Dateline NBC - Season 35 - Episode 01 Eng Sub - video Dailymotion

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Dateline NBC - Season 35 - Episode 01

Transcript

00:00:02Tonight on Dateline.

00:00:04Ghosts can't talk.

00:00:07And I'm supposed to be dead.

00:00:09Travis County 911.

00:00:11My husband got out of bed and my dogs were barking.

00:00:13They were shot fired.

00:00:15My dad!

00:00:16No, no, no!

00:00:18He had fallen under the kitchen table.

00:00:21I could tell that he wasn't alive.

00:00:24A family that was very close-knit, very happy, just exploded.

00:00:30We wanted to look at any potential motive that she would have.

00:00:34One is Ted's life insurance.

00:00:36How much are we talking about?

00:00:37A million dollars.

00:00:38I'm like, of course, it has to be the wife.

00:00:41It can't be that we're jewelers and it's a robbery.

00:00:44They liked shoes and cars and electronics.

00:00:48There was a pretty clear gap in data on both of their phones.

00:00:52This person is accessing the security system.

00:00:55Multiple times.

00:00:56A murdered jeweler.

00:00:57A tangled plot.

00:00:59I felt like a fool for not having seen it.

00:01:03Hello.

00:01:04Take off the blinders.

00:01:06I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline.

00:01:18Here's Andrea Canning with Ghosts Can't Talk.

00:01:26What happens that night?

00:01:27You know, it was just a normal evening.

00:01:29Just absolutely normal.

00:01:31You know, you eat dinner, you watch a little TV, you go to bed.

00:01:33Just, you're going to wake up and go to work the next day.

00:01:36Ordinary moments that together add up to a life.

00:01:39Corey Shaughnessy and her husband Ted had had thousands of nights like that.

00:01:43Did you usually say, I love you, before bed or anything like that?

00:01:46Wouldn't that be nice?

00:01:47You should do it every night because you just never know.

00:01:50The little things they took for granted on that quiet street in Austin, where they built their lives, raised their

00:01:57son.

00:01:58A tight-knit family that had everything until the early morning hours of March 2nd, 2018.

00:02:07So, you're sound asleep.

00:02:09Sound asleep.

00:02:09We're both sound asleep.

00:02:12And then we hear one of the dogs bark.

00:02:17It was around 4.30 a.m.

00:02:19Corey and Ted were the only ones home.

00:02:21Their 19-year-old son, Nicholas, lived with his girlfriend two hours away.

00:02:26Ted went to go see what was happening.

00:02:28He got up, got his gun like he did every single time, and usually it was because there was a

00:02:34deer in the backyard or there was a possum on the porch.

00:02:37As normal, he went to investigate, and I turned over to go back to sleep.

00:02:42And I think I had just put my head back on the pillow when I heard the first shot.

00:02:48A gunshot.

00:02:49A gunshot.

00:02:51Right after that, there was a barrage of gunfire.

00:02:55It was very close.

00:02:56The gunfire, actually, it was in the kitchen, which was right off of our bedroom.

00:03:00And so, I jumped out of bed, and I grabbed my .357, which is always kept above my bed.

00:03:07As she rounded the edge of the bed, she saw something.

00:03:11I see a bright light come through.

00:03:15I had a Japanese curtain on the door.

00:03:17I see a bright light come through the curtain, and I see the dog get shot.

00:03:21We had our second dog was laying at the foot of the bed.

00:03:25Their beloved Rottweiler, Bart, was killed instantly.

00:03:30I realized at that point that I'm next, and so I couldn't see a person.

00:03:37I just, because of the light that was shining on me, I could extrapolate where the person was.

00:03:44What was the light?

00:03:45What was being shined in your face?

00:03:47It was very, it was a very bright, white light.

00:03:52Small, but very bright.

00:03:54Corey began firing.

00:03:56I do not remember the sound of my gun.

00:03:58I don't remember anything.

00:03:59I don't remember the feeling of the recoil.

00:04:01I remember seeing the muzzle from the opposite gun, and I was expecting that I was going to be shot

00:04:08any moment.

00:04:08So, this gun is coming in now in your direction.

00:04:11He's shooting at me, and I'm shooting at him.

00:04:13And then, Corey's gun ran out of ammo.

00:04:17I grabbed my cell phone.

00:04:18I figured if I could just get the line open to 911, that they might be able to, I don't

00:04:25know, maybe find my body, or maybe, you know, send someone.

00:04:28So, you're still, you're thinking I'm going to die.

00:04:30I knew I was going to die.

00:04:34There was no, I knew I was going to die.

00:04:37She ran into her husband's closet and called 911.

00:04:41I was expecting the door to open and to be shot, so I was just hoping that I could get

00:04:46the, the, the line open.

00:04:48Travis County, 911.

00:04:50Luke, I'm shooting.

00:04:52My husband got out of bed, and my dogs were barking.

00:04:55There were shots fired.

00:04:57Shots were fired for him?

00:04:59No, I don't know.

00:05:01Help me.

00:05:02You're helpless at this point, because your gun has ran out of ammunition, so if they do come, you don't

00:05:07even have any recourse.

00:05:10That's it.

00:05:11Nowhere else to go.

00:05:12I don't know if I hear somebody moaning.

