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00:06A missing man is found murdered in Schenectady, New York.
00:11Not only was he obviously dead, he was nearly frozen.
00:15He had at least two ligature marks around his neck.
00:20This was a homicide. He died by strangulation.
00:25His loved ones claim he didn't have enemies.
00:30He was nurturing and caring.
00:32I couldn't imagine that type of betrayal.
00:37I said, something's up. More than meets the eye here.
00:41But the clues point detectives to the last people anyone would have expected.
00:48They got together and said, we've got to get rid of him.
00:52He was in love with her and wanted to end a toxic marriage so that they could be together.
01:00She manipulated this whole thing.
01:02She was the puppet master.
01:21November 23rd, 1995.
01:25It's Thanksgiving Day in Schenectady, New York.
01:29But instead of celebrating with her family, 30-year-old Stella Lacey is calling police to report her husband, Paul
01:38Lacey, missing.
01:41She had seen Paul the previous evening.
01:43She went up to bed around 11.30.
01:46Paul was downstairs rummaging around the kitchen for something to eat and never came up to bed, which was not
01:51unusual.
01:52He would sleep on the couch or a daybed on the first floor or go out late.
01:57But not coming home that night or the next day was unusual because it was Thanksgiving Day.
02:03It was very odd that Uncle Paul wouldn't be at Thanksgiving.
02:09You know, his life revolved around family.
02:15He's going to be at the police department, dispatch somebody to her house to conduct an initial interview.
02:25Officers ask Stella to walk them through the day leading up to Paul's disappearance.
02:30She told the patrolman that Paul had worked Thanksgiving Eve during the day.
02:34Ron Faulkner, who was Paul's first cousin, was actually living in the house and had been renting a room from
02:42the Lacey's.
02:43When Paul got home from work, she sent Ron and Paul out to get some bread for the stuffing and
02:49a couple other items.
02:51And she continued to make Thanksgiving dinner.
02:56Stella says Paul and Ron returned from the store around 11 p.m.
03:02There was a neighbor who lived kitty corner to Lacey's home.
03:07His name was Calvin Smith.
03:09And at this time, he stopped over just to socialize with Ron and Paul.
03:14And she went up to bed.
03:16Paul doesn't come to bed that night.
03:19The next morning, she believes he may have left to go to work.
03:23She had paged him.
03:26He doesn't come back.
03:27And that's what precipitates her initial filing of the missing persons report.
03:34To go missing on Thanksgiving, it hit us all hard because it's like we know Paul and he also had
03:42come home.
03:43So this was abnormal.
03:49It's not even 24 hours, but if someone's reported missing, they're put into a national database.
03:56In this case, there was a vehicle involved.
03:58It's a 1986 Volvo with a New York plate on it.
04:01All this is entered into a database.
04:05The patrol officer asked for a recent photo of her husband, Paul, and if there was any extenuating circumstances that
04:17she should know about.
04:19She said he was not a drug user, but Paul was under a lot of pressure.
04:25They had some money issues.
04:26He lost his job.
04:27Even though he got a new job at a local Coca-Cola warehouse, you know, they owed a lot of
04:32money.
04:32Additionally, she said he recently cashed out his 401k for about $8,000, but Paul wouldn't leave the family and
04:41the kids on a holiday.
04:44At this point, patrolmen interviewed neighbors, but we really didn't get any good leads.
04:53His devotion to his family makes the disappearance even harder to explain.
05:02Two days into the investigation, a tip comes in.
05:10It's about 2.30 p.m.
05:12The Schenectady Police Department gets a call from a person living two and a half blocks from where the Lacy's
05:17lived,
05:18saying that there was a car parked on a one-way street in front of their house, parked the wrong
05:23way.
05:25There was a man sleeping in the car.
05:28The officers that responded made numerous attempts, pounding on the glass, knocking on the side of the car,
05:38and they felt that it was necessary to call for EMS.
05:42They opened the door and tried to wake this person up.
05:44Not only was he obviously dead, he was nearly frozen.
05:52They found no wallet, but they did find, by going through his pockets, an identification card.
06:01Then the police knew that this was Paul Lacy.
06:13Paul Lacy was born May 12, 1964, in Albany, New York.
06:19He and his younger sister were part of a large extended family.
06:24He was a loving brother.
06:26We always were watching cartoons.
06:28He used to take me to school.
06:30I was littler than him, so I walked slower, so I was pretty much led around, you know?
