Transcript of Out of the Darkness

Hi, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the NBC News podcast The Drink. And this month I'm having mojitos with comedian Eric Andre. Was I a little bit worried he might prank me? Absolutely. But he promised he'd behave. Mostly did. Here at The Drink, we are all about the journey, and Eric's journey to success is anything but typical. We talk about his childhood, his brief run in music, and the decade he spent hustling in New York City before his hit TV show changed everything. It's a conversation peppered with humor, but also a real look at the path behind his larger-than-life persona. We hope you'll join us for The Drink. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

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Tonight on Dateline.

What's going on?

My husband, and he's been shot in the head.

Please.

There's a female She had mud and blood all over her, frantic, saying her husband had been shot.

Calm down. Breathe slow. We were concerned for her.

That's my husband's blood on me.

She was right next to him as he was hit?

Yes, sir.

Did she say who shot her husband?

I saw a shadow. That's all I said.

She said it was just a figure, turned and ran into the darkness. We don't know if the suspect's still out there.

It's nerve-wracking for sure.

A murder in the dead of night, a mystery on a desolate Who killed your husband?

She knew something that she wasn't telling.

Yes, sir.

I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Josh Mankiewicz with Out of the Darkness.

This Friday night already felt What felt like rain.

Now it sounded like trouble. It was 10:47 PM. The woman calling 911 sounded desperate.

Okay, calm down. What do you need? Where are you at? Okay, thank you. Ma'am, where are you at?

She was on a cell phone somewhere on the outskirts of town.

This is Hunt County with a transfer. She's pinging on Kenner Road 2595. She's extremely out of breath. She sounds like she's running. And she's saying, crying, she's saying she needs the police. She needs the police.

Seconds later, the call dropped out.

Okay.

Hello, ma'am, are you there?

What was she running from? And what had happened on this Texas country road? Those questions would be answered quickly.

All I could do was just cry because I thought, oh my God, you know, no, this cannot be true.

It was the why and the secrets that answer dragged out of the darkness. That were so much harder to comprehend. When you get a call, what is it usually?

I mean, just like any other police department— thefts, criminal mischief, uh, reckless drivers.

Not that night. Not on September 9th, 2016. According to the running, gasping woman on the phone, someone had been shot. It was happening in Royse City, Texas, 31 miles from Dallas.

Somebody You're shot. That's a major call. Your adrenaline's running.

Officer John Bivens of the Royse City PD rushed to the scene, his dash cam rolling.

What's going on?

My husband, and he's been shot in the head.

Please! The woman's name was Chacey Pointer. Bivens took me to the road where he found her.

She seemed frantic. She said that her husband had been shot. So I gathered her up, put her in the back of my car.

Come here.

Have a seat.

Have a seat. Have a seat.

Please!

Stay in here. Stay in here.

And the shooter could be out here somewhere.

Yes. Yes. So I put her into safety in my car, and I ran down the road to go find the victim.

Bivens and a sheriff's deputy who pulled up at the same time ran a half mile down County Road 2595.

That's a long way on foot in the dark.

In the dark it is, yes.

And you have no idea whether the shooter is behind one of these trees or waiting for you or running away or—

Running what?

Halfway down the road, an abandoned pickup truck. They kept going.

We continue running down this road, and we could see headlights through the tree line. And we make— we come around the curve. Our duty weapons are drawn, giving orders, let me see your hands. Headlights are in our eyes, so what's inside the vehicle is unclear to us until we get closer. And once we get closer to the vehicle, saw nobody around it suspect-wise, just saw a victim inside of the car.

A man slumped over in the driver's seat. He'd been shot in the head.

It was evident that he was deceased.

Bivens' partner Shane Meek was also called to the scene by a dispatcher.

And I made a joke to her. I said, "What do you have, a murder?" And she said, "Yeah, I think so." And I'm like, "Oh, I gotta go," you know, 'cause it just doesn't happen that often.

The last murder in these parts was years ago.

I knew I had to respond pretty rapidly to the scene, not knowing what we had.

Meek called for backup because the shooter or shooters remained on the loose.

Everybody was on point as far as keeping their heads on a swivel because we didn't know who or how many people were out there.

And while Meek waited for Royse City's lone detective to arrive, he took Chacey to paramedics who'd responded to the scene.

That's all right.

Calm down. Breathe slow.