00:05:14You hear somebody moaning?

00:05:16Yes.

00:05:18Okay.

00:05:19Help me, help me.

00:05:21Does it sound like your husband?

00:05:23I don't know.

00:05:24Okay.

00:05:25Do you think you possibly shot your husband?

00:05:27I don't know.

00:05:29My dad.

00:05:32I didn't know if he was moaning and dying, or it was a person that I had maybe killed or

00:05:39maybe not killed that wanted to kill me that was moaning and dying.

00:05:43Corey.

00:05:44Oh, my God.

00:05:45Corey, take a deep breath.

00:05:46You're doing a great job, okay?

00:05:47The police are on their way.

00:05:49I think my husband is so much.

00:05:52Is it just you and your husband in the house?

00:05:55I don't know.

00:05:57I've got to go out there.

00:05:58I've got to go.

00:05:58No, no, no, no, no.

00:05:59Stay where you are, Corey.

00:06:00I want you to stay where you are.

00:06:01Were you aware enough of what was happening to think that if that's Ted?

00:06:08He's dying.

00:06:09And I'm not there.

00:06:10Yes.

00:06:11And he could be gone.

00:06:12Yes.

00:06:12You want to go save him or help him or do-

00:06:15Or just be there when he dies?

00:06:16Yeah, or be with him, and you can't.

00:06:19Fifteen minutes passed, and then finally-

00:06:23All right, ma'am.

00:06:23I do have you in a sound scene, and they are going to be approaching your house, okay?

00:06:26Let me know when you're opening the door.

00:06:29Let me know everything that you're doing, okay?

00:06:31I'm-

00:06:34I'm-

00:06:35I'm-

00:06:36I'm-

00:06:37I'm looking at him.

00:06:39I'm looking at him.

00:06:40Corey walked out of the bedroom and saw him.

00:06:43Oh, no.

00:06:44He-

00:06:47Ted, her husband of 30 years, dead on the kitchen floor.

00:06:52Go to the door, ma'am.

00:06:53Go to the door, Corey.

00:06:55Go to the door, Corey.

00:06:56What do you see?

00:06:58No, no, no.

00:07:00Corey, what do you see?

00:07:04There's nobody here.

00:07:06No police, just silence.

00:07:09And whoever had just murdered her husband, out there, somewhere.

00:07:28Corey Shaughnessy had just survived a shootout in her bedroom, only to discover her husband, Ted, had been killed.

00:07:39She bolted to the front door, expecting to see officers.

00:07:44But...

00:07:45I opened the front door and there was no one there.

00:07:48I- I can't- there was nobody here in my head.

00:07:50I don't know.

00:07:54Where are the police?

00:07:55They weren't there.

00:07:56They actually went to the wrong house.

00:07:59Travis County Sheriff's deputies mistakenly went to the house next door, one that looked like the Shaughnessy's.

00:08:06When they made it to the right house, Corey met them at the front door.

00:08:09What's her demeanor like?

00:08:11She is extremely emotional.

00:08:13It's terrible.

00:08:14Travis County Sheriff's homicide detectives James Moore and Paul Salo.

00:08:19Hysterical is a good way to describe it, and rightly so, based on, you know, what the situation was that

00:08:27we were hearing about.

00:08:28I mean, the trauma that you just experienced.

00:08:32Your whole body, um, like, every- every muscle starts clenching.

00:08:38It's a- it's- it's- it's really horrible.

00:08:40Deputies took Corey to a squad car.

00:08:44Today is- no! He's fine! He's my entire life! No! No! No! No!

00:08:50The moment you just think about how your life is over, everything is- it's like waking up on another

00:08:58planet.

00:09:01Scared, alone, and broken, she asked a deputy to call her best friend, Karen Tannert.

00:09:07Hello?

00:09:08Karen- Karen?

00:09:11Yes.

00:09:11It's Corny.

00:09:12What's the matter?

00:09:14Ted's dead.

00:09:15No.

00:09:17Yes?

00:09:18No, where are you? Where are you?

00:09:20I was just in a panic. You know, what- how could Ted be dead? What's this- it was

00:09:25totally- it was a complete- I couldn't process that.

00:09:28How do you process that?

00:09:29Yeah.

00:09:30That, you know, one of your two best friends is- is gone.

00:09:34Karen met Ted when she wandered into the Shaughnessy's jewelry store one day.

00:09:38Ted and Corey built Gallery Jewelers together over two decades.

00:09:42I was looking for a specific type of pearl, and nobody had it, so I went into his store.

00:09:47He just started up a conversation, and he, um, got me what I wanted.

00:09:52She left with this ring and a new friend.

00:09:56It's rare that you have an instant connection like that with someone in a store.

00:10:00Ted's that way. Ted was genuinely interested in the motivations behind what people were doing.

00:10:06Ted was the face of the store. Corey was the appraiser.

00:10:09Her personality is very much more straightforward. She was welcoming, very matter-of-fact.

00:10:17I think Ted was more comfortable with- with people on the whole.

00:10:20Tad Cole was Ted's best friend. They bonded over their love of cars. Ted was an avid racer. He especially

00:10:27loved go-karts.

00:10:28The more they hung out, the more Tad says he wished some of Ted would rub off on him.

