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How NOT to Hire a Hitman - Season 1 - Episode 03: Too Many Birds
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00:09An unhealthy obsession with exotic birds.
00:13What starts as a few birds here and there multiplies into dozens.
00:19A gruesome early morning discovery.
00:22The men move closer and realize that it's a dead body.
00:27And a hitman who accidentally confesses everything.
00:33On the outside, the letter says, only open if I die.
00:38It potentially could be the holy grail of evidence.
00:52Fred and Patricia Brown and their two children form a tight family unit.
01:01Fred's career in the military keeps the family moving from state to state.
01:05The one consistency they have is each other.
01:11Fred met Pat at the height of the Vietnam War when he was a 24-year-old soldier attending the
01:16non-commissioned officer academy in Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
01:2121-year-old Patricia de Rosa was the stepdaughter of Fred's commanding officer.
01:28Fred and Pat began a sweet courtship and married just six months later.
01:35Six months is pretty quick to go from zero to married, but the Vietnam War era was a different time.
01:43With young men preparing to deploy overseas, the complications of war can fast-track major life decisions.
01:53Fred completes his tour of duty in Vietnam and realizes that he enjoys military life.
02:01Fred decides to stay in the Army, but military families know that life is challenging, moving from city to city,
02:09base to base.
02:11It's in this environment that Fred and Pat had their children.
02:17Daughter Sarah is born in 1980, followed by son Dan in 1982.
02:25Fred continues to rise up the ranks in the U.S. Army.
02:29Eventually, he's promoted to the rank of major.
02:32He serves with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
02:42After a nearly 20-year career, Fred retires from the military in 1988,
02:51and the family puts down roots in North Carolina.
02:54The Browns settle in High Point, 20 miles from Greensboro.
02:59Fred starts a new career as an instructor at the Guilford Technical Community College, where he teaches business and economics.
03:07Patricia works in real estate and teaches at the Randolph Community College in Asheboro.
03:14The transition to civilian life can be challenging.
03:17Families have to get used to new roles and a new routine.
03:21It's an adjustment for Fred and Pat, but they seem to settle into their new life comfortably.
03:39Pat was raised by a single mother in Alabama and has two younger sisters.
03:46She's especially close to Sheila, who is eight years her junior.
03:52Sheila still lives near their mother in Alabama.
03:56Sheila has lived a very different life than Pat.
04:00Pat has a stable, loving marriage, whereas Sheila is a divorced single mother.
04:09In 1989, Sheila marries Leroy Wenzel.
04:14Like Sheila, Leroy has kids from a previous marriage.
04:18As a couple, they're the complete opposite of the Browns.
04:23The Browns are calm and predictable, but the Wenzels are hot-tempered and volatile.
04:30There's lots of drinking and lots of fighting.
04:37Leroy is a former truck driver, now working as a mechanic.
04:41He's covered in tattoos.
04:43He's a regular drug user and drinks three cases of beer every week.
04:50He's the complete opposite of his brother-in-law, the buttoned-up former military man.
05:02Two years into their new life, Pat suffers a devastating health crisis.
05:07Pat is a heavy smoker and suffers from high blood pressure.
05:13In 1990, her heart gives out, and she has to undergo open-heart surgery.
05:20It's a major operation, and it takes a big toll on Pat.
05:26She stays in Alabama with her mother while she's recovering, where her sister Sheila can help take care of her.
05:35Going through a life-threatening event can have a profound effect on a person.
05:41It's not unusual for someone to change their outlook on life and re-examine their priorities.
05:47For Pat, this is exactly what happens.
05:54During her recovery, Pat develops an unusual new hobby.
06:00After her surgery, Pat starts breeding exotic birds.
06:05Somehow, they bring comfort after her difficult recovery.
06:11It's a strange hobby, to say the least.
06:14And certainly not one that Fred shares.
06:16But what begins as an innocent pastime soon turns into an obsession.
06:24A new hobby can be a good thing when you're healing.
06:27It gives you a sense of purpose, but the key is moderation.
06:34Pat's bird collecting grows completely out of control.
06:39What starts as a few birds here and there multiplies into dozens.
06:45Eventually, she has over 50 exotic birds in their home.
06:53Ultimately, the birds get their own wing of the family home.
06:57Money's always been tight for the Browns, and that's not unusual for a military family.
07:03Pat's sudden bird mania is not helping.
07:07Fred agrees to add an extension onto their house to placate Pat and make room for all of her birds.
07:16But the cost of the extension makes the Browns' money problems worse.
