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00:00A lot of things look very strange in all of this.
00:27You don't kill people over a damn truck.
00:31What stands out to me about this case is just the number of people that were involved.
00:37You've got the old man.
00:40Tina was the maid, which is ironic because she was a mess.
00:45The watch is the barman.
00:48Sister, who turns out to be a daughter.
00:50I mean, it's almost like watching a Clue movie.
00:53It's just a tangled web.
00:55I'm telling you.
00:57And I'm telling you, that's bullshit.
00:59That's what I'm telling you.
01:01So the police already knew who the killer was.
01:03But they still had one more question.
01:05As this case and investigation starts, we didn't know.
01:29It was a murder-for-hire case.
01:31But I show up with the mindset of, I'm going to start from zero and see where that takes
01:36me.
01:37The 911 call came from Loretta Luttrell.
01:42She was in her early 70s.
01:44Now, boys, what did you say?
01:47I just came at my church, and my husband's laying in the floor.
01:51I think he's dead.
01:52Loretta goes to church that morning.
01:56Loretta's husband, Ernest, stays home.
01:58But when she comes home from church, she found her husband laying bloody on the floor.
02:04The scene where this had taken place where the Luttrells lived is probably a mile from where
02:17I grew up as a child my entire life.
02:20I would drive past it for 30 years.
02:24But now, it was a horrific scene, actually.
02:27It could shake you badly.
02:29You walk into the house, and in the kitchen, Mr. Luttrell is laying down.
02:35He was 73 years old.
02:38He had multiple gunshot wounds to his upper torso head area.
02:44There was no shell casings at the scene.
02:47There was no force injury at all in this house.
02:50I didn't see anything like there was a struggle.
02:54So, that's what you have to work with.
02:57This is a very small area.
03:00Most everybody knows everybody.
03:03One of the first things you're going to do, you want to talk to the witnesses to learn who
03:08the victim was.
03:17I've known Ernest my entire life.
03:21Ernest was like an uncle, and Loretta was like an aunt.
03:25Ernest, he was bigger than life, boy.
03:29Ernest walked in a store.
03:31Everybody knew Ernest walked in.
03:32He was just going to make sure everybody knew he was there.
03:35I am a retired Army veteran and the commander of the American Legion post here.
03:42I met Ernest Luttrell because he was a friend of my uncle.
03:45I would have been in grade school when I first met him.
03:48Really friendly man, jovial.
03:50I also knew him because they frequented the American Legion post.
03:54And Ernest was a military vet.
03:56He was an Army paratrooper in the Korean War.
03:59Being a paratrooper is really tough.
04:01Not everybody can do that.
04:03You're jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, and all you're attached to is a cord, and
04:07your chute opens, and that would be like skydiving here.
04:10But in Ernest's case, it was over a war zone.
04:13And then he worked at the auto dealership with my mom, and then eventually he went to work
04:18for board and milk, and he worked for them for a long time.
04:22Eventually he wound up retiring from them, and then he worked at the farm.
04:29My wife and I moved here in 1980.
04:33When I first met Ernest, he had pay that he was haying.
04:38He was kind of domineering.
04:40I just felt like that he was used to having things his way, and that was the way it was
04:46going to be.
04:46But up from the time when I first met him and the time that he got killed, Ernest and
04:52I became closer.
04:56We were beginning to develop a camaraderie.
05:00I admired him and respected him because I knew he was a hardworking man, and he was a
05:06self-made man.
05:09Everybody knew Ernest and Loretta.
05:11They were together for, you know, 50-plus years.
05:14They had one child, Katie.
05:17She lived in Texas.
05:19Katie was very smart.
05:21Had all these degrees and everything.
05:24He was doing well.
05:24When you first heard that Ernest was murdered, what thoughts did you have?
05:33Well, I'm going to relate a little incident that took place just before his murder.
05:41Ernest was having a rough go.
05:43He looked like he had seen better days.