00:10:34I kind of hoped it would, um, like I would get the Ted dust, and, um, because he was just,

00:10:41uh, very effusive and, um, just easy to be around, um, and very engaging.

00:10:46Tad and his partner, Vicky, say the Shaughnessy house was full of life and love.

00:10:52They both were masters in the kitchen. Once I got invited to their house for dinner, I was in awe

00:10:58of their culinary skills.

00:11:00I felt like I'd kind of hit the lottery in a sense that, um, good friends that were- that

00:11:06enjoyed cars and cooking.

00:11:08Most of all, the love in that house centered on Ted and Corey's only child, Nick.

00:11:13Nick. They seemed inseparable. They were like the three musketeers thing that people say. They-they did everything together.

00:11:22They just poured a whole lot of energy into being parents.

00:11:26Now, Corey had to tell Nick his father was dead.

00:11:30I-I need to call my son.

00:11:32Okay.

00:11:32How did he take the news?

00:11:34I don't remember. Um, I guess I would have thought it was, uh, you know, in complete surprise and shock.

00:11:42I couldn't really form words.

00:11:45Mom.

00:11:46Nick. Nick. Nick. Nick.

00:11:50He is not back.

00:11:51Mom. Dad's dead.

00:11:55Nick.

00:11:56Wait, what?

00:11:57Nick. Dad. Dad is dead.

00:12:01What?

00:12:02Nicholas. Just-I need-I need-I need-I-I-I-I-I-I need you. Can you just-

00:12:08What happened?

00:12:10I-I'm shooting. Shooting. Shooting. I don't know.

00:12:13I don't know. I don't know. Um-

00:12:15Wait, what?

00:12:16Corey tried her best to explain what happened.

00:12:20Did-you ever try to fire?

00:12:22Yes. Yes.

00:12:23Years. I'm in the back of the car out front, and the police are here, and they wanted me to

00:12:26call someone.

00:12:27I know you're in College Station, and I don't know what to do about it.

00:12:30I'm on my way.

00:12:3119-year-old Nick and his girlfriend of a year and a half, Jackie Edison, drove the two hours

00:12:36from where they lived in College Station to Austin. Along the way, Nick called his parents

00:12:42friends just sitting down for their morning coffee. He called me and told me that his dad

00:12:47had been shot. I wasn't sure I'd heard exactly what I'd had heard. I couldn't figure that Ted

00:12:56was dead. I could not. That force of life that I knew to be Ted Shaughnessy was no longer that.

00:13:05They raced to Ted and Corey's house. The home where they had spent so many nights with the

00:13:10Shaughnessy family was now a crime scene. When they arrived, Nick and Jackie were already there.

00:13:15Jackie looked over and saw standing there and she ran full speed to me and threw her arms around me

00:13:25and wailed and cried and cried and cried and sobbed. My heart was broken for her and Nick.

00:13:32Karen was there too. How was Nick handling the news? He was really urgent and, you know,

00:13:39what was happening, what's going on, you know, has anyone told you anything?

00:13:46Investigators were starting to work their way through the house,

00:13:48looking for clues and asking questions. So tell me about between mom and dad.

00:13:56Is there, what's a relationship like?

00:14:14Just hours after her husband Ted was shot dead in their home, Corey Shaughnessy sat in a police

00:14:19interview room with her friend, Karen, trying to process the horror.

00:14:23Will you be able to tell if I, if I shot somebody?

00:14:27You know, I mean, that's something that, that we may be able to, to learn.

00:14:33Investigators were busy scouring the Shaughnessy house for evidence,

00:14:36focusing on the kitchen where Ted had been shot four times.

00:14:39They started inspecting the scene and noticed that there were two different caliber of shell casings

00:14:45in two different locations in the kitchen. The casings in the kitchen were from 40 and 380 caliber

00:14:52handguns. Are you thinking two shooters are involved in this? We are.

00:14:57As investigators made their way through the rest of the house, they found a potential point of entry,

00:15:02an open window in Nick's old bedroom. Ultimately, we discovered a print on the glass

00:15:10of the window. And there was something else.

00:15:13So just inside the window in a, there's a dresser there. And in the bottom drawer there was a box

00:15:22for a 40 caliber Springfield. But it's empty. There's no gun in there.

00:15:27Are you thinking that that box perhaps once contained the murder weapon?

00:15:32I mean, ultimately a possibility. I don't know how strongly we thought that at the time.

00:15:37The Shaughnessy's had a home alarm, but it wasn't set.

00:15:40Corey explained they only turned it on when they were out. But logging into the security system

00:15:45did provide some clues. The system detected that bedroom window being opened at 427 a.m.

00:15:52Then, 17 minutes later, the system recorded glass breaking right around when Corey says the

00:15:58shooting started. That meant the intruders had been inside the house for a while before Ted

00:16:02confronted them, maybe looking for something to steal.

00:16:06I thought it was a robbery gone bad.

00:16:08You could have an extensive jewelry collection.

00:16:10Sure.

00:16:10Being a jeweler.

00:16:11Sure.

00:16:12We were flooded with neighbors trying to give us information on suspicious vehicles they had

00:16:17seen and information about the family.

00:16:20One neighbor named Kim lived next door. Like most of the neighborhood, she knew the family

00:16:25owned a jewelry store.