07:22Instead of easing the tension in their marriage, it boils over.
07:28The birds' sanctuary renovations have the opposite effect than Fred intended.
07:34As the months go by, the couple fights more and more.
07:42What should be a happy milestone for daughter Sarah instead becomes another source of tension.
07:49In January 1991, Sarah graduates from university.
07:53It's an exciting time and Fred and Pat are proud of their daughter.
07:58But they have completely different ideas on what should come next.
08:08Fred feels like now that Sarah is no longer in school, she should move out and start living an adult
08:14life.
08:19Pat doesn't appreciate the suggestion.
08:25She's not ready for her daughter to leave home.
08:32By the spring, the arguments expand to the entire extended family.
08:37In March, Sheila and Leroy visit for the weekend.
08:42Pat and Fred are still unhappy with each other.
08:45And the Wenzels have always been unpredictable.
08:49So the mood is generally tense.
08:53At one point, son Dan sees his father and uncle arguing for over half an hour.
08:59Dan has no idea what the men are arguing about.
09:04It's unusual enough that Dan stops to watch them.
09:21A month later, Fred is home alone in the evening.
09:24On the night of April 24th, 1991, Fred has the house to himself.
09:31Pat's at work, the kids are out, and so he has time to kick back and relax.
09:50After ending the call, he grabs his keys and heads out the door.
09:59It's an unusual departure from Fred's normal routine.
10:04He doesn't leave a note for his family or any other indication as to where he might be going.
10:09He just leaves.
10:11After that night, Fred Brown is never seen alive again.
10:26Fred and Patricia Brown settle in High Point, North Carolina, after Fred's military career comes to a close.
10:34As Pat's newfound obsession with exotic birds spirals out of control, the Brown household becomes a pressure cooker of tension.
10:51That tension boils over when in-laws, Sheila and Leroy Wentzel, visit for the weekend.
11:00At one point, son Dan sees his father and uncle argue for over half an hour.
11:12Then, on April 24th, 1991, Fred heads out on a mysterious mission.
11:21April 24th starts out as a normal day. Fred works all day at the community college, getting home at 5pm.
11:31Pat has a real estate class to teach, so she leaves the house at around 6 o'clock.
11:37Dan is out of the house, and Sarah leaves sometime between 8 and 9pm to see some friends.
11:45The birds are off in their own part of the house, leaving Fred alone to relax for the evening.
11:58At 9.30, Fred receives a phone call.
12:10And quickly heads out the door.
12:15It's an unusual departure from Fred's normal routine.
12:19He doesn't leave a note for his family, or any other indication as to where he might be going. He
12:24just leaves.
12:26When Pat and Sarah get home, they find it odd because Fred isn't there.
12:34It's not like him to be out of contact.
12:37They have no clue where he is.
12:41The next morning, Fred still hasn't returned.
12:49Now, Pat is worried. Fred has been out all night. It's completely out of character for him.
12:59Sure, they've been arguing a lot lately.
13:02But Fred would never want to worry his family in that way.
13:07She makes the decision to call the police and file a missing persons report.
13:12Pat tells the police her husband has been gone for at least 12 hours.
13:17It's never too early to file a missing persons report.
13:21If someone's left or disappeared and it's out of the ordinary under any circumstance,
13:25the police will follow up. They will investigate.
13:29Gone are the days where you had to wait 24 hours before reporting somebody missing.
13:38Roughly the same time as Pat makes her call to the police, two men make a gruesome discovery.
13:44At 9.30 a.m., two employees of Doxie's Furniture are out on a run on Gallimore Dairy Road near
13:51Highway 68.
13:54They're checking on a trailer their company has parked in the area when they spot something unusual on the ground.
14:01The men move closer and realize that it's a dead body.
14:08When police arrive, they run the license plate of the abandoned car that's parked close by and discover that it's
14:15registered to Fred Brown.
14:19Fred is shot three times and is left lying on the side of the road only four miles away from
14:26his house.
14:28Major Tom Shepard from the Guilford County Sheriff's Office takes charge of the investigation.
14:36Fred's body is lying face down on the ground.
14:40He suffered a gunshot wound to the lower back and two to his head.
14:45It appears that Fred was trying to flee from his assailant.
14:51There is a little trail of blood leading from where Fred's car is parked to where his body is found
14:58alongside the road.
15:04The motive appears to be robbery.
15:08The fact that his wallet is gone certainly indicates that it could be a robbery.