05:45I asked, well, Ernest, I said, let me pray for you.
05:51He said, oh, no, I don't want you to do that.
05:54He says, you know, he says, I don't believe that anymore.
05:58I said, well, you can believe.
06:00I said, all you got to do is have faith.
06:03I said, have faith.
06:04He said, I appreciate you.
06:05But he said, I just don't want to do that.
06:07Two days later, he was killed, dead.
06:19It bothered me.
06:22It still bothers me.
06:25It was just sad.
06:27It wasn't necessary.
06:33It wasn't necessary.
06:34CSI did the search, and there was treads from, like, a pattern of a boot.
06:46But it was something that we knew wasn't ours, and it wasn't Mr. Luttrell's.
06:51It was obviously a work-type boot, something that would normally be associated with a man.
06:57Then we see, is there anything missing from the house?
07:00They noticed there was guns missing as well, some long guns, from the gun cabinet.
07:05Was there a robbery?
07:07Was it someone after his guns?
07:10At some point, noticed his truck was missing.
07:14He drove a one-tone flatbed truck.
07:18It didn't have a regular pickup bed on it.
07:20It had one of these utility flatbeds on the back of it.
07:23Where's Ernest's truck?
07:25Everybody knows Ernest.
07:26Everybody knows what Ernest drives.
07:27Any car that passes by, we were stopping them and seeing if they saw anything.
07:34It was Sunday.
07:36My family, we get up, go to church, and I noticed Mr. Luttrell had a new truck.
07:41But on the morning that I was going to church, I noticed that truck wasn't in his driveway.
07:47And that was around 9 o'clock.
07:51Mr. Luttrell goes to church at 8.30 in the morning.
07:54It was anywhere from 8.30 to 9 o'clock.
07:57We think that's probably when it happened.
07:59There's a pretty tight time frame of when this occurred.
08:03Look, that's one assumption you're making.
08:06That Ernest was murdering when Gloria wasn't dead.
08:10Yeah, that is our assumption.
08:13Nah, poor Miss Luttrell would never do this.
08:15Just look at her.
08:16She's so innocent and sweet and fragile.
08:18Don't forget fragile.
08:20Right over here.
08:23Okay.
08:24You want me to call you Loretta or?
08:27Oh, gosh, Loretta was barely maybe five foot tall and 80 pounds soaking wet.
08:33She was tiny.
08:34She was 70 years old.
08:36She's just a sweet little lady.
08:38Loretta looked like your grandma who would knit you an afghan for Christmas.
08:44Very quiet, very mousy.
08:46Whenever Ernest and I were together, she would always stand off in the background and never
08:53really engage in a conversation.
08:56Ernest was good to Loretta.
08:59Sometimes Ernest could be rough and gruff and what have you, but she always drove a Cadillac.
09:06You know, he'd buy her a fur coat.
09:08He built that house for Loretta.
09:10It's a beautiful log house.
09:12It was the house that she dreamed of.
09:14At the American Legion, you would see him at the Friday night dances.
09:18He would dance with his wife, Loretta.
09:20They were happy.
09:22When the detectives arrived at the scene, the first thing they did was talk to Ms. Luttrell.
09:29I don't know if this goes on TV, but she goes to church with my mother.
09:32My mom did share with me that Loretta was at church that morning, and she remembers her
09:38being there.
09:40Ernest was not a church-going man, so she left him in bed on Sunday mornings to go to church.
09:45But on this Sunday, she arrived at church early, about an hour before church even started.
09:53Which all this was unusual, because you were lucky if Loretta even arrived anywhere on time.
10:01Oh, Ms. Eric, anybody you can think of that may be mad at Ernest.
10:06Loretta is supplying us information early on.
10:09But she was suffering from early signs of dementia, forgetting things.
10:14This is when it really gets interesting.
10:16There at the Luttrell property, there's a trailer house that's located behind the main residence.
10:21When I say a trailer, it's not like it was a really nice trailer.