00:16:26And it's not cheap jewelry, just so you know. Like I'm talking, like when they transfer jewelry,

00:16:34like I'm talking hundreds to millions of dollars of jewelry.

00:16:40Are we keeping this stuff in their house?

00:16:43I don't know the answer to that.

00:16:45But Kim said she did. No, it wasn't the first time the Shaughnessy's had been the target of a crime.

00:16:50I think it was about, yeah, last year. Someone broke into their car.

00:16:54Here?

00:16:55Mm-hmm.

00:16:55Okay.

00:16:56Yeah.

00:16:57So while a burglary seemed like the most obvious scenario, detectives weren't taking anything for

00:17:02granted. At the scene, they asked Ted and Corey's son about his parents' relationship.

00:17:08So tell me about between mom and dad. What's a relationship like?

00:17:13It's as solid as ever. They just had their 30th anniversary in January.

00:17:18Okay. They argue, fight?

00:17:19You know, they bicker like every couple does.

00:17:22They ever hit each other?

00:17:22No. No.

00:17:24They ever threaten each other?

00:17:26No. Nothing.

00:17:28And down at the station, they treated Corey like they would anyone whose spouse had just been killed.

00:17:34As a victim and a potential suspect.

00:17:38I was told that I had to give them my night clothes. I had on sleep shorts and a t

00:17:44-shirt.

00:17:44So they're looking at your clothes for possible evidence?

00:17:46Sure. And I had, of course, already been gunshot residue. They did that at the scene.

00:17:54Something about Corey's burglary-gone-bad theory didn't make sense to detectives.

00:17:59There were at least three cars parked in the driveway.

00:18:02It should have been clear to any intruder that someone was home.

00:18:06You see what I'm getting at is somebody, so somebody doing this at night, it's a very risky thing, especially

00:18:13in Texas.

00:18:14Because, you know, a lot of people in Texas own guns.

00:18:17I mean, it does happen.

00:18:18But, I mean, that's a big risk for somebody to try to pull off.

00:18:23I can't imagine anybody knowing us doing that.

00:18:26Later that day, Corey was free to go.

00:18:29But investigators weren't done talking to her or her son.

00:18:33Nick was about to reveal something that sent them in an unexpected direction.

00:18:37Her husband was cheating on her, and I looked into that for her.

00:18:55Ted Shaughnessy was killed in an apparent home invasion, a violent crime his wife, Corey, had mercifully survived.

00:19:02When did it hit you that Ted's not coming home, our life that we were planning for the rest of

00:19:09our lives is gone?

00:19:10Instantly.

00:19:11In the back of that police car.

00:19:12Probably before that.

00:19:14Probably in the closet.

00:19:15But I just didn't know it.

00:19:18Investigators spoke with their son Nick at the scene and later down at the station.

00:19:22He told them about an incident that happened years earlier in the 90s when his dad ran a pawn shop.

00:19:27He spoke of somebody actually robbing them back then.

00:19:33Nick said the armed robber came into the store and opened fire.

00:19:37His father fired back, injuring the robber, who was later sent to prison.

00:19:42And thought, well, maybe now they're out of prison.

00:19:44I don't know.

00:19:45You know, maybe they've come back because, you know, they got sent to prison for trying to rob the pawn

00:19:51shop that they owned.

00:19:52As revenge.

00:19:53Yes.

00:19:55A lead to follow.

00:19:57Detectives asked Nick if there was anything else he could think of and outspilled a curious story.

00:20:02He shared something about Kim, the neighbor investigators had spoken to hours earlier.

00:20:08Her husband was cheating on her and I looked into that for her.

00:20:12Kim was going through a divorce and we found out that she actually hired him to follow her ex-husband.

00:20:19I guess he was cheating on her and she wanted proof.

00:20:22This is so bizarre.

00:20:24Nicholas the teenager, what is he, a private investigator?

00:20:27I mean, it just sounds odd.

00:20:28That's what she hired him for.

00:20:30So what did you find out?

00:20:31He was staying at a female's residence for a long period of time and saying he was elsewhere.

00:20:41When I had access to his car, I put a little tracker in it for her that she could see

00:20:49via the app.

00:20:50So she knew where he was, when he was, and so much he said, like, oh, I'm at the golf

00:20:57course.

00:20:57Well, no, you're at her house.

00:21:00That sort of thing.

00:21:01Now, I do not know if he ever found that out, that I was responsible for that.

00:21:07If the husband had found out, Nick wondered if he'd gone to his parents' house to retaliate against him.

00:21:14That was one possibility.

00:21:16Investigators also had to consider this.

00:21:19Maybe Kim had been the intended target.

00:21:21Was this a potentially a hit, you know, somebody trying to do something to her that went to the wrong

00:21:30house?

00:21:30The neighborhood's very dark.

00:21:32The homes look somewhat similar at night because the street is not lit.

00:21:36So perhaps the husband was trying to have his wife killed and whoever he hired went to the wrong house?

00:21:42Right, potentially.

00:21:44And there were all those cars in the Shaughnessy's driveway.

00:21:47One was a white Mercedes.

00:21:49Kim also drove a white Mercedes.

00:21:52And when deputies responding to the shooting had initially gone to the wrong house, they'd gone to Kim's.

