'm telling you everything. You're not going to do your son any good by withholding any information and going to prison.

Prison for what? For some kind of I don't have any involvement in this with my wife.

Certainly an affair would provide a pretty solid motive.

I did give David a polygraph test, and he passed it, the polygraph test. I dismissed him as a suspect because I had no evidence to point that he knew anything about it, planned anything with it, and he was not here. Becky Sears and Christopher Bowers, they were my top suspects. Start putting together teams because we're going to execute these search warrants at both houses at the same time.

At this point, Becky was staying at a hotel because of this whole thing about the person could come back, so she didn't want to be at the house or whatever. Went to the hotel, knocked on the door, made contact with her, and told her that she was under arrest.

We took her away from the kids. We didn't want to do it in front of the kids. Tony was very shocked when Becky was arrested. He was crying and boo-hooing.

And then another team went to another location and arrested Christopher.

Christopher had no reaction. He just stood up and put his hands out.

I just couldn't believe he was in this mess, and I couldn't understand why. Chris Bowers never had any problem with Kay Parsons. He had no reason, not one whatsoever, however, to do anything to K. Parsons.

I want you to think long and hard before you choose to go down the road.

We thought maybe he might give her up.

Everything's not happening the way you said it happens.

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Hi, I'm Pedro Pascal, and I can't wait for you to see my new movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu, hitting theaters on May 22nd. See you there.

What are you waiting for? I like this kid.

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We have to stop the Empire.

On the big screen. Are you scared? You should be. Like never before. Hang on. Good shot, baby. The Mandalorian and Grogu, rated PG-13, may be inappropriate for children under 13. In theaters and IMAX May 22nd. Get tickets now. We take Becky into custody, take her to the office for an interview, and we take Christopher into custody. I had two investigators go to interview Christopher.

A lot of things have come up in this investigation, and a lot of things like, for instance, we know that your mom was having an affair with Mr. Parsons, the next-door neighbor.

Uh, Chase Huggins? Yes, sir. All right.

And there's many other things that's come up.

They started asking him about, you know, what he did that morning and what's going on, you know, what happened.

What time did you leave the house that morning?

My mom showed up about 7:10, 7:15.

Went out of work and BS'd around for a little while. I was supposed to hang some shelves. She got a phone call from my brother saying that Kay's house had been broken into.

Christopher says he comes back to the house with his mother and he sees his brother Michael at Kay's house talking to that contractor.

Did you go inside the residence or not? You been in her house before? You ever been in?

Yeah, I've been in her house plenty of times.

Your mom's in custody with us right now. She is. She's talking to us right now. And everything's not happening the way you said it happened. So I want you to really think long and hard.

He got defensive and he said, it sounds like you don't believe me.

Whatever you're saying, I'm trying to say is a lie. We end this right now. I'm going to get my lawyer. Basically, you just called me a liar. I want to speak to a lawyer right now.

Originally, what I thought was going to happen was that once Chris realized just how much he was manipulated by his mother, that he would roll on her. That's just tantamount to how much hold she had over him. Him, that he wasn't gonna give her up for nothing. Quite the opposite from what I heard in Becky's interview.

She agreed to speak with us, and she went through the affair with David.

I cared about him very, very much. Very much. My husband didn't show affection to me. You know, he didn't tell me he thought I was beautiful. He didn't tell me that he loved me, and those were things that David did.

Police are talking to Becky, and while they're interviewing her, they tell her that they have her son Christopher in custody and they're interviewing him too.

She right away started throwing Christopher under the bus.

Why did you pick him up though from his house that morning?

We talked on Tuesday and I told him I would pick him up. For what reason? I knew what was in Christopher's head, but we didn't say any reason. The implied reason was he was going to go next door to Kay's house to do what? We didn't talk about it. It was an implied reason he was going to go to Kay's house too, because he was going in his mind to do whatever it took to make me happy, and that would be to get rid of Kay. So I went and picked him up and brought him back to my house, and he went upstairs and I got the kids up and got them dressed.