10:24It was an old, run-down trailer.
10:28And the caretaker lived there.
10:30It was a male and a female.
10:32Ernest Farmedhand's name was Chris Tope.
10:34All right.
10:35All right.
10:35He was just a kind of a scruffy, little wiry guy.
10:45The old saying goes is that he was rode hard and put up wet.
10:49Ernest gave him a place to stay to help him with his chores that he had out there.
10:55Chris Tope's girlfriend was Tina Van Morker-Q.
10:58I would have called it Van Morker-Q.
11:01Q is how it's pronounced.
11:04Van Morker-Q.
11:05I'm not sure.
11:06I just knew Tina.
11:08Tina and Chris.
11:10How do you pronounce her last name?
11:11Van Morker-Q.
11:12Van Morker-Q?
11:13Mm-hmm.
11:13Tina was the maid, which is ironic, because she was a mess.
11:20She was 44 years old, but she looked much older.
11:24Miss Loretta, I want for her to clean her house.
11:27I take her anywhere.
11:28She needs to be.
11:28I don't like her caretaker.
11:31Now, was she hired as the maid originally?
11:35Probably not.
11:37I think she just took that role on for herself.
11:42Tina had open access to the Luttrell's house.
11:46Chris claims that he was there on the property, but he had slept in and wasn't really aware of what had taken place.
11:52That trailer was right behind the house.
11:58There's no way that he did not hear that gun going off.
12:03There's no way.
12:04Now, I can tell you some things, some hearsay things that I'd heard about Tina and Chris.
12:11Well, I had heard that Tina had taken Loretta's credit card and used it for some personal expenses.
12:19It was a few months before it happened, and Ernst wasn't happy about it.
12:24And he made a report with the Cattle Parish Sheriff's Office.
12:26There was a report that was a couple thousand dollars.
12:33What did you get?
12:36I found it.
12:37It's Loretta going with her to the bank.
12:40He wanted to fire her, wanted to get rid of her, and Loretta didn't want him to.
12:45And I think that's kind of where the whole bomb went off at.
12:51Ernst wanted him off the property.
12:53And they didn't want to go.
13:04I believe that the barman and the maid all ran on it.
13:23They had taken me in because they thought I was a suspect.
13:34I was angry with her, you know, because I learned to go back like that.
13:41Even carrying a lot of this with the angry creeps.
13:43Yes, sir.
13:43I told him I didn't hear anything because I was far away.
13:49I had ACs running in my place, and that produced a lot of noise, too.
13:54I do think that it would be possible for somebody who lived close by that you would not know necessarily that had taken place.
14:04And you say, yeah, you know, I did hear something that caught my attention, but I certainly didn't think it was a gunshot.
14:10And there was no connection with Chris Toke to the boot print that was found at the scene.
14:16Tina had claimed she was at a nearby dollar store, maybe a quarter mile of that, away from the house.
14:29At this point, there's no evidence, latent prints, DNA, any other physical evidence that you could possibly blink.
14:54Chris and his girlfriend, Tina Van Markickew, in the murder of Ernest Luttrell.
15:01Ernest was a good man.
15:03He was like a dad to me.
15:06He helped me a lot by giving me a place to stay.
15:10I really, honestly, I've been blaming myself because Ernest is dead.
15:17If I could have, if I didn't oversleep, if the things would have worked out differently or what.
15:22After the murder, I ended up losing my place.
15:27I lost everything after that.
15:35Monday after the murder, the detectives still didn't have a firm suspect.
15:40We got a shoe print.
15:42We got no casings.
15:43We know now, okay, we got a car missing.
15:46So what's our next step?
15:47What are we going to do?
15:48We got to find this car, find the truck.
15:50While we were looking for the truck, we brought Miss Luttrell back to her house to see if anything was missing.
15:59She walks her really slow.
16:01She gets on the porch.
16:02And I'm walking her so gently into the house.