I'm trying.

I'm trying.

So was anyone else out there with you?

No, I was out there by myself.

I told him that— Was it your husband? What's his name?

Robert.

Robert Porter. Somewhere in all this, she'd hit the ground, both blood and mud on her.

We were concerned for her and wanted to make sure she was taken care of and find out as much and as quickly what happened.

And all the cops kept watching the sky. Because this is Texas and the heavens were about to open.

Rain or any type of weather can damage or completely get rid of possible evidence. We had to move quick because this storm was moving fast.

When we come back, what would investigators find out there at the crime scene?

Chasey's purse was still on the floorboard. His personal cell phone was still in the center console, covered in blood. Big clue for us was that the weapon was— was a shotgun.

A shotgun turned murder weapon. So where was it?

What's going on?

My husband, he went to go help me. My Jeep is stuck in the back around the corner and he's been shot. In the head, please.

It was the worst crime Royse City had seen in a very long time. A man shot to death on a muddy road, his wife standing close by. Now she was in an ambulance, and police were trying to piece together what had happened, who their victim was, and who might have wanted him dead. I don't know.

I don't know.

Sporting his signature mustache and a 6'4", close to 300-pound physique, Bob Poynter could look intimidating. To those who knew him best, he was the complete opposite. His mom, Candy.

He just didn't have a mean bone in his body.

He was your favorite?

Oh, so they say.

What do you say?

Possibly.

Probably.

Bob was Candy's middle child between two sisters, Jennifer and Cheryl.

He was not, not confrontational.

Not—

he was very non-confrontational. Peacekeeper all the time.

He liked helping people. Maybe that's why Bob became a firefighter, a well-respected one. He swallowed smoke for 19 years, winding up as a captain in the University Park Department outside Dallas. And from his firehouse, from the rig, even from the fires, Bob kept in very close touch with his mom.

Just because we had that rapport of 10 to 15 calls a day.

10 to 15 calls a day?

Uh-huh.

Honestly.

Mama's boy.

I know. Yeah, truly. I adored him.

So did his fellow firefighters. Bob Poynter got it done. He even helped in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. And he always came home unscathed, professionally speaking anyway. Bob's personal life was also the story of a man who ran toward trouble. Bob married young and had 2 kids. After 19 years, that marriage fell apart, expensively so. Around then is when Bob met Chacey Mormon, who was much younger.

I think it was an infatuation. He thought it was Somebody 22 years old, you know, liking him and he's in his 40s, you know, and, uh, a fling. A fling, basically, yeah.

It wasn't a fling. Bob married Jaycee. It was a fresh start for Bob with this woman born and raised in small-town Texas.

I mean, she just had a heart of gold. I mean, she loved everybody.

Ashley met Jaycee in middle school back when Royse City was just a speck on the map.

There was nothing here. Nothing. We had Jack in the Box and we had one gas station and that was it.

Farm town.

Farm town and just country.

Quiet.

Very quiet.

People didn't lock their doors.

Nope.

Ashley and Chacey lost touch after high school, then reconnected when Ashley noticed Chacey's cake business on Facebook, something Chacey did in addition to her job at a dental office.

And she did it on her spare time, and she enjoyed doing it, and she was amazing at what she did.

What made her so good at that?

Just her being so crafty, and her imagination was everything.

Ashley got to know Chacey's husband Bob and the couple's young daughter named Addison, who helped her mom decorate cakes.

And it was kind of something that her and Addison did together as well.

However, if Chacey and Addison spent plenty of time together, Chacey and the husband she called Robert did not.

What'd you say about Robert?

He was never there. He always worked.

Well, he was a fire captain.

Right.

And he worked a lot of shifts.

Yes, he did.

A lot.

That was a problem.

Yes.

Bob tried to make things right. In early September 2016, he took his family on a trip to Mexico. It was a chance to reconnect. 6 days later, Bob Poynter was dead and not in a fire. Detective Michael Burke drove out to County Road 2595 to investigate his first career homicide.

I grabbed my CID equipment, my criminal investigation equipment, and mostly at that time it was just a camera, flashlight.

And off you go to the scene.

Yes, sir.

About halfway down the road was that truck, later identified as Bob's. Then another discovery.

It's dark, so we're shining our flashlights on the path to make sure we don't trip or break an ankle and fall in one of the deep ruts. And there was a reflection in the water of one of the puddles. And a closer look showed it was a cell phone.