00:21:58So maybe if the police could go to the wrong house, maybe a killer could go to the wrong house.

00:22:02I didn't think it was necessarily that big of a stretch.

00:22:06Detectives needed to go back and talk to Kim.

00:22:08Hey, call.

00:22:09Say look.

00:22:09Okay.

00:22:10Yeah, we've talked on the phone.

00:22:11Hi.

00:22:11They asked about her relationship with Nick.

00:22:14Kim said she knew him well.

00:22:15He'd helped her out with babysitting, dog sitting, house sitting when she was away.

00:22:19How about any, like, investigative kind of things?

00:22:24Um, okay, yes.

00:22:29That's not really investigative.

00:22:31But I did have him follow my, I forgot about that.

00:22:35Okay.

00:22:36My, I seem to be ex-husband, uh, because, well, it's interesting.

00:22:42Probably more information than you want to hear.

00:22:45Not so.

00:22:46Detectives wanted to hear more, even as her housekeeper cleaned in the background.

00:22:51So, yeah, I said, and I told him it was, when he leaves, I should have called him because

00:22:56I don't know where he's going.

00:22:57Mm-hmm.

00:22:58And he did.

00:22:59Okay.

00:23:00So that's how I got my information.

00:23:02Okay.

00:23:03Was Nick compensated for that?

00:23:05Yeah.

00:23:05Okay.

00:23:06All I needed was just an address.

00:23:08Right.

00:23:08And I'm like, that's all I want.

00:23:10I don't want you to do anything else.

00:23:12I don't want you to go to that person's door.

00:23:15I don't want a problem.

00:23:16I just want an address.

00:23:18So there was more than one occasion when you had a following?

00:23:23So maybe two or three times.

00:23:24So what did Kim say?

00:23:26Did she think it could be the wrong house?

00:23:28That she was maybe a target?

00:23:30She didn't fear for her life from him.

00:23:32According to her, he wouldn't gain anything by her being dead.

00:23:36And so she did not, she herself did not think that he would have done anything like that.

00:23:41Yeah, he's a liar for sure.

00:23:43There's no doubt about it.

00:23:46I don't think he's capable of that.

00:23:48Okay.

00:23:49And did your husband, did he know this?

00:23:52Like, did he end up and find out that Nick had done this or anything?

00:23:56No.

00:23:56No, I never said a word.

00:23:59That lead fizzled out, which brought them back to the woman at the center of it all, Corey.

00:24:05They discovered none of the bullets from her gun had hit Ted.

00:24:09Still, was she somehow involved in the home invasion she survived?

00:24:13We wanted to look at any potential motive that she would have.

00:24:17One is, you know, being the beneficiary of Ted's life insurance.

00:24:22How much are we talking about?

00:24:23A million dollars.

00:24:24Not to mention the business, the house.

00:24:28There's a lot of money at stake.

00:24:30There is, I mean, obviously the jewelry store and the property was worth a lot of money.

00:24:34So it was back to the crime scene and that question, where was the Shaughnessy's missing gun?

00:24:58Days after her husband's murder, Corey Shaughnessy returned home.

00:25:02What were those nights like when you're back in the house so soon after and this is the house where

00:25:07your husband was just murdered?

00:25:08Crazy.

00:25:09Just absolutely crazy.

00:25:10How did you even go to sleep?

00:25:12You don't.

00:25:12You stay up all night and you don't go to sleep until it gets, until the sun comes up.

00:25:19And then you set up zones in your house and you set up, you set up lines of fire so

00:25:26that you know that if someone comes for you, you'll know where you're supposed to be shooting.

00:25:33And it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not good.

00:25:38Nick was there too.

00:25:39He and his girlfriend Jackie packed up their apartment in College Station and moved in with Corey.

00:25:44It seemed like the natural course of events seemed like they were maybe circling the wagons to keep the family

00:25:52together and find strength in doing that.

00:25:57For Corey, having her son close provided much needed comfort.

00:26:02After all, Nick had been their miracle child.

00:26:05Had you and Ted really wanted to be parents?

00:26:07Yes.

00:26:07I was having difficulty staying pregnant and I didn't want to do that anymore.

00:26:16And I came to the decision that it wasn't important for me to give birth to a child.

00:26:23I wanted to be a mother.

00:26:24And so that led to me being interested in adopting a baby.

00:26:29Those who have been through adoption will tell you the process isn't easy.

00:26:33But the desire to be a parent, to love a child is so strong you'll do anything.

00:26:38Go anywhere.

00:26:39For Corey and Ted, that meant jumping on a plane to Ukraine.

00:26:43They said, well, we need to have you here tomorrow.

00:26:45I can't even imagine your feelings in that moment.

00:26:48It's crazy because you're going to go and meet your child.

00:26:51When Corey and Ted got to Ukraine, they went to the adoption facility and were handed a little boy.

00:26:56He was blonde and he had hazel green eyes like mine.

00:27:00And he was just the cutest little thing.

00:27:03And he was, what, 16 months old?

00:27:07I think so.

00:27:08Already walking?

00:27:09Yes.

00:27:10But still that really cute age.

00:27:13Yeah.

00:27:13Chubby little cheeks and chubby little hands and chubby little feet.

00:27:16Did you just melt the moment you saw him?