15:13The fact that his car keys are still in his pocket may indicate that it was not a robbery or
15:19it may indicate that whoever robbed him for his wallet didn't want his car.
15:22You have to include or exclude all possibilities based on the evidence that you're confronted with.
15:29The true motive of the perpetrator might be something else entirely.
15:36A detail on Fred's body catches Major Shepard's eye.
15:41Major Shepard spots a footprint on Fred's back.
15:46It's the size of an adult male shoe.
15:50The print appears to have been made after Fred was already on the ground.
15:55The footprint on Fred's back really stands out.
15:59That's unusual.
16:00It looks like the shooting was up close and personal.
16:04It could have been an execution.
16:07As the investigation gets underway, police have little more to go on.
16:12The investigators would certainly start with the family members and consider all possibilities.
16:20Police learn of the trouble in the Browns' marriage, but Patricia was at work during the time of the shooting.
16:27A lot of couples don't get along.
16:29It doesn't mean that one is involved in the other's murder.
16:34They may have nothing to do with the crime, or they may have background information on the victim and the
16:40problems that he's been having with anybody else.
16:43Any threats that have been made to him or any circumstances that he may be going through that may explain
16:49why somebody would want to kill him.
16:53With no indication of what might have drawn Fred out to this remote roadside the previous evening, investigators must rely
17:01on the public for leads.
17:04You're going to canvas that scene, you're going to look for any witnesses, any cameras that might be in the
17:10area, and hopefully something pops up that helps you out.
17:14A woman named Dorothy reports being in the area around 11pm and said she saw two cars parked bumper to
17:23bumper on the side of the road.
17:25One had its hood propped up, and at the time there were two people with the cars.
17:31Another woman, Betty, was out walking her dog when she heard what sounded like three quick gunshots.
17:40Her statement matches the evidence perfectly, corroborating the time of death.
17:55As investigators search for more leads, Fred's family struggles to move forward without him.
18:05On April 29th, the family holds a funeral for Fred at the Cumbie Mortuary in High Point.
18:13The very next day, Pat meets with a representative from Fred's employer about his death benefits.
18:26Pat believes that Fred has a life insurance policy with a value of about $250,000, and she believes that
18:34she is the beneficiary.
18:35On top of that, their house is valued at $119,000.
18:41But Patricia learns the large life insurance policy doesn't exist.
18:47Pat's financial cushion turns out to be more of a deflated air mattress.
18:53The quarter million dollar policy she's been banking on vanished into thin air.
19:01Instead, between the insurance and the house, she's left clutching a cheque of only $143,000.
19:09A far cry from the windfall she was anticipating.
19:16A few months later, Pat sells the family home in High Point and moves to Alabama to be closer to
19:22her family.
19:23She buys a double-wide trailer for herself and a trailer for each of her kids to live in.
19:30And the birds?
19:32Well, they go with Pat to Alabama, and she opens a pet store to sell them.
19:40But as Patricia moves on, the investigation into Fred's murder hits a wall.
19:46With no new leads, the case has gone stale.
19:50The family is left to deal with their loss and their unanswered questions.
19:56For an investigation to go stale means you've exhausted all of your leads and all of your avenues.
20:01And you've exhausted revisiting those leads and those avenues.
20:07And you've brought in all the resources you can possibly bring in, and you're left with nothing.
20:13You want to solve every case.
20:15That's your job.
20:16That's your passion.
20:18You want nothing more than that one little piece of information to come in that helps you break the case
20:23open or reopen it.
20:27If you didn't have a passion for the work, you wouldn't last too long doing it.
20:34For three long years, it seems like Fred Brown's murderer might never be found.
20:42Then, in July 1994, Patricia receives a phone call out of the blue.
20:51A detective in Redding, Pennsylvania, reaches out, telling Pat,
20:57I know who killed your husband.
21:09Financial strain, arguments over their daughter's future, and a house full of squawking parrots
21:16turn the marriage of Fred and Patricia Brown upside down.
21:25Fred's shocking execution-style murder leaves investigators baffled and the family in turmoil.
21:35When the case goes cold, Pat moves from North Carolina to Alabama,
21:40surrounding herself with the exotic birds that had become both her solace and her obsession.
21:48By 1994, three years after Fred's mysterious murder, Pat and her adult children have a new lease on life.
21:56The Wenzels, however, aren't doing very well.
22:01Sheila and Leroy's marriage is quickly falling apart.
22:04They're both drinkers.
22:06They're both drug users.
22:07It's not uncommon in that kind of domestic situation to see some violence.