16:06And when that door shuts where nobody can see, she shugs me off and walks normal.
16:13It's like, you know, Jesus healed her, you know?
16:16So here she is just walking great again.
16:17We go back, and there's a safe in the house.
16:24She opens the safe.
16:27She is counting the money.
16:29We get to $4,000 and something.
16:32And she says, $3,000.
16:35And I'm like, no, you messed up.
16:38There was another $1,000.
16:39She said, oh, I missed out.
16:41Or something like that.
16:42Which meant absolutely nothing to us at the time, you know?
16:47Meanwhile, the sheriff's office received a call from a young lady that saw or claimed that she had seen Ernest's truck.
16:54There were some guns in the truck and told us who was driving the truck.
16:59A boy named Eric.
17:00Eric Crane was, oh, I would say a two-time loser, but it was like a hundred-time loser.
17:11Couldn't hold a job.
17:12I know that he was just an unemployed blue-collar worker.
17:17He worked for a mechanic body shop guy until he lost his job probably a week or so before the murder.
17:23We looked him up, and he had prior run-ins with the law.
17:29Doping and maybe drinking and driving.
17:33But nothing like homicides or nothing bad.
17:36I mean, nothing just violent.
17:39Eric lived in a travel trailer near the airport.
17:44And we go there.
17:45It's dark.
17:47There's no white truck there.
17:48They knocked on the door several times.
17:50Nobody would answer.
17:51I thought I saw the door of this trailer open and then shut.
17:55They knew someone was in there, so they called the SWAT team.
17:58They knocked again and told whoever was inside to come out.
18:03No one comes to the door.
18:04So they shot tear gas into the travel trailer.
18:09Within seconds, a sleepy Eric Crane came out.
18:13Coughing and choking from the CS gas.
18:15Screaming, what's going on?
18:16And the SWAT team did their magic and took him into custody.
18:21First of all, man, I asked, what the hell is this about?
18:24We're going to cover that, aren't we?
18:26At the time, we get a call that the truck has been located at Oldfield site down the street.
18:33It was during the inspection of the truck that there was fingerprint information
18:41that connected Eric Crane to that vehicle.
18:45You work on summits?
18:47Sometimes.
18:48I'll have to go to about approximately about 745.
18:52I'll work until, well, three.
18:55Eric gave an alibi during his interview, but Eric's alibi had problems.
19:00He no longer worked at the body shop.
19:02I don't see how Jimmy fired me when I just seen the man yesterday.
19:07Jimmy said he did not work for me Saturday or Sunday.
19:11When Detective Scoggins was interviewing Eric, he noticed that it looked like he had blood on his boots.
19:19I need your boots.
19:19Sure.
19:20Later, it was determined that his footwear matched the print that was left at the Luttrell's residence.
19:32And it comes back later from the lab as earnest blood.
19:38We got information from a friend of Eric Crane who knew the whereabouts of the possible murder weapon.
19:47At an abandoned house near our little shed in the backyard, and we did dig up and find a large caliber handgun.
20:00After they booked him, the local news station went and talked to his former boss, Jimmy Sabbath.
20:15They interviewed him on camera.
20:17And while Mr. Sabbath was talking to the reporter, the phone rang.
20:24Hello.
20:24You have a free call from...
20:27And he put his phone on speakerphone.
20:32And now Jimmy is like, oh, yeah, just tell me, tell me, man.
20:35Tell the truth.
20:36Did you kill him or what?
20:38Yeah, I killed him.
20:39And we're like, what?
20:40Oh, my God.
20:43I heard that.
20:44I heard that on the daggum news.
20:47And I'm thinking, you got to be kidding me.
20:49This guy's a goofball.
20:51We have no doubt that Eric was the killer.
20:55Eric had the truck.
20:57He had earnest blood on his boots.
21:01But that doesn't make sense to me.
21:03You don't kill people over a damn truck.
21:06You know, if the killer left with a vehicle, that would pretty much mean that either he was already there or somebody dropped him off.