06:39We had very strong mothers, and then it turned us into decent people.
06:45Paul was always a happy kid.
06:48He always enjoyed life.
06:49Anything that he did, it was done because of his doing.
06:54And what made him happy, that's what he did.
06:57Paul's father wasn't really in his life.
07:00I had to depend on the welfare system.
07:03But I was always going to take care of my kids.
07:10After high school, in the early 80s, Paul started working at a local market.
07:15He quickly rose to become a manager.
07:19It was also the place he met his future wife, Stella Close.
07:25Stella and her family was in our neighborhood.
07:28Her dad was a hardworking man.
07:31Her mom was a stay-at-home mom, from what I could tell.
07:34So Stella had a stable home.
07:37She had dated a couple guys that were not as nice as Paul.
07:43He was nurturing and caring.
07:45He wanted to have somebody to love.
07:48She started coming around.
07:50And then next thing you know, they're getting married.
07:55The young couple married in 1986.
07:59In the years that followed, Paul and Stella built a life together,
08:03including three beautiful children.
08:07He decided to go into his career at Cargill,
08:10which is a flour mill at the Port of Albany.
08:13Pretty much any job you got that was down at the Port of Albany,
08:17they paid you well.
08:23Whatever his wife, Stella, wanted,
08:26he made it for her, or got it for her,
08:29and it started with a car.
08:32Then he bought her a house,
08:34had a pool put in,
08:36and he provided everything for that family.
08:44And you know how it feels to not have a real father
08:47that you've been longing for?
08:49Therefore, you're going to be a stand-up man,
08:51and he decided to be that stand-up guy for his family.
08:57Paul strove to be the best father he could be for his children,
09:01ages 9, 7, and 16 months.
09:05Paul had three kids, a girl, a boy, a girl.
09:09That's what Paul wanted.
09:11His heart was kind.
09:13He would always make sure whoever he did for it,
09:16he was going to do his best by him.
09:18He didn't care who you was.
09:22As far as Paul, his aspirations,
09:25each one was just a milestone.
09:28It became setting up for retirement,
09:32setting up for his children's education.
09:34So, yeah, his goals kept getting higher and higher.
09:42But two days after Thanksgiving Day, 1995,
09:47Paul has been found deceased.
09:51At first glance, it's unclear how he died.
09:56The keys were on the floor in the front seat.
09:59There was no broken glass anywhere.
10:01His clothes weren't disheveled like there was a struggle.
10:04There was no blood.
10:06There was no gunshots.
10:07There was no knife wounds.
10:09While there are no obvious wounds on Paul's body,
10:13closer inspection reveals a tell-tale sign of foul play.
10:18He had at least two rounds of ligature marks around his neck.
10:24He was strangled.
10:29There isn't much room in the back seat of this car, this Volvo.
10:35So it would have been very difficult for whoever killed Paul
10:41to have strangled him from the back seat.
10:45That would tell me it took a person of size and or strength
10:49to pull this off,
10:50and that it wasn't done in his car.
10:53It was done elsewhere.
10:54And then Paul's body was moved from the actual crime scene.
10:58Stranulation is not a typical means of death in a robbery case.
11:05People who strangle other people
11:08usually have a personal relationship.
11:12It could have been by someone who was close to him.
11:19Coming up,
11:21investigators learn about a recent feud.
11:24Paul put his foot down and said no.
11:27And then that's when the whole rage came out.
11:29And a possible suspect
11:31shifts the course of the investigation.
11:35I said, we'll get to the bottom of this.
11:37And with his hand,
11:38he pointed to the kitchen floor and said,
11:41the bottom starts right here.
11:57Two days after Paul Lacey was reported missing,
12:01his dead body has been found less than three blocks away from home.
12:06And investigators are trying to determine why.
12:11There was no jewelry on him at that time,
12:13although he was known to wear three rings,
12:16which he did not have on.
12:19His pockets and his black jeans were turned inside out.
12:23It could be construed as a robbery gone bad
12:27or a robbery slash murder.
12:28And the fact that Stella said
12:30that he carried a large amount of money on him at all times
12:33would point to that fact for sure.
12:38The only thing that they found was a pager on his belt.
12:41They download the pager information.
12:44Stella told the responding officers
12:46that she did try paging him and he didn't respond.
12:50So it pretty much corroborated Stella's story.