00:27:18Just instant love.

00:27:19Just instant.

00:27:21How was Ted as the dad?

00:27:22Oh, God, excellent.

00:27:23They were attached at the hip.

00:27:26So, you know, if Ted was doing something, Nicholas was right there with him doing it.

00:27:31He and Nicholas both actually did a lot of cart racing and they did quite well.

00:27:38He enjoyed that very much.

00:27:39And Nicholas took to it just like?

00:27:40Absolutely.

00:27:41Just like his dad?

00:27:42Just like a fish to water.

00:27:43They loved racing together.

00:27:46Now, Nick and Corey had to learn to go on without Ted.

00:27:50Investigators were working hard to find Ted's killer.

00:27:53They had a few leads, like the person who went to prison after trying to rob the pawn shop at

00:27:58gunpoint years earlier.

00:27:59Did you look into that person?

00:28:00We did.

00:28:01And, I mean, it was so long ago.

00:28:04We had no information that this person was anywhere around at the time of this incident.

00:28:12Detectives had been investigating Corey's theory that the attackers intended to rob the Shaughnesses.

00:28:17But there were some big questions.

00:28:20Did you have to wonder why, you know, if they did come there to rob the house, why leave Corey?

00:28:26You know, why not take what they could or get her to open the safe?

00:28:30Right.

00:28:31We, that was something very interesting to us.

00:28:34They knew from the alarm system logs that a window opened 17 minutes before the shooting occurred.

00:28:40But there was no indication of them going through anything prior to the shooting.

00:28:45We knew that they had made their way through more than half the house before the shooting occurred.

00:28:50Was there anything valuable stolen from the Shaughnessy home?

00:28:54There was nothing stolen from the Shaughnessy home.

00:28:57Detectives were still trying to track down the .40 caliber handgun from that empty box in the Shaughnessy house.

00:29:03They believed two shooters were involved and wondered if one of them had used the Shaughnessy's gun in the crime.

00:29:09They started questioning me about a firearm that we owned.

00:29:12Do you know where it is?

00:29:13I said, yes, I do.

00:29:15I thought that it was at the jewelry store in the bathroom on a shelf because we would keep guns

00:29:20in certain places for protection and whatnot.

00:29:23And so she allowed us to go with her to the jewelry store so we could look to see, is

00:29:31there a .40 caliber gun there?

00:29:33And we got there. It was not there.

00:29:35Hori brought detectives to the house to look for it there.

00:29:38She was confident it would turn up somewhere and then police could move on.

00:29:42That would seem really important, except that we had a lot of guns and there were gun cases in a

00:29:48lot of closets and a lot of drawers in the house.

00:29:51But they found that one.

00:29:53At the house, investigators asked Nick if he had any idea where it was.

00:29:57He told them his dad had let him borrow it, but he'd returned it to his father.

00:30:01He told them his father.

00:30:02Yeah.

00:30:03I took it to College Station and then father wanted it back.

00:30:06We have no idea where he may have put it or anything.

00:30:09Father didn't tell me any intentions with it.

00:30:12Corey says the whole line of questioning started to feel a little off.

00:30:16And then this happened.

00:30:18One of the other detectives came in and I remember her telling me,

00:30:24the person that did this might be closer to you than you know.

00:30:28Hmm.

00:30:29And so then I'm thinking, okay, they're looking at me and they're looking at Nicholas.

00:30:36Does that scare you?

00:30:38You're being looked at for murder?

00:30:40I'm simultaneously terrified and enraged.

00:30:44Corey wanted to protect her son and get justice for her husband.

00:30:47I'm like, why aren't you looking for the people that did this?

00:30:51Of course, it has to be the wife or the son because we're the family.

00:30:55It can't be the giant pink elephant that we're jewelers and it's a robbery.

00:31:00Corey hoped investigators would be able to cross her and Nick off their list soon.

00:31:04And she tried to go about resuming life without her husband.

00:31:08She worried about the future of the business they'd built together.

00:31:11Unsure if she could carry on without the man who had charmed and befriended customers.

00:31:16Expenses were mounting and I thought I was going to close the jewelry store.

00:31:19She filed to collect Ted's million-dollar life insurance policy.

00:31:23But the check didn't come, so she called the company to ask about it.

00:31:27And when I asked her, you know, where's my money?

00:31:31She said, well, I'm sorry, we can't release that because the police have told us that they suspect foul play.

00:31:38And at that point, that means me because I'm the beneficiary.

00:31:42Well, because, yes, of course there's foul play.

00:31:45Right, but that means specifically me.

00:31:48And so now I knew if I had any doubt before that I was a suspect, now I know that

00:31:56I'm a suspect.

00:31:58Corey no longer felt like the investigators were on her side.

00:32:01And they weren't sharing everything they knew, like whose fingerprint they found on that open bedroom window.

00:32:07So a check of the database revealed a match to a particular person.

00:32:12Who was it?

00:32:26Corey Shaughnessy was struggling to come to terms with the loss of her husband, while her family was being scrutinized

00:32:32by law enforcement.

00:32:33And in the middle of all that, just days after the shooting, her world shifted again.

00:32:39Nicholas and Jacqueline came to you with some big news.

00:32:42They came to me and they said, we have something to tell you.

