Transcript of The After Show: Driven to Death

I'm John Quinones. Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year-old soldier, vanishes while on duty at an army base in Texas. Her family demands answers. How can she go missing on a military base? That's too ridiculous. The search goes on for months. Where is Vanessa? Where is Vanessa? And a dark story starts to unfold.

She told her family that she was being sexually harassed and wasn't reporting it out of fear of retribution and retaliation.

What investigators finally uncover is horrifying. Find out how one soldier, a beloved sister and daughter, ignited a movement and sparked a reckoning in the US military. Listen to Vanished: What Happened to Vanessa? A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Listen now wherever you get your podcast.

Hello, everybody. Deborah Roberts here. Welcome to 2020 The After Show. Thank you all so much for being with us today. As usual, we like to talk about our stories from the last week, and of course, pull back the curtain a little bit on how our reporting was done. And this story is just beyond. It's like a Hollywood thriller. I mean, it's got all these elements, an affair, a murder. But believe it or not, this is actually a true story. It took place in Ory County, South Carolina. Megan Jackson, a 40-year-old mom of four, was found guilty of the murder of Greg Rice, who was the father of her children. It was featured on our most recent episode of 2020. And you can stream it, of course, on Disney Plus or Hulu, if you haven't done so already, which you're going to want to. But John Quignones, my colleague, who we call Q, reported on this story. John, welcome once again to the show. Yeah. Yeah, it's always great talking with you. It's always great being with you. You and I talk so much about our stories when we do get a chance to see each other.

But this one is just beyond. A torrid love affair gone wrong and body transport. First of all, I had never even heard of that. I didn't know that that was a real profession.

Yeah, everyone has a job, and in this case, everyone needs someday. We don't want to be in that vehicle that transports our body when we pass away. But someone Everyone has to do it. There are body transporters who work for funeral homes and for coroner's offices, and they go out there and they pick up a body whenever someone passes, and it can be at any time of the day or night.

I always thought it was the coroner who did that, but they work for the coroner. It's just the person who actually transports. So this story, of course, it's got all the... It's almost like you can't make this up. Is that what grabbed your attention when you heard about it?

Yeah, it was so bizarre. Here are people who are in the business of transporting bodies. They're basically Uber drivers for the dead, right? They start having a relationship, and they work all hours of the night. She lives with a man for 15 years, the father of her children, Chris Dontel, is married. Megan Jackson is the woman involved, and they start having an affair. That's what drew me to this.

Then you don't think about finding love in that profession. Then, of course, there is a murder.

How conniving she became. She was really strange and conniving and lying about all sorts of things and carrying on with him. She had a lot of money, so she starts giving him money and his wife, the family money, buying them toys at Christmas and helping them pay for a swimming pool. So she ingratiated and she dug herself into their lives while she's having affair with this woman's husband.

Well, tell me a little bit about Megan Jackson. You mentioned something she had inherited some money. She's a mom of four kids. I mean, that already struck me. Tell us a little bit about her.

From all accounts, she wasn't happy being a mother. In fact, she was overheard saying that she wanted to see her kids dead. She didn't like being at home. And that's why this job was perfect for her because she could sneak away- She could get called out at any time. Any time of the day or come up with excuses as to why she was gone, that she was working, right? They didn't have enough food to eat. She had a nice home because she inherited nice money. That's how she was able to afford gifts that she gave to Chris Dontel and his wife, Erica, and the kids. And yet she didn't have much in the refrigerator when investigators finally went into the home for food for the kids. She had locks on the kids' bedrooms, locks on the windows. They couldn't leave. The older daughter wound up being the mom of the house, the parent of the house.

Yeah, needless to say. Now, we should make it clear, too, that she was no longer with Rice. So he was her ex, in a sense. And so she meets up with Dontel, and the two of them just hit it off, and they have this torrid relationship, and his wife, of course, is unaware there. What about him? Talk a little bit about him.

Well, he seemed very susceptible to the coming on from this woman, the overtures that she had. He says he did it in the end when we finally chatted, when we did interview him, that he did it for the money, that he liked her, but that she started providing so much for them that that's why he had an affair with her, and he kept it going and covered up for her for so long. He was a good dad. He would come home, and he would spend a lot of time with the kids. The lover, Megan, wound up moving into their neighborhood, a few houses down from their house because she wanted to be close to them.