It was Chacey's cell phone. She'd apparently dropped it in the mud when she fell. It's why her 911 call was cut off. Further down the muddy road and around a bend was Chacey's Jeep with Bob Pointer's body behind the wheel. Burke took a close look.

Was he robbed or—

No. Chacey's purse was still on the floorboard of the vehicle. His personal cell phone was still in the center console covered in blood.

The fatal shot had apparently been fired at close range.

Big clue for us was that of what the weapon was, was a shotgun. Was that the wadding from the shotgun shell was still on the victim's skull.

There was no weapon at the scene, so who shot Bob and why?

Coming up—

just, just breathe for me.

What had happened on that desolate road? Chasey tells a dramatic story.

I heard a shot and the Jeep started rolling and I saw a shadow That's us.

When Dateline continues.

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Chasey Pointer had just witnessed her husband being shot and she could barely breathe.

What I need you to do is in through your nose, out through your mouth. Slow your breathing down.

Concentrate on that. Even as Chasey was getting hooked up with oxygen, Officer Meek needed to speak with her while everything was still fresh in her mind. Meek's body cam was rolling.

Okay, uh, tell us what, what happened.

Chasey told Meek she was on her way to meet Bob at their local Jack in the Box.

And when he texted me, I told him I was 3 miles away.

Their daughter Addison was at a friend's house that evening, so it would be just the two of them.

He texted me and told me it was a long 3 minutes. When he texted me, I came around the curb and I went off the road.

Chacey, still visibly shaken, said her Jeep got stuck on that muddy road, so Bob, already at the Jack in the Box, drove out to help her. But when he got there—

I don't think I can make it down the road. So we walked, we walked up here, and we walked back to my Jeep.

She said Bob jumped in the driver's seat and pulled her Jeep out.

And I was sitting right at the back, back of it, and I went to go get— and I, I just— I heard, I heard a shot, and the Jeep started rolling, and I didn't see anything. And I told I saw a shadow. That's all I saw.

She went to Bob, she said, and yelled his name.

No answer.

And then she said, in a panic, she ran.

I didn't know what I was to do.

Chasey asked about her husband.

Is he okay?

Under the bright lights inside the ambulance, Chasey could see her own arms.

Just breathe for me, okay?

That's my husband's blood.

Just breathe for me.

That's why else it's blowing.

I knew in my training experience not to let her focus on that, so I would ask her a separate question to redirect her focus.

Officer Meek documented Chacey's injuries and the visible blood on her, and once the paramedics released her, Meek escorted Chacey back to the police car where she seemed to open up.

I was young and stupid when we got married.

She described ongoing marital problems.

We don't spend a lot of time together. We can only see each other for a couple days.

All right.

Because we—

Argue?

Yes, but it's because we don't spend a whole lot of time together because of his shifts.

Chacey said they'd talked about divorce and Bob had threatened to take Addison if it went through.

My daughter's my world.

Why would your husband be trying to take your daughter from you though? Like, what reason did he give you?

He knows that that's what's going to hurt me the most and he knows that's what's going to make me stay. He's done it before.

She said they'd been trying to work things out.

And things have been fine. We actually— we just got back from Mexico this week. We had— we had a really good time.

Okay.

And things were fine.

That didn't last, she said. Soon after returning from Mexico, their marriage started heading south again. She told Bob she needed space, and so Chacey went to see a friend. Michael Garza. He knew about Chacey's troubled marriage and had offered his home to her whenever she needed it.

That night, Friday, Chacey texted Bob, and they made plans to talk at a familiar spot.

We used to stop and get tacos at Jack in the Box when he'd come home late from work.

Uh-huh.

So I asked him if he wanted to meet me at Jack in the Box.

And Bob agreed.

I said, I love you, I do want us to work out. And he said, do you promise? And I said, yes, I promise.

That promise now permanently unfulfilled because Bob Poynter was no more. And Chacey, the only witness, said she didn't get a good look at the shooter.

Hi, hi, I'm sorry, I don't know. Hi, I was looking at my phone trying to call 911, and then when I looked up, there was nobody there.

Okay.

You probably think I'm crazy.

No, I need to understand. I wasn't there. I need to understand what you saw, okay?

And tall, tall, and dark. That's all I could see. I didn't see any firearms.