22:17The Wenzels' marriage goes from bad to worse, and they separate.
22:23Leroy has been married several times, but he's just not good at it.
22:27And the breakdown of his marriage to Sheila really devastates him.
22:38Nearing rock bottom, Leroy takes a trip to visit relatives in Redding, Pennsylvania in July 1994.
22:47Leroy's parents live in Redding.
22:49He also has a daughter and two sons from a previous marriage that live there.
22:55Sometimes, seeing family can pull you out of a bad emotional situation.
23:01He brings along his 14-year-old stepson, Joey, on the trip, partly for a companionship and partly to irritate
23:09Sheila.
23:10What Leroy doesn't anticipate is that someone in Pennsylvania isn't too happy to see him.
23:20Leroy, being the stand-up guy that he is, owes $4,000 in child support to his ex-wife.
23:28Someone with an axe to grind learns that he's in town and turns him into the authorities.
23:35On July 13th, Leroy is arrested and transported to the Redding Police Department.
23:42Detective Anthony Michik is on duty when Leroy and his stepson are brought in.
23:48Young Joey is very upset and starts to cry.
23:52At first, Detective Michik assumes he's shaking up because of his stepfather's arrest.
23:58But then, Joey drops a bombshell.
24:04Joey tells the detective that he knows something that he's not supposed to share, but thinks that he should.
24:12Leroy had confessed to him that he killed a man named Fred in North Carolina.
24:17Joey doesn't know anything more about the alleged crime.
24:21He doesn't know where in North Carolina or when.
24:24All he knows is what Leroy told him.
24:27A man named Fred was shot three times by his stepfather.
24:32A shocked Detective Michik is unsure how to react.
24:37Police would take this seriously.
24:39A 14-year-old kid can be pretty credible.
24:42You still have to weigh that credibility and the ability of the youth to recognize a lie from the truth.
24:48But any information like that definitely needs to be followed up on and investigated.
24:55Without much to go on, the detective hits the phones.
25:01It's good old-fashioned police work.
25:03There's not a simple answer.
25:06All you know is that somebody named Fred was killed in North Carolina.
25:10You may have to resolve that by making many, many phone calls and checking through many, many computer records before
25:17you get an answer.
25:21Detective Michik spends the entire night calling around to various cities in North Carolina,
25:27asking if there were any unsolved murders of a guy named Fred.
25:32But he comes up empty.
25:38The detective also reaches out to Leroy's other family members in the area.
25:43Leroy's daughter, Jenny, confirms that her father told her the same story.
25:48But she adds the detail that she thinks that the murder took place in High Point.
25:55Detective Michik calls the police in High Point and asks them to check their records.
26:02In their cold case files, they find the unsolved murder of Fred Brown, shot three times back in April 1991.
26:15Mitchit tracks down Fred's widow, Pat, to tell her he might have his killer in custody.
26:22When he learns that Leroy Wenzel was Fred's brother-in-law, he knows he's on to something.
26:29You've got two versions of a confession to murder.
26:34What you're trying to do is corroborate those confessions.
26:37Now, all of a sudden, you've got a victim that matches up to those confessions by his name,
26:43and you have a direct link between that victim and your suspect who has made those confessions.
26:50That's great evidence.
26:56The next day, Jenny visits the station with another piece of evidence that seals the deal.
27:05Jenny has a letter that her father wrote and left with her when he was at a particularly low point.
27:11On the outside, the letter says,
27:15Inside, the letter contains a full confession to the murder of Fred Brown.
27:22The letter has to be corroborated, just as any witness statement or confession would be corroborated in a murder investigation.
27:31It potentially could be the holy grail of evidence.
27:38In the letter, Leroy admits that he was paid to kill Fred back in 1991.
27:45And shockingly, he claims Fred's wife, Pat, was the one who hired him.
27:56The next day, the detective from the Guilford County Sheriff's Department arrives in Pennsylvania with an arrest warrant.
28:07As Leroy's interrogation begins, the true nature of Fred Brown's murder is about to be revealed.
28:24Deadbeat dad, Leroy Wenzel's arrest in Pennsylvania for unpaid child support unravels a web of lies stretching back to North
28:35Carolina.
28:35And the unsolved murder of his brother-in-law, Fred Brown, three years earlier.
28:44Things shift from a solo act to a twisted family band when Leroy unintentionally confesses to Fred's murder.
28:53And implicates Fred's wife, Pat, and her sister, Sheila, in the plot.