21:23Were there other people involved?
21:25Was there a conspiracy to hire a hitman?
21:29Who took you out there?
21:31I need a band mark you.
21:33What?
21:34I need a band mark you.
21:36According to Chris, Tina's boyfriend, she was not home the night before.
21:46Tina was arguing all night.
21:48I don't remember about what.
21:49But I told her to just go ahead and leave.
21:53She goes to a hotel.
21:54And so now it's, we need Tina.
21:58We got to talk.
21:59Interviews again.
22:00Tina, what do you want?
22:02Ask your small questions.
22:03On that Wednesday morning, about 9 o'clock, I went into the interview room to speak to Tina.
22:10The question is not, is Tina involved in this?
22:14Tina is smack dab involved in this.
22:18The question is, how deep does Tina involved in this?
22:21Was it that point that she shares that...
22:23She knew Eric because...
22:31He dated my oldest daughter.
22:32She had recently ran into him.
22:34It was at McDonald's.
22:35She saw him...
22:37Hello, Tim and the old man.
22:39...exchanged phone numbers.
22:40And later...
22:41And then went back to the hotel.
22:43She goes to a hotel.
22:45And there's also video surveillance that puts her at this particular hotel.
22:52But someone is also captured on video there.
22:55When we see Eric Crane at your room.
23:03What's he doing at your hotel?
23:06He didn't send an attorney.
23:08Sex.
23:11No, I did not know that.
23:14Oh.
23:16My goodness.
23:18Okay.
23:19She told me that she spent the night with Eric Crane on Saturday, the night before Ernest's murder.
23:27And she admitted to bringing Eric to Ernest's house on the morning of the murder.
23:35I dropped him off on Walker Road.
23:37No.
23:38Leaving the motel room.
23:39Yes.
23:40But she claimed she just dropped him off close by.
23:44And I did not know he was still up to kill Mr. Luthor.
23:48No, I did not.
23:49I don't believe that.
23:51I believe that they were behind it.
23:53She said she went to her house.
23:56And while she was there, she heard some gunshots.
23:59What did you do when you heard the shots?
24:00What did you think when you heard those dead gunshots?
24:02I didn't know what to think.
24:04Because see, there's a fire range up front.
24:06There's a lot of people firing them.
24:09There's not a shooting range out there.
24:12Where's the shooting range?
24:14I'm telling you.
24:15And I'm telling you, that's bullshit.
24:17That's what I'm telling you.
24:18Mm-mm.
24:19Yes, ma'am.
24:21He was looking for the person who possibly killed him.
24:23We're stopping cars traveling down the road.
24:26And you not one time says, this guy arrives up here with me.
24:30We could have ended this a long time ago, but you didn't do it for some reason.
24:33When I tried to push a little further there, she stopped and looked at me, and she said,
24:41Can I smoke a cigarette or no?
24:43And I did something that I don't usually do, but I said, OK, Tina, let's take a break.
24:47So we went outside, and she took a deep draw on her first cigarette.
24:58And I continued to ask her questions.
25:00And finally, it came down to, who set this up?
25:07But she didn't talk.
25:08She would just shake her head, yes or no.
25:11In the process of these questions, I said, was it a man?
25:17And she shook her head, no.
25:21So I named every female that I could come up with that was involved in the case.
25:29And she just shook her head, shook her head.
25:32And finally, I came to Loretta.
25:38And she shook her head, yes.
25:44Tina, after her bout, her third cigarette, she sat down on the stairs out there and then told me the whole story.
25:54So several years ago in Shreveport, Bossier area, OK, we have what's called, the shell money all came in.
26:00Hainesville Shell, yes, that was the name.
26:06Hainesville Shell was a big natural gas reservoir under the ground.
26:10They found a very large deposit in northwest Louisiana.
26:15It was a new drilling technique.
26:17And around this time, mineral companies were running around snatching up mineral leases all over the place.