Naturally, Meek wondered about Chacey's friend, Michael Garza. The cops looked up his Facebook profile, and there he was. Holding a shotgun. Could Michael Garza be the shooter?

But then she starts talking about he's on a long-haul truck, truck driver, uh, and wasn't in town. So then that kind of threw a wrench in that scenario. So then you start thinking, well, who else could it be?

Meek wasn't sure. He did know this: she was giving me too much information.

It's— she, she was telling me things that ultimately didn't make sense for the— for what we were there for.

And he noticed something odd.

When I wasn't talking to her, she would calm down, but as soon as I start talking to her, she'd get upset again and start hyperventilating. The more I spoke to her, the more it seemed, uh, like an act.

Was it all an act, or was there something else going on? Only one way to find out. They escorted Chacey back to the police station. And dug deeper into her story. And that was sometimes as hard to follow as County Road 2595.

Coming up—

You're telling me you see nothing? You see nothing?

The fire captain's wife feels the heat.

I don't buy it. I think you're full of crap.

Royse City Detective Michael Burke might have been working his first homicide, but he already knew this: something about Chacey Pointer's story did not ring true.

She gives a shadowy figure wearing dark clothing, shoots her husband, and runs away.

Shadowy figure waiting out there in the dark on this remote road.

Correct. Didn't make a lot of sense.

Burke didn't challenge her right away. He wanted to know more about the bumpy road that was chasing Bob's marriage. She'd already told police she and Bob had problems. To Burke, she revealed much more.

You got random bruises from Robert. He could just be him grabbing me.

Me.

He's done this to me for 7 years.

She's describing a marriage full of domestic abuse.

Yes, sir.

And violence.

Yes, sir. She, she had made comments that, um, you know, he had thrown her up against the wall.

The rest of her story was by now as familiar as a summer rerun. The planned meeting at Jack in the Box, her Jeep getting stuck, and then Chacey hearing but not seeing the shot that killed Bob.

And I put the Jeep apart, and then I touched his face, and I yelled his name. And when I pulled my hand away, there was blood all over my hand.

Detective Burke zeroed in on a key detail. If Chacey touched Bob the way she said, the blood should have dripped down from her hand. It did not.

The streak right there on your arm is a blood splatter, OK? You see how it splatters up your arm?

Yes.

Chacey had a pattern of blood on her arms, her shirt, a little on her face, which indicated to Burke that Chacey had to be standing very close to Bob when the fatal shot was fired. Chacey denied it.

That is not from—

I was not next to him. I was not next to him. When I touched him, I had blood running down my arm. And then I fell into a mud puddle.

Birk pressed her. How could she be so close and not see the shooter?

I think you didn't see anybody standing there. No. I don't buy it. I think you're full of crap. I want you to tell me the truth. I want you to tell me who pulled the trigger.

I don't know it.

This is the point where a lot of people would stop talking and ask for a lawyer. But that would not be Chacey Poynter. She kept answering questions, including about her friend. The truck driver.

How did she describe her relationship with Michael Garza?

She started out stating that they had some mutual friends in common on Facebook. She noticed his truck and sent him a message on Facebook saying, "I like your truck." Remember, hours before Bob was shot, Chacey said she went to Garza's home.

That was after telling Bob she needed space. She apparently did not tell Bob there were also some other needs.

Michael and I ended up having sex while I was there.

What's more, Chacey revealed that Garza knew Chacey and Bob were supposed to meet that night, and Garza was jealous.

He said, "If I see him kiss you," he said, "I'm gonna cut the motherfucker's lips off." So did Michael Garza kill Bob Poynter?

Chacey had told Officer Meek that by the time the murder occurred, Garza was probably driving his truck out of state, so he couldn't have been the shooter. Now with Detective Burke, she seemed less sure of that.

I don't know if he did it. I don't know that.

She insisted she didn't see Garza on County Road 2595.

You're this table-length distance away. Somebody taking a shotgun, pushing it right up against your husband's head. Boom!

No, no.

And you're telling me you see nothing? You see nothing?

Then she admitted there was something she did see at Garza's house that evening.

He had a, um, a camo gun.

A camo gun. How, how big is this camo gun?

Like this big.

A camo shotgun like the one Garza's holding in that Facebook photo.

Her story changed multiple times, as if she's making it up as she goes along, or like she's remembering additional additional details.