29:00On the surface, the Browns had a seemingly happy marriage.
29:06Yes, they argued about money and the birds, but nothing truly terrible.
29:12Under the surface, it was a different story.
29:19Leroy explains to the two detectives that Patricia Brown first came up with the plan to murder her husband back
29:26in 1990.
29:29Everything changes after Pat's open-heart surgery.
29:34She develops her new bird hobby, yes.
29:38But she also decides that her husband is worth more dead to her than alive.
29:45With the supposed $250,000 payout from the life insurance and the $120,000 in proceeds from the sale of
29:54the house, Pat can start a whole new life.
30:01While recovering from surgery, Pat asks her sister, Sheila, if Leroy might know someone who would want to kill Fred.
30:09With his background, Leroy seems like the kind of guy who could get something like that done.
30:17And she's right.
30:18Leroy volunteers to do the job himself.
30:22The deal is straightforward.
30:24$1,000 up front, plus an additional $30,000 from Fred's life insurance payout once he's dead.
30:34But Patricia doesn't just hire a hitman.
30:37She plans every detail of her husband's murder.
30:42Pat gives Leroy detailed plans of her house.
30:46The location of the back door, how to get through the fence, and how to avoid the neighbor's barking dog.
30:54She plans the whole thing, every detail.
30:57What she doesn't plan on is Leroy losing his nerve.
31:05Leroy starts the long drive from New Hope, Alabama to High Point, North Carolina to kill his brother-in-law.
31:12But he changes his mind and he calls it off.
31:15Instead, he drives to Pennsylvania to visit his parents, but apparently not to pay his child support.
31:22Patricia is forced to finish her recovery and return to her life in North Carolina as a wife instead of
31:30a widow.
31:32She focuses on building her bird collection, hoping that will be enough.
31:39But it's not.
31:45By the spring of 1991, Patricia is more determined than ever to be rid of Fred.
31:52There's just no room in her life for both her birds and for her husband.
31:56So she hatches a new plan and Leroy agrees.
32:03On April 25th, 1991, Leroy again sets out from New Hope, Alabama to High Point, North Carolina.
32:16When he arrives, he phones Fred and says he's having car trouble.
32:22He asks his brother-in-law to come and help him.
32:26Being the stand-up guy that he is, Fred doesn't hesitate.
32:32Leroy then parks in a dark spot on the side of Gallimore Derry Road near Highway 68.
32:39He opens the hood of the car, pulls a wire, so the car won't start.
32:46When Fred arrives, the two men check under the hood of Leroy's car and discuss what to do.
32:56Leroy then retrieves his gun from the back of the car, which he's wrapped in a sweatshirt.
33:05He shows the gun to Fred and tells him that Pat wants him dead.
33:13As Fred tries to flee, Leroy shoots him in the back.
33:26Then Leroy walks over and shoots Fred at close range, twice in the head.
33:35After shooting him, Leroy puts his foot on Fred's back and shakes him a bit to make sure he's dead.
33:44Then Leroy jumps in his car and drives off.
33:47But he suddenly remembers that, per Pat's detailed plan, he's supposed to make it look like a robbery.
33:55So he circles back.
33:58In orders of sage the scene, he turns off the hazard lights of Fred's car and closes the hood.
34:08Then he takes Fred's wallet from his back pocket.
34:15When he gets home to Alabama, he gets rid of the gun by throwing it into the Coosa River.
34:24Now, Leroy explains to the detectives that after the murder, Pat didn't live up to her end of the deal.
34:32Pat was supposed to pay Leroy $30,000 from the proceeds of Fred's life insurance.
34:38But the large payout that Pat was expecting never materializes.
34:43And so she stiffs Leroy.
34:46Leroy doesn't want to take the fall alone.
34:48And it's not as if he could have sued Pat for lack of payment for services rendered.
34:54As he confesses to the detectives, Leroy lays out all the details of Pat's plan.
35:01And his estranged wife, Sheila's role in facilitating the deal.
35:09The dominoes fall quickly after Leroy's confession.
35:14A week later, Pat and Sheila are arrested on first-degree murder charges for their role in the crime.
35:21In December, Pat is also charged with solicitation to commit murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
35:29But as her trial gets underway, these family members turn on each other with shocking new claims.
35:37It will be up to the jury to determine whose truth is the truth.
35:48Former military man Fred Brown is lured to a remote roadside and shot dead by his brother-in-law, Leroy
35:57Wenzel.