00:32:45And they told me that they had gotten married.

00:32:49Married nearly eight months earlier, in the summer of 2017.

00:32:53Corey knew Nick and Jackie were serious, but they were so young, just 18 when they got married.

00:32:59She remembered the first time Nick brought Jackie over.

00:33:02Do you all instantly take to each other?

00:33:06Ted thought she was awesome.

00:33:08He really liked her.

00:33:12Over time, Jackie even started to call Ted, dad.

00:33:16You were a little slower to warm up to Jacqueline?

00:33:19I think so.

00:33:20There was nothing about Jackie that I disliked.

00:33:23It's just that, you know, it's my little boy.

00:33:28What do you think it was that clicked for those two, for Jacqueline and Nicholas?

00:33:31I think they liked a lot of the same things.

00:33:34They liked shoes and cars and electronics and things.

00:33:38I think they liked to talk about going places, going on vacations and how the future was going to be.

00:33:46Even though Nick and Jackie were already married, Corey decided to help her son make a formal proposal.

00:33:52I had told Nicholas to pick an engagement ring setting out of the case, and Ted and I had kept

00:33:59my mother's original engagement diamond aside for him to give to whoever at some point.

00:34:05So we had that set into a ring for her, and he gave her that.

00:34:10You decide to throw them an engagement party?

00:34:12Jackie wanted to have an engagement party, and everything had been so awful.

00:34:18Planning a party was a welcome distraction amidst their heartache.

00:34:22They were family, determined to find their way through the pain together.

00:34:26Once I realized that she is my daughter-in-law, well, I'm going to love her like a daughter.

00:34:33And Corey did just that, in a very Shaughnessy way.

00:34:38She gave Jackie a diamond pendant.

00:34:40I gave her a half-carat diamond solitaire.

00:34:43It was also a way of welcoming her into our family and telling her that she was welcome.

00:34:49There was another silver lining.

00:34:52Initially, Corey didn't see a way to keep the jewelry store open without Ted.

00:34:56She didn't think Nick had a keen interest in the family business.

00:34:59Instead of enrolling in college like Jackie, he was trying to make a living day trading stocks.

00:35:04But now, Corey had an idea.

00:35:06I had gone to Nicholas and said, can you suspend your day trading or maybe do that on the side?

00:35:13And then we could keep the store open.

00:35:16Jackie had taken the rest of the year off from school.

00:35:18I thought, well, if she helps us this first year, maybe she could work.

00:35:23And they were on board with doing that.

00:35:25They were excited to do it.

00:35:26That must have made you happy.

00:35:27I thought we could do it.

00:35:28Yeah.

00:35:29I thought with his help, I could do it.

00:35:32So Nick and Jackie stepped up, and the store stayed open.

00:35:35But what Corey wanted even more was to know who killed Ted.

00:35:40She spoke to detectives, but they just seemed to have more questions for her.

00:35:44And I started realizing that a lot of those questions were gotcha moments, like aha moments.

00:35:50Like they were trying to set me up as something.

00:35:54She didn't trust the investigators to solve her husband's murder.

00:35:58She still thought they seemed fixated on her and Nick rather than finding the real killers.

00:36:03I assumed at that point that they were looking at him for the very reasons they were looking at me.

00:36:07It was easy.

00:36:08They would always send unmarked cars by the house, which looked exactly like unmarked police cars by the house.

00:36:16So I figured they're going to do overt looking at us.

00:36:20They're also probably doing all other kinds of things.

00:36:22And that was fine with me, because I had nothing to hide.

00:36:27Corey replayed the night of the murder over and over, looking for clues.

00:36:31You and Nicholas and Jacqueline actually did reenactments in the house?

00:36:35We did.

00:36:36I was, no one would talk to me about how things really happened.

00:36:41And so I took it upon myself to figure it out.

00:36:44I couldn't figure out what the light source was that was shining at me, because it wasn't a laser sight

00:36:50from a gun.

00:36:51It was a bright white light.

00:36:53I had gotten a flashlight and a pen light to try and see if I could recreate the kind of

00:36:58light that it was.

00:36:59What did it appear to be?

00:37:00And it wasn't until Jackie said, oh, was it like this?

00:37:03And she pulled up her phone and used her phone, and it was exactly like that.

00:37:08So a cell phone light.

00:37:09It was a cell phone light.

00:37:10She finally understood what she saw that night.

00:37:13Not that it made anything better.

00:37:15Meanwhile, the real investigators were holding their cards close to the vest.

00:37:20They weren't just looking at the family.

00:37:22They were sorting through whatever evidence they had.

00:37:25Remember that fingerprint they lifted from the open window?

00:37:28The killer's likely point of entry?

00:37:30A check of the database, it revealed a match to a particular person.

00:37:35Who was it?

00:37:35So we learned that he was actually an employee of the Renewal by Anderson company, and what his job was,

00:37:45he assembled windows.

00:37:47Oh, so here you are thinking you might have this potential lead, and it's the window guy.

00:37:52So maybe the print was just left over from the factory.

00:37:56To be sure, detectives did some digging.

00:37:58We looked at all sorts of information about him.

00:38:00We got with the employer.

00:38:02It turned out the employee didn't live in Texas.

00:38:05He was all the way up in Minnesota.