More along the lines of she realized the story that she provided wasn't good enough, and so she's going to give a little bit more, hoping that I bite off on that and leave her alone.

He did not, and after 2 hours, Chacey spilled it.

Who killed your husband? Who shot Robert? Bye. Can you say that louder for me, please?

Bye, Dad.

Chacey said she and Garza had discussed roughing up her abusive husband.

That way he could get a taste of his own medicine. Um, but I never, I never asked him to kill him.

According to Chacey, what actually played out on County Road 2595 was Michael Garza's plan, and it was all his own.

And then the plan to kill Robert was planned today?

He had talked about it, yes.

And what exactly did he say was the plan?

He told me he was going to make it look like a robbery.

Chacey said it wasn't her idea, but she went along.

He told me he wanted me to go down there alone.

The guards have told you this?

Okay. He wants to drive out there. I'm sorry.

Chacey called Bob to tell him her Jeep was stuck. And Bob, the man who was always ready to help, drove over to assist his wife. With no idea that Michael Garza was lying in wait for him. Chacey said at the last moment, she tried to save her husband.

I don't stop.

I don't.

He didn't even have time to stop. He didn't even have time to react. Oh my God, he shot him.

In a panic, she said she called 911 and ran, only to have Garza stop her.

He pushed me down, he picked up my phone, he ended the call, and he threw it down in front of me. And I was, I was on my hands and knees in the, in the mud.

She may have tried to stop it, she definitely called for help. Nevertheless, Chacey Casey Pointer was arrested for conspiracy to commit murder. Hours later, Bob's sister Jennifer got a call from her mom.

She was screaming, "Bobby's dead!

Bobby's dead!" Jennifer was stunned.

And then her next words were, "And Casey's in custody." And I thought, wow.

Yeah.

And I said, "What? What?" And she was hysterical, and it was horrible.

I thought I died.

He was how old?

When he died, 47.

That's too soon.

Yeah, 47 years old, young man still. Had so much more to live for and more fires to fight and put out. So many more lives to save.

A murdered son, a daughter-in-law arrested. It was all too much to take. And it wasn't over. A manhunt was underway for the mysterious Michael Garza, a possible killer at large whose world was shrinking by the minute.

Coming up.

Is it Sheila?

Uh-huh.

I'm Officer Meek.

Inside the high-stakes search for Michael Garza.

We don't want it to get ugly for him any more than we do for us, okay?

When Dateline continues.

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Not available in all areas. Learn more at xfinity.com/samedaywifi. As the cops investigating the murder of Bob Poynter searched for their prime suspect, Michael Garza, they knew he might have already climbed in his big rig and left Texas. Never to return.

Is it Sheila?

Uh-huh.

I'm Officer Meek.

So they turned to his family for help.

We don't want to hurt him. We don't want anything. We'd like him to walk in with a smile on his face and let us do our job.

Garza's mom defended her son. I know I didn't raise a boy that is evil like that.

We don't want it to get ugly for him any more than we do for us, OK?

It never came to that. 2 days after the murder, Garza turned himself in.

When he comes in, does he have an attorney?

No, sir, he does not. Uh, he turns himself in. I tried to go speak to him and he did not wish to speak to me.

A few days after Garza surrendered, Bob Poynter's fire company laid him to rest with full honors. Bob Poynter's wife, Chacey, couldn't make it to that service. She and her lover were sitting in the Hunt County Jail. Then, a month after Garza turned himself in, a local farmer made a discovery that too was recorded on police body cameras.

Plowing his field, getting ready to grow some crops, and saw something pulled out of his field and ended up being a camo shirt and a camo shotgun.

Any of that traceable to anybody involved in this case?

The serial number and everything came back to, uh, uh, Michael Garza's brother.

So conceivable that's your murder weapon?

Yes, sir.

And that Michael Garza commits the murder and then what, ditches his shirt and gun as he's running away?

Yes, sir.

The evidence seemed to support Chacey's story that Garza had been the trigger man. She'd already told police she saw a camo gun at Garza's house. Plus, Garza's cell phone had pinged near the crime scene the night of the murder. Prosecutors Jeff Kovach and Calvin Grogan believed Michael Garza was just following his heart.

I think he really loved her.

He was obsessed and infatuated with her.