12:56After assisting the forensics people from the state police,
13:00it was determined that the body was going to be removed from the vehicle
13:03and would be shipped for autopsy.
13:07Then investigators made the notification right away.
13:15We asked Stella to come to the police department.
13:17She was given what is essentially a death notification.
13:21She started crying, seemed very upset.
13:24When she settled down, we said,
13:26now you need to help us help you
13:29and find out what happened to Paul.
13:35She's traumatized at this point.
13:37We found her husband dead.
13:39She's got three children.
13:40If she makes a mistake in a statement,
13:42we're going to let it go.
13:43But we do find some inconsistencies
13:46with what she tells us
13:48versus what she told the responding patrolman
13:52to report him missing.
13:54She said she saw him eat a salami sandwich at 11.30,
13:58which she did not tell the responding officers initially.
14:03She also said that Paul came up to bed on Thanksgiving Eve
14:06and got in bed with her that he wanted to have sex,
14:09but she turned him down.
14:12Even though there was inconsistencies,
14:14we have to take that into consideration.
14:17Emotions, you know, finite details
14:19that she may or may not have forgotten.
14:22So we don't push her on that
14:24because you don't want to paint her in a corner yet
14:26until we know more.
14:29This time, when Stella describes the events
14:32leading up to Paul's disappearance,
14:34she leaves out mention of their neighbor, Calvin.
14:37But she has another theory about who might be involved.
14:42As far as she knew, he never cheated on her,
14:45and she stated she never cheated on him
14:47other than some financial pressures that they were under.
14:50On the surface, they had a good marriage.
14:55But Stella said that he did have an ongoing feud
14:58with a first cousin by the name of David Womack,
15:02who actually lived with them for a few months.
15:06His older cousin needed him, you know,
15:10and he provided a place for him
15:12where the other family members were like,
15:15no, you're not staying with us.
15:17Paul was the one that was kind-hearted.
15:23Stella says the arrangement quickly turned sour.
15:27And on November 3rd,
15:29three weeks before Paul's body was discovered,
15:32the conflict between the cousins escalated.
15:36David would get into these rage-type arguments,
15:41stuff like that.
15:43He always had guns and stuff.
15:45But Paul was not like that.
15:47Paul wasn't a physical fighter.
15:51David Womack had an issue with his anger.
15:55So he probably thought he could bully Paul and stay there.
16:00Well, Paul put his foot down and said no,
16:03told him he had to go.
16:04And then that's when the whole rage came out.
16:07Paul kicked him out of the house.
16:09And according to Paul Lacey,
16:11his cousin Dave Womack sliced tires on Paul's cars.
16:18While David was never charged in the tire-slashing incident,
16:23Paul's allegations pushed their relationship
16:25to a breaking point.
16:28Paul Lacey kicked his cousin Womack out of the house.
16:36But he allowed another cousin, Ron Faulkner,
16:41to rent a room in the house.
16:50Investigators tracked David down for an interview.
16:55Of course, he denied any involvement and said he hadn't seen Paul in quite a while.
17:02And in fact, definitely he didn't see Paul Thanksgiving Eve or Thanksgiving.
17:08David claims he went hunting with his sons on Thanksgiving Day.
17:12That was corroborated by friends and family alike.
17:16Although he was very suspect at this point,
17:21his alibi was corroborated.
17:27With David ruled out as a possible suspect,
17:31detectives hope Paul's autopsy will give them a new lead.
17:37The ligature marks left bruising
17:39and a distinctive pattern around his neck.
17:43The medical examiner had determined
17:46that in fact this was a homicide.
17:48It was further determined
17:49that Mr. Lacey had died
17:51by strangulation caused by ligature.
17:57This is not an exact science in terms of time of death.
18:00The fact that Paul had been, quote-unquote,
18:04frozen because of the weather
18:05and actually had been dead for some time,
18:10the Emmy cannot put, you know, days on it.
18:14So we had to rely on the stomach contents
18:17and statement of Stella saying
18:19he ate a salami sandwich at 11.30 at night, Thanksgiving Eve.
18:25But Paul's stomach was empty,
18:27which would indicate that he hadn't eaten.
18:32One of the last people to see him alive
18:35says that he is eating a sandwich or having a meal.
18:39The autopsy report is inconsistent with that.
18:43At this point, they're highly skeptical
18:45of those initial reports.
18:48We still had a lot of unanswered questions.