26:22And they were paying a lot of money for it.
26:24Lease of mineral rights went up to $25,000 an acre.
26:28And you had farmers, which overnight became millionaires.
26:31They got a pretty good little chunk of change.
26:34Well, they call mailbox money.
26:36You wait on your mail once a month to get your check.
26:38Lord, I enjoy going to my mailbox to this day.
26:42And I don't have very much.
26:44But Ernst was smart.
26:46They wind up putting several wells on this land.
26:50That's a lot of money.
26:51Now, there's a difference between selling your mineral rights and leasing your mineral rights.
26:57He had leased his mineral rights.
27:00But then I was standing outside talking to him one day.
27:03And he told me that because of his age, that he decided to go ahead and sell his mineral rights outright
27:10and go ahead and get his money now for it.
27:12You just get one lump sum and you get a bigger chunk of money.
27:15When I interviewed Tina, what she told me was that two months before the murder,
27:27Loretta had a daughter that lived in Texas.
27:30Her name was Katie Passanetti.
27:34And Katie had a daughter.
27:36And she was going to graduate school.
27:39Loretta had said that Ernst had agreed to pay for it out of the oil money.
27:46I had heard, is what I'm going to say.
27:49I heard that Ernst said, no, why would I promise that?
27:56And, you know, Ernst got mad and got bullheaded with Loretta.
28:03Loretta started asking him.
28:06Graduate school is very expensive, by the way.
28:08And Ernst got tired of Loretta badgering him about this.
28:15And he said, just send her $1,000.
28:19Was Loretta angry?
28:21Extremely angry.
28:23What about Katie?
28:25Very.
28:27That's what set the ball in motion.
28:30Loretta was obsessed with getting the inheritance.
28:34And she asked Tina, can you find someone to kill Ernst for $1,000?
28:44When we heard that, we're going, that's why she miscounted at this house.
28:50That's why she wanted this $1,000 to pay for her hitman.
28:55If you're hiring a hitman, Eric Crane is not the one you want to pick.
29:00You probably need to spend a little bit more money.
29:04At that time, Eric had not yet been paid.
29:08Now, we set up a phone call between Tina Van Morkerkew and Loretta Luttrell.
29:14And tell her that Eric needs his money.
29:26Eric, the man, you know, shot Ernst for you.
29:29He managed to get out on bond about an hour ago.
29:33And he called me.
29:34And looking for $1,000 so he can get out of town.
29:39When do you think I can get some money?
29:41And she said,
29:43She says it.
29:47Oh, I'll get the money that I owe him.
29:50And I'm going to tell you.
29:52Everything we thought about her, poor, poor, poor, it completely leaves us and we're going,
29:58that evil bitch, that's just evil.
30:03I don't know what to do, see.
30:06She told me you didn't say anything about me.
30:08This phone call led me to believe that Loretta is aware of what has taken place.
30:15We wanted to arrest her, but what if we were wrong?
30:21So you chip away at their story.
30:26We looked into Loretta's background and it was shocking.
30:31The first revelation is that they weren't married at all.
30:35I never did see a marriage certificate or proof that they were legally married.
30:40I was shocked.
30:45I don't know if my mom and dad ever knew that.
30:50Because at that point, we got a search warrant for the Luttrell's home phone.
30:55And we learned when Loretta had returned home from church the day of the murder,
31:01rather than calling 911, she calls Tina.
31:05We had a murder warrant for Loretta Luttrell right before Ernest's funeral.
31:12Loretta Luttrell's funeral.
31:42When a veteran passes away, we'll be the one that places the flag upon the casket.
31:48Then it's handed to the wife.
31:50And that's why it's so confusing to us how that Loretta had been arrested.
31:57I actually asked Loretta to come with us to the office for interview.
32:02I've seen you right here.
32:03I told her, I said...
32:04It was Tina that talked to you yesterday.
32:06Again, I was right here listening to it.