36:02Leroy's confession paints Pat Brown as the black widow behind Fred's 1991 murder.
36:10Pat was supposed to pay Leroy $30,000 from the proceeds of Fred's life insurance.
36:16But the large payout that Pat was expecting never materializes.
36:20And so she stiffs Leroy.
36:25With Leroy's ex and Pat's sister, Sheila, also implicated as a conspirator.
36:33The bad apples on this family tree seem more like a whole rotten orchard.
36:40In January 1995, Leroy and Sheila plead to the lesser charge of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
36:48In exchange for their testimony against Pat.
36:52In cases with multiple defendants, early plea deals often set the strategy for the prosecution's case.
37:01In this case, you have three different defendants, three different defense lawyers, all looking to navigate the system for the
37:09best outcome for their clients.
37:11And the prosecution has to take advantage of that to put the strongest case forward that they can, based on
37:17all the circumstances.
37:20Sheila is sentenced to 50 years in prison.
37:23Leroy gets life plus 30 years.
37:28Against Pat, the prosecutor seeks the death penalty.
37:37Pat's trial gets underway on March 29, 1995.
37:43Leroy's testimony details the vicious crime.
38:11Pat's defense lawyer turns the tables on her sister and brother-in-law.
38:16She argues that Leroy and Sheila acted alone, killing Fred after a failed blackmail attempt.
38:27According to Pat, in March 1990, Leroy was trying to shake down Fred for an alleged affair that Fred was
38:35having.
38:39When Fred refused to pay, Leroy and Sheila killed him, hoping instead to collect from his life insurance settlement.
38:48The Browns' son, Dan, testifies in support of his mom.
38:54He describes how he saw his father and uncle argue at length that weekend.
39:02But Pat is not the only family member pointing fingers.
39:07So Pat turns on Sheila.
39:09And then Sheila turns on Leroy.
39:14There's testimony that Leroy threatened Sheila, saying that he'd keep her son Joey away.
39:28Part of a defense lawyer's strategy may be to muddy the waters with alternate theories.
39:35It's the investigator's job to gather all of the evidence,
39:39and hopefully it's sufficient enough for the prosecution to use to dispel those alternate theories.
39:47Patricia's defense lawyer also points out his client's apparent lack of motive.
39:56The defense paints a picture of Fred as a stand-up guy in a loving marriage.
40:03And that Pat would have no reason to want her husband dead.
40:09The prosecution blows the loving marriage theory to bits.
40:15Five different people testify that Fred was worried about the state of his marriage.
40:21He even told a colleague that he wouldn't be surprised if Pat ordered a hit on him.
40:28A former housekeeper for the Browns testified that she witnessed Fred and Pat arguing on numerous occasions.
40:38Patricia attempts to play the grieving widow, but she can't quite pull it off.
40:46Detectives told Pat that they believed they had found her husband's killer.
40:51She didn't seem too concerned or interested.
40:54All she wanted to do was talk about her birds.
40:59Pat's reaction to that type of news was certainly out of the norm.
41:18After two days of deliberation, the jury finds Patricia Brown guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder
41:28in the death of her husband and hands her a life sentence.
41:35Sheila Wenzel is released on parole after serving 11 years.
41:41After 27 years behind bars, Leroy Wenzel is also released in a shocking twist that makes headline news.
41:52Let's go back in time first.
41:55Leroy Wenzel was the trigger man in a plot to kill his brother-in-law back in 1991.
42:00Court records say Wenzel was hired by his wife's sister to kill her husband, Fred Brown.
42:07He was sentenced to life in prison on a second-degree murder charge,
42:11but was paroled today after serving nearly 30 years because he was sentenced under old laws.
42:19North Carolina now uses structured sentencing,
42:22which mandates a minimum and maximum amount of years an offender can get for their crime.
42:27Under structured sentencing, no one can get life for second-degree murder anymore.
42:32That law change only applies to cases after October 1994.
42:37Since the murder happened in 1991, it meant Wenzel remained parole eligible.
42:43Legal experts tell me this is one of a shrinking pool of cases able to get out early through the
42:49old law.
42:52Patricia's life sentence becomes just that, and she dies in prison in 2010.
43:00Murder for hire is a nasty business, but if Pat's goal was to change her life, she certainly accomplished it.
43:10From an unusual hobby that became an obsession
43:15to a deadbeat dad with an accidental confession.
43:19This case proves that there are some things best kept within a family,
43:24but hiring a hitman isn't one of them.
43:45That's a very common part of the work that didn't happen in a family,
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