She had him hide upstairs in a spare bedroom so the other kids, his siblings, wouldn't see him there.

I told him, stay here and I'll be back in a little while. I'll be back here to get you in a little while.

Okay, so he obviously did not do that. He went in to Kay's house, but he was not supposed to.

He was supposed to stay at my house. Okay, but for me to come back and pick him up. How did he— He didn't because he thought that I really wanted him to go next door, and I didn't want him to go over there. We didn't sit down and make a plan for him to go over there and kill Kay.

She said she left to go take the younger kids to school.

Becky dropped off her children, didn't even really say hi or anything. It was just— Here's the kids. Bye. She came in not her normal put-together self. Hair pulled up, not normal. Her face being red like she'd been crying.

That is when Christopher went downstairs, went over to Kay's house, broke in the back door with a hammer that he brought, staged the burglary there, and waited for Kay to get home.

It appeared as though Rebecca Sears was emotionally manipulating Christopher Bowers.

She was very adamant about the actions of her son and how she was not part of the plot to kill Kay.

You remember these phone calls to calling him crying? Yes. And you wanted her to fall off a cliff. You wanted her dead.

I didn't say that. I said I wanted her to be gone. Christopher's mind, he would do whatever he thought I wanted him to do, and I allowed him to think that.

So you thought the safest thing was to bring him to your house and leave him there alone at the house right next door to where Kay would soon be there alone? That was the safest thing to do for this ticking time bomb you had created. Is that what you're telling me?

I didn't ask anybody to kill anybody.

Christopher waited for Kay to get home, and when she got home, he beat her with the claw hammer. He finished her off with a baseball bat. Becky said he called her and said, "Come pick me up," and they had a preplanned location for her to pick him up. Him up. So he ran through the woods and came out at the dead end of a road where she was waiting for him.

When he got in the vehicle, could you see blood on his clothes and stuff?

I think he had blood on his face, and I asked him, what did you do? I said, oh my God, what did you do? And I said, Christopher, please tell me that she is okay. Please tell me that you did not do this.

And what What did he say? He said, "I beat the fuck out of her." His own mother was just telling everything.

Did he change clothes in the car? Yes.

And he threw them in a backpack.

Her son, in her mind, acted on his own without her direction.

And remember that incident outside Healing Hands where Becky was shot? Well, now she's telling detectives that the whole thing was staged by her and Christopher.

He was just going to shoot at me to scare me, for me to say that somebody chased after me wanting money.

Your own son shot— he didn't mean to.

For his part, Christopher has never acknowledged being part of this plan.

I think Rebecca stage this crime to hopefully avoid criminal charges for the murder.

So police have Becky in custody, and she's just talking and talking and talking.

And even at one point, the tape recorder goes out and the battery dies.

Her interrogation lasts almost 5 hours. At the end of the interview with Becky, I got arrest warrants for Christopher Bowers and in for Becky Sears for murder. Buenas tardes. Put your hands behind your back.

You're under arrest for murder.

In my mind, she was the mastermind of this murder. She gave him everything he wanted. And then I think she just says, hey, it's time to pay me back. And I got one little thing I need for you to do.

She was very adamant. That she was not guilty of the crime.

You've got a mother and son duo. You've also just got the level of violence that had occurred to Miss Parsons. It was going to be, you know, a death penalty case.

Becky Sears headed to trial and possibly facing the death penalty.

She's got one more card to play. And then from jail, Becky contacts the district attorney. It It was like a made-for-TV movie.

I actually drove to Nashville. Tony Sears and his boys were staying there at the time, and I went there and interviewed Tony. With his wife and stepson behind bars, Tony Sears now lives in Nashville with his 3 young sons. He was so kind to tell me about the woman he knew and loved. Could the Becky that you know be capable of something like this? I mean, they call her a mastermind, that she orchestrated this.

No, I don't believe none of that.