32:08Well, if somebody calls me and asks me that the man that killed my wife is looking for the money I owe him,
32:14do you think I'm going to respond while I don't have it to pay him right now?
32:16Well, I wasn't going to sit and argue with her because...
32:18I wasn't going to sit and argue with her when she's telling you...
32:21No.
32:22...that the man who you wanted to kill your husband wants to get paid.
32:25I wasn't going to sit and argue with her and tell you...
32:28That's not an argument.
32:29That's not an arguable situation.
32:31I said, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
32:34Or, okay, I'll pay you as soon as I can.
32:36And that's pretty much what she said.
32:37I was like, I said, I'll go down and die and say that because I wouldn't have killed my husband.
32:41I loved him too much.
32:42We were certain at this point that she, too, had involvement in this scheme to kill Ernest Luttrell.
32:52But the case is not closed after that.
32:55The story just began to grow and grow, and more and more people, it seemed, were intimately involved.
33:04Katie Passanetti, who is Loretta Luttrell's daughter, came by the office to see me to tell me her mother had been charged with murder.
33:12And so Katie was trying to hire me to represent her mother.
33:15The sheriff's department, the DA's office, well, they're basically trying to portray Loretta as this evil mastermind, something like you'd see off TV.
33:22But meeting Loretta, you can tell I saw in no way at all she could possibly be some sort of mastermind behind all this.
33:28She'd been diagnosed by her doctors in writing with actually having early-onset dementia.
33:33As a matter of fact, at a few points, she actually asked me where her husband was, which is kind of sad.
33:37She's asking about the husband she's supposed to have killed because she thinks he's alive.
33:42She had very little understanding of why she was even there.
33:46I dealt with dementia patients before, and a lot of times they'll nod.
33:49They'll say yes.
33:50If you ask one question, they don't want to appear that they don't understand you.
33:54There were no eyewitnesses to say that Loretta came into the house, that she pulled a trigger, she had a gun.
34:00There's nothing really tying her to this beyond the possible testimony of the housekeeper saying,
34:05well, this is what took place.
34:07And why would you leave a housekeeper who clearly was involved?
34:11But then several months after I began representing her mother, hearing other suspects involved, and then something else takes place.
34:18Ernest and Loretta, supposedly they had a daughter.
34:22I did find out later that it wasn't his daughter.
34:29Now, I can tell you some things about his daughter, Katie.
34:33She never lived with Ernest and Loretta.
34:35So I did find out later that it wasn't his daughter, that it was Loretta's daughter.
34:39That's a story in itself.
34:47Loretta was very young, 15 maybe, 16 when she had Katie.
34:53But I remember Katie being Loretta's sister.
34:57And that Katie had found out when she was in her late teens, maybe in her 20s,
35:03that Loretta was not her sister, that Loretta was her mother.
35:07Because Katie was raised by Loretta's mother.
35:11It was a big secret that Loretta held very close to her chest.
35:16Katie had moved on, went to college.
35:18Katie was very smart, doing very well, and was working.
35:22But Loretta would talk about Katie.
35:25But Ernest really didn't talk about Katie.
35:29Ernest was his own man.
35:31One day, when he told me that he had sold his mineral lights outright,
35:38he said, my daughter told me that I was stupid.
35:43I should have never done that.
35:45He said, that pissed me off.
35:48It ain't none of her business what I do.
35:50It made him mad.
35:53Point that he took her out of his will,
35:56and that his daughter was not going to get anything.
35:59Now, he did tell me that.
36:06After the arrest of the three, Tina, Loretta, and Eric,
36:11the DA's office later uncovered that Ernest had a will.
36:15Which left everything to Katie and to her daughter.
36:18And I was like, well, that sounds suspicious.
36:22Now, did Katie have anything to do with the murder of Ernest?
36:25Ernest had apparently made some promises that he was going to help take care of the granddaughter.