Detective Burke picked up on that the night he interviewed Chacey at the station. He spoke with her about it while he prepared to swab Chacey's hands for gunshot residue.

I believe that he's infatuated with you, uh, obsessed with you. I don't know what all you've truly told him.

He had talked about us, you know, trying to live together, and I kept telling him I, I don't want to live with anybody.

Okay.

And when he, when he told me he loved me, I kept telling him, I was like, that's a little soon. And I was Honestly, infatuated, yes. I mean, as soon as he wakes up in the morning, he's texting me.

Oh, yes, the text messages, thousands of them retrieved from Chacey's cell phone that was found in the mud. I just worry about you. I would burn the world down over you. These texts from Garza, full of misspellings, were in response to Chacey's complaints about her abusive husband. And they seemed particularly damning. "Your problems are my problems." And, "I'll effing shoot his ass." And this, "I rock an orange jumpsuit." Michael Garza actually said in a text to Chacey Poynter, I rock an orange jumpsuit.

Yeah, that wasn't very, uh, that wasn't very smart of him to say that. But he's— when you see what he's doing, he's trying to be her protector, okay?

Michael Garza may have been a fool for love, but he was now accused of murder. In July 2018, he went on trial. Garza took the stand in his own defense and offered a novel alibi for the night of the murder. He told the court he couldn't have killed Bob Poynter for one simple reason.

Michael Garza's alibi is that he's not committing murder. He's milking a cow.

I'm milking oreo the cow. That was his story.

It took less than 2 hours for the jury to reach a verdict of guilty. Michael Garza was sentenced to 99 years in prison. We couldn't find a full-length photo of Garza, but Trust me, he looks just about as good in orange as you'd expect. The prosecution then set its sights on the second defendant in this case, Chacey Pointer. She'd led police to Garza and said she never wanted him to kill her husband. Chacey insisted she tried to prevent that.

Help! Stop! Oh my God, he shot him!

Prosecutors didn't buy it. They had raised the charge against her from conspiracy to murder because, once again, Chacey's verbal account was betrayed by her digital one.

Coming up, uh, a lot of it was for sex.

More men in Chacey's life Secrets spill out in court.

She was looking for somebody to do her dirty work.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Who would the jury believe?

My heart dropped.

Mine too.

I was petrified.

And when she walked in and our eyes met, I mean, I just— I wanted to strangle her. I really did.

Bob Poynter's mom had to wait nearly 3 years to see her daughter-in-law stand trial for her son's murder. And when it finally happened, Bob seemed to be the one on trial.

You got random bruises.

The defense argued whatever lies Chacey may have told police, she told the truth about this. She was a battered wife.

He could just be home grabbing me. He's done this to me for 7 years.

Bob Poynter, all 6 feet 4 and nearly £300 of him, was a bull of a man. Often a raging one, implied the defense. Because Bob took testosterone, which had been prescribed by a doctor. Chacey's friend Ashley believed her story of abuse.

She did tell me that he was abusive.

Not just verbally or mentally, physically abusive?

Physically, yeah.

The defense said Chacey also shared her troubles with someone who decided to take matters into his own hands: Michael Garza. He and he alone, argued her attorneys, killed Bob Poynter in a warped show of vengeance and love, a murder that Chacey tried to stop.

I didn't want him to die. I didn't want him to die.

The defense told the jury that Chacey's actions at the scene proved her innocence. She called 911.

I'm calling 911.

I'm sorry, please.

And flagged down those officers to help. Help her husband.

What's going on?

My husband.

It made my blood boil. I think I was shaking, literally sitting in the courtroom when I heard this stuff.

Bob's family said the defense case bore no resemblance to reality. Prosecutors agreed.

Is there any credible evidence at all that Chacey Poynter was abused by her husband?

No.

There's no ER visit?

There's no 911 calls.

No previous law enforcement contact at that address?

Zero. There's nobody else who's ever even said they saw Bob even get mad. He's been described as a big teddy bear.

On the other hand, they did find plenty of evidence that Chacey wanted Bob gone.

She's kind of fishing around for multiple men to commit this murder for her.

That's right. It turned out Michael Garza wasn't Chacey's only lover. In the months leading up to the murder, She'd been juggling 3 other boyfriends. Detective Burke brought them in for questioning.

Well, a lot of it was for sex.