I believe she's innocent. Becky Sears and Christopher Bowers would be in court together. I remember being stunned when I was filming and realized I caught Becky blowing Christopher a kiss in the courtroom. And then I was, you know, months later and in the same courtroom but a different proceeding, she was there mouthing, "I love you," to him. And you realize that this is the only contact they have with one another now.

Rebecca's case was pending for 2 and a half years. The time that she spent at the Columbia jail saw a pretty big physical transformation.

A couple of years after they were charged, charge, there was some evidence that came to light through the defense counsel for Rebecca Sears.

There wasn't a lot of physical evidence tying Christopher to the crime scene.

There was supposed to be a bag of clothes that Chris had on during the attack.

That he would have been wearing during this bloody fight from one end of the house to the other.

Once we realized that he took them all off and threw them in a backpack. And it was just a matter of where he threw them. And he wouldn't tell us.

Becky Sears said that she didn't know where the clothes were.

So you don't know where they put them at?

No. You have no clue?

No. We were looking for a while. And then from jail, Becky goes through her attorney, who contacts the district attorney.

She was willing to give up where the bloody clothes were.

There was an air of desperation about Rebecca, is that she knew that she had to do everything she could to avoid a conviction and a death sentence.

So she was playing what little cards she had left in her hand. So went to Becky's mother's house, and in a box in the attic was that backpack with the bloody clothes.

In a last-ditch effort to save her skin, She was willing to sacrifice her son.

By turning over these items of Chris's clothing, we knew it was over. There's no defense now.

There's no trial now. It is really mind-boggling how a mother could persuade her son to commit such a brutal murder.

After he does this awful thing on her behalf, she throws him under the bus. It's the most shocking betrayal of the love that a parent is supposed to have for a child that I can even imagine.

It's been more than 3 years, and a mother and son are now admitting they killed their neighbor, Kay Parsons.

Pleading guilty because you are guilty.

Yes.

Becky Sears and Christopher Bowers will each spend the rest of their lives behind bars, left to think about the innocent woman they now admit to killing. To not put the family through the trial and the crime scene photos probably felt like the right move for the investigators and the prosecutors at the time.

It's a little closure, but she should have got the death penalty.

She don't deserve for us to feed her for the rest of her life.

Mr. Parsons and their now 15-year-old son were in court.

He's a little boy who's lost his mom at a very young age.

He'll have to live the rest of his life wondering I thought I knew what the definition of evil was, but a mother, you know, manipulating her own son to commit a crime for her benefit.

Rebecca and her husband were friends with Kay and her husband. The children played together. At the end of the day, these two families were destroyed over this.

Where is Michael now in his life?

Took him a long time, but he is doing very good. He has a good job and, you know, has moved on. And we've just seen a new Michael arise, so we're happy.

The real victims in this case are Kay Parsons and Kay's son and the fact that he went through life without his mother. You know, this is a woman who was cut shot down in the prime of her life because of an affair.

That's the part that, you know, kind of gets me, is that she didn't deserve this.

And I always just go back to the fact that she was drinking her McDonald's coffee in the living room when she was brutally attacked out of nowhere on just a quiet suburban morning.

The two people responsible for killing Kay Parsons, Becky Sears, and her son Christopher Bowers will remain in prison for the rest of their lives.

As for Kay's family, David, her son is now 29 years old and her husband has since remarried. That's our program for tonight. Thanks for watching.

I'm Deborah Roberts. And I'm David Muir. From all of us here at 20/20 and ABC News, good night.

Sunday nights on ABC. What happens when the person you love the most turns out not to be who you think they are?

Everything he told me was a lie.

I was betrayed. From the number one true crime podcast, Betrayal. He's been living a secret double life. My marriage ended with a 911 call. The tape is blood-curdling. Betrayal: Secrets and Lies. So many people are living with their own betrayal. Sunday nights at 10/9c on ABC and stream on Disney+ and Hulu.