I want to get to motive here, but what struck me in all of our stories, their family's involved, right? We're talking about children here, her children. You actually had an opportunity to talk to her older daughter, Savannah, in this story, which was a Really touching. I mean, it really caught all of us, and particularly, I mean, you obviously have a way whenever you're doing any of your interviews, but you really brought out something in her. What was that like for you? Because you're a dad.

She was very timid and had been through trauma of living with this woman. She actually told me, I said, Do you have anything to say to your mom? She says, No, she is an evil woman. I hate her. So she was very fragile when she first sat down, and then she really wanted to give her side because she testified at the sentencing trial for Chris Dontel. We interviewed her, and I just approached her as a dad. I have a daughter myself. I have three kids. She reminded me of my daughter, Andrea, because she's very quiet and not incredibly… She's just a little bit withdrawn. Savannah was teary-eyed and timid, so I had to be very gentle in talking to her. Of course. And talking to her as I would my own kids. And eventually, I drew her out. She had gone through a traumatic experience of living with this woman.

Yeah, that was a big part of your story. I want to talk more about that later.

She actually found out that they were having an affair when they were in the house and she heard them upstairs in an upstairs bedroom when Savannah was with some friends of her own in the living room and the friends were making fun of her because they could hear what was going on.

What a horrible situation for a young girl. And she used to go to work with her mom. You actually got a chance to see the car. I guess they call it the death mobile when they go to pick up bodies. I mean, there's something really creepy about parts of this, but you actually got a chance to see the transportation vehicle and present that. I mean, that had to be a little bit strange, too. We don't do that every day in our stories.

The ride nobody wants to take, right? Yeah. Yeah, the owner of the outfit is Chuck Benjamin, and he's a real character. He's a guy who says he talks to... He carries a bodies in the bag, and he transports them to the airport, sometimes for hours and hours on long drives to deliver the remains to some other city. And he says he'll sing songs with him. He'll ask them questions. He gets no response, but talks to them. I hope not. He's sentimental. He carries an American flag. So whenever there's a veteran who has passed away, he puts the flag next to them. And during COVID, he was really busy. They were handling hundreds and hundreds of cases, as you can imagine. He says it's hard to get people to work for him because of the bizarre nature of what they do. So it's tough to keep employees. He still has some very warm feelings for Megan.

Yeah, and you brought that out in the story. Let's talk about Greg Rice, because obviously that's how this turned into a murder story. His body was found by this woman who was a fisherman, and you got on the boat with her. You found out she said she had this nagging feeling, like a spirit nagging at her, which is how the body wound up being found.

Yeah. First, it was taken to the funeral home. They took Rice's body to the funeral home, and they put him in a cooler to sit there. They could have cremated him, but they were afraid that other people might be watching and might wonder who this person was because he usually labeled the body that's been brought in. So they couldn't cremate him. The next day, he goes to Lowe's Home Improvement by a cinder block and zip ties and a tarp. And of course, there's security cameras at the Lowe's.

Of course, everywhere. And also when you buy, there's like a tracing there, too.

And they put on their credit card. He also bought a diet drink, so he put that in. Really clear pictures of Chris Dontail shopping at Lowe's, buying all the supplies used to wrap the body in, Rice's body, and he takes him to the Little Pee Dee River. It's outside Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, and tosses him over the side of the river. And that's when this woman finds him as she's out there fishing. She was catfishing. It's a strange place, the Little Pee Dee River. It's very murky and dark and gives the creeps.

Yeah, and you really did feel that. But before you knew, of course, during the course of the story, what had happened. But when this first happened, nobody knew. And Megan, of course, filed a missing person's report, but she quickly became a suspect in the disappearance of her ex-boyfriend. Let's listen to a clip of her being questioned by police, which we heard in your piece. Megan, right?

M-e-a? M-e-a. J-a. What's your last name? Jackson. Jackson.

How long were you all married for?