18:51And now that Stella may or may not be involved,
18:54the pressure's on us to find other physical evidence
18:58or real evidence or eyewitnesses.
19:02But Paul's body was moved from the actual crime scene.
19:05Like, where did this actually happen?
19:23Investigators have received Paul Lacey's autopsy report,
19:26which contradicts his wife Stella Lacey's story.
19:31But with little evidence to go on,
19:34police can't be certain of anything.
19:39They know the answers they seek
19:41likely depend on finding where the murder took place.
19:45Well, how about his house?
19:49That's where he's supposed to be.
19:50And the last time Stella saw him,
19:54getting a search warrant's a pretty heavy lift,
19:56and it takes time.
19:58So we asked Stella for consent to search.
20:03Paul's first cousin, Ron, lived there.
20:05They both consented.
20:07There was investigators throughout the house,
20:09upstairs, downstairs, in bedrooms and bathrooms
20:11and closets, drawers, private places.
20:15At one point, while I was there,
20:17a man came, just walked into the back door,
20:20into the kitchen.
20:23Didn't knock.
20:24We nodded to each other, said, hello.
20:26And he immediately went to the turkey,
20:29the Thanksgiving turkey.
20:31Ripped off a leg, started eating it.
20:34And I asked, I said, who are you?
20:36And he said that he was a neighbor,
20:37identified himself as Calvin Smith.
20:41Calvin Smith was another man
20:44who was in the house that night
20:46that Paul Lacey disappeared.
20:50Stella neglected to mention
20:52that Calvin was there
20:54in her second interview with the police.
20:59He said, yeah, this is really sad
21:00about what happened to Paul.
21:02I said, yeah, but we'll get to the bottom of this.
21:05And with his hand,
21:06he pointed to the kitchen floor
21:09and said, the bottom starts right here.
21:16They certainly got my attention.
21:19And I said, what do you mean by that?
21:21He shrugged his shoulders.
21:25He was just as calm, cool,
21:27and collected as could be.
21:28He's eating a leg off a turkey dinner.
21:33And I took note of that.
21:35And I said, something's up.
21:39More than meets the eye here.
21:41You know, again, it's common sense.
21:44The speculation is that it happened here.
21:48I didn't want to put a lot of pressure on him right then
21:51because we didn't know, was he involved?
21:53Was someone in the house involved?
21:55So I just let it go.
21:56But of course, I told the rest of the team.
22:05After concluding their search,
22:07investigators' suspicions are reinforced by another tip.
22:12There was an anonymous call that came in
22:16that the origin was never identified,
22:19but indicated that Paul Lacey had very poor eyesight
22:24and needed to wear his glasses all the time.
22:28After we got that phone call from a friend,
22:32we immediately, you know, started thinking,
22:35where are the glasses?
22:37You know, there were no glasses in the car.
22:39So that tells you pretty much that he didn't drive there
22:44where he was found.
22:47At that point, investigation goes back to the last place
22:52where he was seen alive with his wife, Ron Faulkner, and Calvin Smith.
22:59We decided that we need to talk to Ron, Calvin, and Stella
23:04for the third time
23:06and bring them into the police department
23:08to talk to individually.
23:12They weren't under arrest, but we had a plan.
23:14You know, we're going to interview them separately
23:16and be able to pull apart their stories
23:19or corroborate their stories.
23:21If someone's lying, it's hard to keep up a lie,
23:24and one lie leads to another.
23:26The inconsistencies that may or may not have meant something early on
23:29come into focus with a lot more when you add them up.
23:33One or all of them are involved,
23:35and it did happen in the house.
23:41Coming up, detectives expose a marriage in distress.
23:46She finally admits,
23:48I've been having an affair.
23:49In fact, Thanksgiving was our anniversary.
23:54And a shocking confession turns the case upside down.
23:58She said she stood there for a few minutes staring,
24:04and it dawned on her that Paul was dead.
24:25On November 27, 1995,
24:28two days after Paul Lacey was found murdered
24:32in the backseat of his car,
24:35investigators attempt to verify his final moments
24:38with the three people who saw him last.
24:42Paul's wife, Stella Lacey,
24:44his friend Calvin Smith,
24:46and his cousin Ronald Faulkner.
24:52We start by interviewing Stella.
24:55I can tell that she's nervous now.
24:58She's got a whole different demeanor,
24:59and she knows that Ron and Calvin
25:02are being talked to in adjacent rooms.