36:31And apparently, later on, he reneged on his promise,
36:33which is one of the reasons the prosecution, the police thought,
36:36may have given Katie a reason to orchestrate all this.
36:40The police and the DA approached the notary who signed off on this.
36:43Ernest wasn't there.
36:45The notary had fraudulently signed off on the document.
36:47This that we're referring to is entitled Last Will and Testament of Ernest Luttrell.
36:53When is the first time you ever laid eyes on this document?
36:57First time I saw it was after the second.
36:59I realized the document says July 1st,
37:02so it wasn't executed on the date that the will shows.
37:06Well, when you first saw this document, Ernest Luttrell was already on there.
37:10I heard the problem is on all three pages.
37:13Katie told me that Ernest signed this.
37:16You didn't see Ernest Luttrell?
37:17No.
37:18So you have this signed three months after the man's dead?
37:22Yes.
37:23This was a forged document.
37:27Katie claimed that Ernest's sister was trying to take everything,
37:32and she said that she has no access to first to pay to help her mother.
37:39The notary was in a lot of trouble.
37:41And I say a lot of trouble.
37:42She wasn't getting her hands slapped.
37:44Of course, when the police and the DA approached you with,
37:46you're about to get criminally prosecuted.
37:47Telling you the truth about this will keep me from being arrested.
37:51She was more than forthcoming to explain exactly what took place.
37:55Katie put her up to this,
37:57and that in no time did Ernest ever agree to any of this.
38:04Well, now, that was a surprise to me
38:06when I found out about the daughter.
38:08Well, the evil genius in this case is Katie Passanetti.
38:13I don't think that Loretta by herself really cared about having a lot of money
38:20or taking all of Ernest's money for her sake.
38:24But, in my opinion, you know, Loretta's motive there was to make amends to her daughter.
38:31Katie felt like that money was due to her because her mother abandoned her.
38:36She's paying penance for ignoring a daughter that she didn't raise herself.
38:41Katie, of course, maintained her innocence on the case.
38:55But, in the end, the jury actually came back and found her guilty.
38:57You know, I was looking very forward to going to trial with Loretta,
39:07letting the jury see what I had seen,
39:09that she had nothing to do with the death of her husband.
39:12Unfortunately, we weren't able to actually do the trial
39:14because of her untimely demise.
39:17Loretta, unfortunately, died in custody.
39:20She succumbed to her mental and physical conditions and passed away.
39:25There's no doubt who killed Ernest.
39:29But we'll never know what Loretta's involvement is.
39:32She was never convicted.
39:34I prayed that Ernest never found out if Loretta was behind it
39:42or had something to do with it.
39:45You know, that makes me sad.
39:48He did love her.
39:51He loved her.
39:52And, you know, I just don't think we'll ever get the whole truth.
40:02I don't think we'll ever know what happened for sure.
40:08But I know the love of money is the root of all evil.
40:11So I believe that it all revolved around money.
40:18And a good man
40:20was murdered over it.
40:32Go, go, go. Get out, get out.
40:33Why did they want to kill him?
40:36You think I'm going to kill somebody?
40:38You get a hood on?
40:39Yes, and a mask.
40:40It's all over the country.
40:42There's a homicide over at the McDonald's.
40:44Yes, he's dead.
40:46That's what it comes down to.
40:47A broken shambler veil.
40:50He had the nickname name, the witch doctor.
40:52The witch doctor.
40:54That was his chicken body name.
40:55Everybody else is quite their favorite view.
41:01I thought it was the gold.
41:04Everyone's a person of interest.
41:06If there was an intended target,
41:08why take two more?
41:10A lot of stuff can be hush-hush
41:12sometimes in a small town.
41:14It wasn't a heck of a lot of money
41:16to take three lives.
41:18We're being placed under arrest for murder.
41:20My back to who?
41:20Like, I've never pulled the trigger.
41:22I did not recognize this person.
41:24Who said it up?
41:25Who is pulling the strings here?
41:27She's the one who made that happen.
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