We weren't married. We weren't married. How many kids you got together? Just curious. Four. Four, really? I was with him for like, four, 15 years. How long you all been separated? Over a year. Over a year or so. Megan says she last spoke to Greg on Friday, the night before he went missing. You talked to Greg on the phone? About 9: 58, you said?

Yes.

I told him that I was still going to... I was still good for taking the kids to your house in the morning, and he took yes. And I mean, everything was fine. That was the last time you spoke to him? Yes. So you never physically saw him prior to him? No.

John, she's so detailed in her explanation, but almost cool and calm. I mean, obviously, we report on a lot of stories where police start to think it's a little strange, When the person is pretty stoic and so forth. But it's the father of her children who has gone missing, and law enforcement became suspicious pretty quickly with her.

Yeah, because her stories weren't measuring up. She said she hadn't seen him, but they start tracing their cell phones. Of course, those will get you all the time.

All the time, yeah.

And there were also cameras all over that county that take pictures of vehicles going through intersections. So they were able to piece together where she was and the fact that she was with Chris Dontel the night the father of her children died. They were able to trace her to his house. As it turns out, she had gone there, and Chris is with her. He's driving the vehicle, and Megan is there. And Chris later claims he didn't know she was going to kill her, the father of her children. They see him coming out. He says she jumps out of the vehicle and she shoots him five times. Then she tells Chris, Help me load the body into the van. They do, the body transport van, and that's when they take him to the funeral home. But the police investigators started piecing together where the cell phone foot is data said they were, and also the security cameras that show their vehicles coming in and out of Greg Rice's community because they lived apart.

Typically, police go right away to either spouse, and in this case, it was the girlfriend. It's one thing to connect them, but police are always looking for a motive also when they're doing this thing. Were they coming up with why she'd have a reason to?

Not really. I mean, they were wits, and they really didn't have a real reason other than they were having an affair, right? And they wanted him out of the picture, or at least she did, because Chris Dontell later says he had no part of it, that he did this. He took part in it only because Megan was so threatening to him, and he thought she was going to come after him and shoot him. And after all, he says, I saw her kill the father of her children, so I was scared of her.

We're only scratching the surface of this. When we come back, John, you got an exclusive in this case. You actually spoke with Dontel, which was the first time he had spoken. So moments after his sentencing, you sat down with him, and we're going to talk about that. We have more coming up. Don't go anywhere.

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Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere. Rated PG 13. Parandle guidance suggested for children Under Thirteen, only in Theaters Friday. I'm back with John Quinones with the story he just reported for 2020. You spoke with Chris Dontal, who was at the center of all of this right after he was sentenced. And this was the first time he had talked to anybody. Why did he want to talk to you?

Because he thought he agreed to do the interview because he thought he was going to get off with time served. So we're at the sentencing. I'm in the courtroom room, and they give him 20 years in prison. And he's really angry. And he says, I'm not doing the interview with you. I'm not doing the interview with 2020. You guys can leave. And we were all set up, as you know, often with cameras and lights and everything. And so I had to go talk to him, and my producer and I chatted with him and said, maybe this is an opportunity for you to get your side of the story out, right?

I have to say that's very deflating for us when we are setting up and we're preparing to do an interview and somebody decides to pull the plug on us because it's happened to me, too, and you're trying to get it back on track.

And he's a big part of the story. He's one of the main characters, right? So eventually, he agrees to sit down with us and he changes his mind. And he He was still upset, though. His face is red. He was angry and upset because he had gotten the sentence that he didn't expect. So he did it. When he sits down and he goes on and on to tell me how he was scared of this and how manipulative Megan was to him and how conniving and how he could have put an end to the relationship, but that he was afraid of her.

Well, your conversation with Dontel was really candid. I mean, he shared a lot with you. In fact, he talked about his affair with Megan, and let's listen to a clip from that.

You had a great wife at home, Erica. The most amazing wife. Why did you continue the relationship with Megan? She made our lives easy. She was going to be the answer to everything. You did it for the money. It sounds terrible to put it that way, but yes.

John, tell me about his response to you. I mean, you know, He was still together with his wife, who still was trying to keep her family together. I mean, what about his response? How did you react when you're sitting there listening to this?