25:06Contrary to what she initially told police,
25:09Stella admits she and Paul were having problems.
25:13The marriage wasn't as rosy
25:15as she initially painted a picture of,
25:18and that Paul always wanted sex,
25:20and that was something she wasn't willing to participate in
25:23as much as he wanted to.
25:25He was a free spender,
25:28and they had filed Chapter 13
25:30to protect the house and their vehicles,
25:32but he was spending money, according to her,
25:35hand over fist.
25:38Stella says she began spending more time
25:41with Paul's cousin, Ron.
25:44Ron, you know, took care of a lot of chores around the house,
25:48was Uncle Ron to the three kids.
25:51She told police that Ron was a breath of fresh air
25:56and could talk to her,
25:58and she could talk to him,
26:00and he would listen, unlike Paul.
26:05She finally admits,
26:07in fact, I, she says,
26:09I've been having an affair with Ron for about a year.
26:11In fact, Thanksgiving was our anniversary.
26:15I asked her if she loved Ron,
26:17and she said, actually, she didn't,
26:18but house-wise, it was a good thing for him
26:22to be there for babysitting, cleaning, chores, etc.
26:25But it was just like a convenience.
26:29In terms of motive,
26:31she's having an affair with Paul's first cousin, Ron,
26:33who's living in the home
26:34and had been there for about six or seven months.
26:38Secondly, there's a money issue,
26:41and she finally admits that Paul had
26:44two life insurance policies worth $50,000.
26:51Stella admits that over time,
26:53she and Ron began to fantasize
26:56about life without her husband.
26:59She told me that both her and Ron
27:02disliked Paul and even hated him,
27:05and they talked about getting rid of Paul.
27:09Stella said she never thought
27:11that that was being taken seriously.
27:16But Stella says on Thanksgiving Eve,
27:20Ron surprised her.
27:23She went up to bed.
27:25Paul came up a short time after
27:27and got in bed, wanted to have sex with her.
27:29She turned him down,
27:31and they were in bed for the night.
27:35Within a few minutes, maybe 15 minutes or so,
27:38she said that Ron yelled upstairs.
27:42Ron yelled up the stairs that Paul had a phone call,
27:46and he suggested Paul come down and take the call.
27:51According to Stella, he was only gone a few minutes,
27:54and then Ron went back up the stairs
27:58and asked Stella to come down.
28:02She walked in the room and just saw Paul face down
28:07in Ron's bedroom with a blanket,
28:09a pink blanket, over his head.
28:15In the room, besides Ron, was Kelvin Smith,
28:19the neighbor that had been over to the house that evening.
28:24She said she stood there for a few minutes staring,
28:30and it dawned on her that Paul was dead.
28:35They said, we got to get rid of him.
28:38She went back upstairs, got his shoes, pants, shirt,
28:43his belt, his pager, dressed him, all three of them,
28:47because it's not easy to dress a dead body.
28:50Calvin and Ron loaded Paul in the backseat of his Volvo.
28:56Stella said, I'll stay here and clean up the mess.
28:59She also said that Calvin had the rope
29:01that he used to strangle him
29:02and told Calvin to get rid of the rope,
29:05and she told me that he flushed it down the toilet.
29:10After they lowered Paul's body in the backseat,
29:14Ron drove the car,
29:16and he drove the car a couple of blocks away.
29:21The three of them got together and said,
29:23here's what we're going to do.
29:24We'll make sure our stories match.
29:25And the biggest thing was that
29:28we're going to say it looked like a robbery.
29:31Here's Paul's three rings,
29:33which they removed from his hand after they killed him,
29:35and the money out of his pockets.
29:37Stella said, I'll wait till tomorrow
29:40to report Paul missing,
29:43and I'll beep him several times throughout the day
29:46so the police will think that I was really worried about him.
29:49That everything's going to be fine.
29:56Stella's confession seems to explain everything,
29:59but detectives sense she is downplaying her involvement.
30:05I don't know how true her confession is or not.
30:07I've got enough to believe that she's telling the truth to a point,
30:10but we need to talk to Ron and Calvin
30:13and put their stories together
30:15and see how close they are matching.
30:20Coming up,
30:21the grisly details of the murder come to light.
30:25He said, all right, I did it.
30:28I put the rope around his neck twice,
30:30and that was that.
30:31And a confessed killer describes Paul's last moments.
30:37He kisses Paul on the forehead
30:39and tells him,
30:41I'm sorry, but everyone can now be at peace.