Along with frequent meetups for sex, 2 of her lovers told police Chacey also shared the story of abuse that she claimed to have suffered at the hands of Bob Voiter.

She did tell me that he had hurt her a lot and that There was a lot of abuse going on. And he never would leave marks because he didn't want no trace.

She would meet these guys, they'd be interested in her, and she would immediately start—

Playing the victim.

Telling her story, right? My husband is beating me. I'm in this terrible marriage. I feel threatened. But maybe there's something here with you and me.

Right. Exactly. That's her MO, okay? And she plays the victim and manipulates.

Among Chacey's stable of men were a couple of firefighters. They were not, however, from her husband's fire company. That was apparently where Chacey drew the line. To one of those firefighters, a guy named Danny, she texted this about her husband: "I wish he'd run out of air in a fire." To another named Sean, she texted, "I only have one way out of this and it's not going to happen anytime soon." Minutes later, he texted, "Yeah, not an option." And then this exchange: "I hate him so much," Chacey texted Sean. His response: "Shoot him." And she replied, "I don't look good in orange." Chacey was looking for somebody besides the three she'd already been involved with.

With, and Michael Garza is this perfect guy that comes along.

She was looking for somebody to do her dirty work.

Absolutely, absolutely.

The same day Chacey was traveling home with Bob from that vacation in Mexico, she texted Garza, "Me more than anyone wants him gone." Garza's reply, "Well, it can happen." Before their trip to Mexico, Bob had already suspected that Chacey was unfaithful.

And he'd say, "Jacy's really losing a lot of weight," but, and, but he slipped one day and he said, "I bet she's not doing it for me." Really?

That's not a good sign.

It was when they returned from the trip that Bob started taking steps to end their marriage, and he contacted his attorney via Facebook. Not divorce, hopefully. It's looking like it. I have tried and tried, but I think I want to file first and keep custody. "Do you think she's seeing someone else? Kinda do think so, but a lot of lies lately and I'm tired of it." Prosecutors said divorce was the last thing Chacey wanted because the couple had a prenuptial agreement. Bob had insisted on it, and so Chacey believed she wouldn't get a dime if they split.

He's got an over six-figure income from University Park as a fire captain. In addition, he she works a lot of side jobs. There's no way she's going to be able to support herself.

And so that ruled out divorce?

That ruled out divorce.

On the other hand, if Bob suddenly died, Chacey would be flush with cash. Just months before the murder, she'd convinced Bob to make her the beneficiary of his life insurance policy—

$680,000 in a lump sum.

Okay, you think Robert essentially She signed his death certificate the day he changed his insurance policy.

And prosecutors believe that when Chacey found out that Bob had made contact with his attorney, she knew she had to move quickly.

So that's just what hastened it, but she'd been planning to kill him.

So the divorce is what sort of caused her to put her foot on the accelerator.

Right.

Prosecutors said the murder was Chacey's idea, not Garza's, and all about the money. That's why, just before trial, they raised the charge against her again to capital murder. Now the jury had to decide. If they found she killed Bob for money, the sentence would be life without parole. But if they believed any of Chacey's varied stories, they could set her free.

When the verdict's announced, are you looking at her?

Yeah.

Yeah, we all were.

What'd she do?

She was just standing there looking down. The firemen were all there, and I— they all— we all just clenched our hands like this.

The verdict: guilty of murder. But crucially, the jury did not find that Chacey did it for the money, which could mean a much lighter sentence.

My heart dropped. Mine too. I thought it was— I felt sick. Yeah. I thought it was very, very clear that she did it for money, and I was petrified that she was gonna get, like, 10 years.

The jury didn't do that. They sentenced Chacey to life in prison with the possibility of parole. She'll be at least 59 before she can be released.

She's got to live with what she did, but if— but if she's one of those people that doesn't really have remorse, I don't know.

You got to live with it too.

I mean, it took me a long time to get over Bobby's phone calls that weren't coming through anymore.

Her phone still rings, but now it's the firefighters who worked with her son.

He always told me, "Mom, if anything ever happens to me," he says, "you will have a second family." And I said, "Really, Bob?" And he goes, "You have no idea." He was right. Yeah, truly right.

That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.

I'm Craig Melvin.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Cheers.

I've always been a glass half full kind of guy, and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid, so I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows, you might just come away with your own Glass Half Full.

Search Glass Half Full with Craig Melvin from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.