He says he loves his wife. He loves his children. He was very sorry that he did this and that he succumbed to the advances of Megan Jackson. Erica stood by his side. She didn't tell the kids when he was in jail for four years. Which is so surprising. He was in jail. She really wanted to keep the family together.

And to protect them.

Yeah, and took him back and was there at the sentencing and wants him back to this very day, and she will wait for him. They had a favorite song, Chris and Erica. She told me about it when I sat down and interviewed her. She said she still loves him, and she quoted a song, a country song that they had when they met, a Keith Urban song called Only You Can Love me this way. That may take on several meanings now. Yeah, clearly. But it's about the relationship. I think she really just wanted to keep the family together. In the end, some people are very forgiving. I've interviewed many people, and you have, too. And Dontel He told me he did not love Megan Jackson, that this was not a love affair. I said, Why did you continue your relationship with her? He said, We believe that she was making our dreams come true, that she was going to fulfill even our wildest dreams with the money.

With the money. So it was really all about the money.

And of course, he's saying that he did it for the money, but the fact is he was having a torrid affair with this woman. It was a very physical relationship. They carried on for months and months. And even when she was in jail, while she was being held, he was still communicating with her, and they were still meeting up whenever they had an opportunity to do so.

So he was caught up in this affair.

Yeah, no, clearly.

And that's at the root of so much of what we're doing when we cover these stories. All right, well, John, more to talk about because the courtroom antics were just really something else in this case. So once again, you're helping us look behind the scenes. And there was a shocking twist in courtroom that nobody really saw coming, and you're going to break it all down for us. So stay with us, everybody. What man would let this happen?

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The very first witness for the prosecution, Megan Jackson's own teenage daughter, Savannah Rice.

We felt it important to open with Savannah because any time you have a child testifying against their parent, that sends a strong message. And Savannah, I know you're nervous. I get it.

And how much time had passed since you saw your mom that day in the courtroom? Almost five years. What did she look like?

She just looked hollow.

And just having her sit in front of me, it made me uneasy. She had come home drunk one night, and I was in the kitchen, and my sister, she wasn't behaving. And I told my mom, and she started screaming.

And my sister was upstairs, but then she looked at me and she said, I hope what happened to your dad happens to your sister.

And I asked her, What do you mean? And she just wanted to say anything. What would drive her mom to say that about a daughter? My mom could be an evil woman. This is your mother.

That was a clip of Megan Jackson's daughter, Savannah, on why she decided to testify against her own mom in the murder trial of her dad. And, John, you were right there. You're talking to her, not only how you sat down with her, but you were with her in the hallway of the court before the hearings. You ask her about her feelings for her mom. And oftentimes, you and I have done these stories where kids stick by their parents, even when it's clear that they've done something terrible. But she didn't feel How did you feel that about her mom.

She hates her mom. She said it in those words. She says her mom is really evil. When I asked her, If you could talk to her, would you? She said, No. She's still traumatized by it to the point that she's now living on her own in Ohio. She wanted to remove her. She loved her father, Greg, very much. They would go surfing together, and he taught her to surf with his best buddy. In It really wrecked this family. There were other kids involved. She was the one that spoke up and is now doing her best to keep the family.

Younger children. What you described earlier.

Locked doors, locked refrigerator, locked windows.

And not letting them out for periods of time. And whoever's babysitting has to... She had to watch out for the other kids.

And then the mom bringing the lover upstairs and the kids having to hear what was going on upstairs. I did chat with her on the phone later, and she says that she did not kill Greg Rice, the father of her kids, that she loves those kids very much. There were-even though they cast doubt on that. You wonder about the charges of child abuse, right? Prosecutors in the end decided to drop those charges and not pursue that.

So it's not to put the kids through that.

Exactly. They didn't want the kids to have to be put through that trial and turmoil.

John Quinones, only you can shed light on a story like this in a way that makes it It really, really was. I mean, who knows if we've heard the end of it because oftentimes people decide to seek appeals and all of that. But thank you, John. Always great talking with you.

Thank you for having me here. Yeah, we'll do another one.

Yeah, we'll do another one. Absolutely. Sometime soon. Well, that does it for us today on The After Show. Always a pleasure to have Q here with us.

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