30:59New York authorities are investigating
31:02the strangulation death of Paul Lacey.
31:06While his wife, Stella Lacey,
31:09is naming her husband's cousin and neighbor in his murder,
31:13detectives are in other rooms with the two men
31:16trying to get their versions of the story.
31:20I found out that Calvin was not admitting to anything,
31:22so I said, let me try.
31:27He denied being involved at all,
31:29so I asked him if he put his hands on the rope,
31:32and he said he did not.
31:35I said, Calvin, do you know what a rope is made of?
31:38And he kind of said, yeah, I guess.
31:41And I said, well, it's made of fibers.
31:43If you touch that rope,
31:44you're going to have these fibers embedded in your hand.
31:48Well, this is definitely not true,
31:49but Calvin seemed to be believing me.
31:53I told him that the PD had just purchased
31:56a fiber detection instrument.
31:58Now, this is 1995.
32:00Copy machines were brand new,
32:03big piece of equipment.
32:05Schenectady PD had purchased one recently,
32:07so I took him out of the interview room,
32:08and I told him that was the fiber detection instrument.
32:15I lifted up the cover,
32:17as you would place a piece of paper there,
32:19and I said, we're going to stick your hand in that,
32:21and we're going to hit the detection button,
32:23or whatever I called it.
32:26And he put his hand down.
32:28You know, the bright light comes on.
32:30I said, don't look at the light.
32:33He pulled his hand away.
32:36The investigator's ruse has the intended effect.
32:40Right there at the copy machine,
32:42he said, all right, I did it.
32:43I strangled Paul.
32:47I put the rope around his neck twice,
32:49and that was that.
32:53I felt bad for Calvin that I had tricked him,
32:56but I can do that.
32:57I didn't interfere with his right to due process.
33:01Or convince an innocent person to confess
33:03something he didn't do,
33:04all within the guidelines of the law.
33:08According to Calvin,
33:09Stella wasn't an innocent bystander.
33:13He says he went along with the murder
33:15because she promised to give him $100 up front,
33:19along with a cut from the insurance payout.
33:23Stella said, I'm going to give you some money.
33:25He thought maybe this is life-changing money.
33:26They also took the rings off Paul's fingers.
33:32Calvin thought he'd get a lot of money
33:34for those three rings.
33:36And instead, all he got for the total
33:39for the three rings was $40.
33:46When they question Ron Faulkner,
33:48he confesses as well,
33:50but with a different motive than Calvin.
33:54He was in love with Stella
33:58and wanted to end a toxic relationship
34:03in the marriage so that they could be together.
34:09Ron knew that her relationship with Paul
34:13was not what she wanted.
34:17Ron said he'd do anything to make Stella happy.
34:22So while he was out running errands
34:24with Paul and Calvin the night before Thanksgiving,
34:27he decided to make the fantasy a reality.
34:34Ron said, here's what we're going to do.
34:36Calvin, you get the rope,
34:37because you're a big guy,
34:39and you can hide behind my bedroom door.
34:41I'm going to yell up to Paul.
34:44Paul, when he comes in,
34:46you put that rope around him twice
34:48and just pull as hard as you can.
34:54Which, by Calvin's account and Ron's account,
34:58this is how it went down.
35:08Calvin just pulled as hard as he could
35:10for a couple minutes,
35:12and Ron actually jumped on top of Calvin
35:16and put more weight on Paul.
35:20As he's dying, Ron leans forward,
35:24kisses Paul on the forehead,
35:27and tells him,
35:29I'm sorry, but everyone can now be at peace.
35:38Paul's body was found on Saturday,
35:41November 25th.
35:42Three days later,
35:43Ron, Calvin, and Stella were arrested.
35:46All three were charged with murder,
35:48tampering with evidence,
35:50conspiracy.
35:55While they all face the same charges,
35:57investigators believe Stella
36:00was the driving force behind the crime.
36:03Stella, I think,
36:04manipulated them both into doing it.
36:07She was the puppet master.
36:14I was shocked that Calvin, Ronald,
36:18and Stella had murdered my brother
36:21over insurance money.
36:23With Stella, anything she wanted,
36:25my brother would have gave it to her.
36:27It was senseless
36:30that she would even go to those extremes.
36:34I couldn't imagine
36:36that type of betrayal,
36:39that type of pain
36:42that you would inflict
36:44on someone that you care about
36:46for money.
36:51Paul's family relies on prosecutors
36:54to exact justice.
36:56But when it comes to Stella,
36:58they have major concerns.
37:02Although I think Stella orchestrated this,
37:04it's hard for a jury
37:05to put someone away for life,
37:07even though they planned it.
37:08We have to make sure we did our job
37:10and the evidence is enough
37:12to take it to trial.
37:14You build the best case
37:15because you're going to get
37:16one shot at this.
37:32In August 1996,
37:35Stella Lacey goes on trial
37:37for the murder of her husband,
37:39Paul Lacey.
37:41her alleged co-conspirators
37:44decide to take plea deals instead.
37:47Ronald and Calvin,
37:48they were facing a potential death penalty case.
37:52And sure,
37:54their attorneys advised them
37:55that they're only shot
37:56to save their own skin
37:58by pleading to the lesser murder charges
38:02rather than face potential death penalty.
38:07Calvin pled guilty
38:08to first-degree murder,
38:10was sentenced 25 to life.
38:13Ron decided to plead guilty
38:14to second-degree murder
38:16and also received 25 to life.
38:20As part of his agreement,
38:22Calvin provides testimony
38:23against Stella.
38:26Prosecutors do not require
38:28the same of Ron.
38:30He was in love with her
38:31and would never harm her.
38:34Stella's demeanor during the trial
38:36was cold,
38:37very cold, stone-faced.
38:44The defense strategy was
38:46that she did not participate
38:49in the murder,
38:50only became aware of it
38:51after the fact
38:52when Ron and Calvin notify her
38:55and that her involvement
38:57was to help dispose of the body.
39:03However,
39:05Calvin denies such claims.
39:08He testifies that Stella
39:10was the one that told him
39:11Paul's death needed
39:12to look like a robbery.
39:14He also claims
39:15that Stella wanted it to happen
39:17before the holiday.
39:21Calvin indicated
39:23Stella had tried
39:24to do some pre-planning
39:25and that her representation
39:28that she was totally insulated
39:31from the actual homicide
39:33was incorrect.
39:37Paul's cousin,
39:39David Womack,
39:40takes the stand as a witness.
39:44He testifies that Stella
39:46not only knew about the murder,
39:48she was the one who planned it.
39:53His testimony was
39:54that he was approached by Stella
39:56and offered $10,000
39:57to kill Paul.
40:01Womack's statement shows
40:03that Stella
40:04had thought about this
40:06in advance.
40:08But it doesn't seem
40:10to be enough
40:10for the jury.
40:13Womack's credibility
40:14was terrible.
40:15He never reported
40:16to police
40:16that she had approached him
40:17so, you know,
40:19it looked like sour grapes
40:20on his part.
40:21The jury didn't believe
40:22his testimony.
40:23She was actually found
40:24not guilty
40:25of first-degree murder.
40:28She was found guilty
40:30of criminally negligent homicide,
40:33tampering with evidence
40:34and hindering prosecution.
40:37She was sentenced
40:3810 to 32 years
40:40in state prison.
40:46The first reaction
40:48was upset, anger.
40:50We tried to let
40:52the justice system
40:53do their job,
40:54but it failed us.
40:57I feel like
40:58Stella
41:01got a break.
41:02She should have
41:03did more time
41:04than anyone else
41:05because this was
41:06all her plan.
41:09Of course,
41:10I was disappointed.
41:11I take that as a loss.
41:13We did our job.
41:14I think she manipulated
41:16this whole thing.
41:17The fact that she did not
41:18actually physically
41:20participate in the murder
41:21is tough, I think,
41:22for a jury
41:23to take it to the level
41:25to send her
41:25to prison for life.
41:33Paul did not deserve
41:35to have his life
41:36taken away
41:38because of somebody's greed.
41:43He deserved better,
41:45and he didn't get that.
41:52Paul had an infectious smile.
41:54He had a hug
41:55that would warm you
41:56to the bone.
41:57His generosity
41:59was unlimited.
42:02We still talk about him today.
42:0430 years later,
42:05we keep him alive
42:06in our heart.
42:08With Paul,
42:10it's like,
42:11I know he's safe.
42:13I don't have to worry
42:15about him.
42:16And that's the way
42:18I go forward
42:19with my life.
42:20I know.
42:25Yeah.
42:32I love you.
42:36I know.
42:37Yeah.
42:39Yeah.
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