00:38:07And we had no indication he'd ever even left Minnesota.

00:38:11A dead end.

00:38:13But there was something else about that window, something Nick mentioned to detectives.

00:38:18He had talked about that he historically had used that window as a door.

00:38:23That was his own personal door in and out of that house.

00:38:27And Nick said he wasn't the only one.

00:38:30He offered up a name.

00:38:32So now you have someone, another person, who knows about that point of entry into the house.

00:38:38Yes.

00:38:55Those closest to Corey Shaughnessy knew she was in agony after Ted's murder.

00:38:59And they saw how she refused to let herself crumble under the weight of it all.

00:39:04She's got to be one of the strongest people I've ever met.

00:39:08But that's not to say that she wasn't feeling inside.

00:39:11But how she carries herself and gets through things, I can't imagine.

00:39:19Corey without Ted was not, I mean, she is an individual.

00:39:24But, you know, they were such a unit.

00:39:26They were each other's friends.

00:39:29All those years together and what a great relationship you had and this life that you'd built and how it

00:39:35was just gone in a matter of seconds.

00:39:38Absolutely.

00:39:40Everything that you have can be gone in a matter of seconds.

00:39:42It's really important that everybody knows that.

00:39:47As Corey grieved, detectives were running down a curious lead they'd gotten from Nick.

00:39:52He said he often used his bedroom window to go in and out of the house.

00:39:56The very same window investigators now believe the killers used on the night of the murder.

00:40:01Nick said he usually locked the window, but not always.

00:40:11And what we asked him was, was there somebody else that knows about this window that you use as a

00:40:19door?

00:40:19And he mentioned his friend, Spencer.

00:40:22Spencer was Spencer Patterson, Nick's best friend.

00:40:26He didn't have a lot of friends, but he had, you know, he had his one good friend, Spencer.

00:40:30Spencer had even officiated Nick and Jackie's secret wedding.

00:40:34Naturally, police wanted to know more about him.

00:40:37He's not as fortunate as I to have parents that will help him, like mine are.

00:40:43So he worked at his home depot job, hating every second to pay his money.

00:40:47When he's not there, he's studying for his job at, for his school at Texas State.

00:40:53So a kid who didn't seem to have much money and knew how to get into the Shaughnessy house.

00:40:58Nick also told them Spencer knew where his parents' safe was.

00:41:02Do you track down Spencer?

00:41:04We do.

00:41:05Hey, is this Spencer?

00:41:08Yes, sir.

00:41:08Hey, this is Detective Morham with Travis County Sheriff's Department.

00:41:11How are you doing?

00:41:12I'm getting better.

00:41:14Detectives first talked to Spencer over the phone.

00:41:17They asked him about the last time he was over at the Shaughnessy house.

00:41:21It was more than like a month ago.

00:41:23Can you tell me, like, how that night went?

00:41:26I mean, that night was fun.

00:41:28We had talks.

00:41:29I told them about my work.

00:41:30Everyone was just in a great mood.

00:41:32I mean, we just had dinner.

00:41:34We had some drinks.

00:41:35We were having fun.

00:41:36We were just getting along just like a normal family, really.

00:41:40You guys never left the house at night?

00:41:43Not that night, no.

00:41:44But on previous nights, we usually would go out to the barn.

00:41:48The barn was in the Shaughnessy's backyard.

00:41:51Nick and Spencer would have a few beers there late at night.

00:41:53So, when y'all would go to the barn, can you tell me about that?

00:41:57How would y'all leave the house and get back in and all that?

00:42:01Usually we'd go out through one of Nicholas' bedroom windows.

00:42:05Okay.

00:42:07Do you remember the last time y'all did that?

00:42:11No, not really, no.

00:42:13It was recent, but not like in the last month, no.

00:42:18Detectives kept the call with Spencer brief, but they still had questions.

00:42:22They hadn't located either of the murder weapons.

00:42:25They were still looking for the Shaughnessy's .40 caliber handgun,

00:42:28and Nick told them about another weapon, a .380 he no longer had.

00:42:33Nick said he had given it to a friend.

00:42:35That friend was Spencer.

00:42:39We knew he was going in and out of that window,

00:42:40and that Nick had also given him a .380 gun.

00:42:45.380 was used in the murder?

00:42:47Yes.

00:42:49So detectives went back to talk to Spencer again, more than once.

00:42:54Spencer was being, for the most part, he was being forthcoming,

00:42:57but we could tell that he was holding back some information.

00:43:00They searched his home, took his cell phone,

00:43:03and of course they asked him about that gun.

00:43:06The .380 ended up, we ended up locating that in Spencer's car.

00:43:16It seemed that Spencer knew more than what he was telling us.

00:43:20It appeared Spencer had the means, a possible motive,

00:43:23and maybe even one of the murder weapons.

00:43:26Had investigators found one of the shooters?

00:43:45Travis County Sheriff's investigators were looking closely

00:43:48at a possible suspect in Ted Shaughnessy's murder,

00:43:51Nick's best friend, Spencer.

00:43:53We definitely looked at him as potentially he was the person firing the .380.

00:44:00So we did collect that weapon from him, and we did submit it for testing.

00:44:06Detectives were also trying to figure out where Spencer was at the time of the murder.

00:44:10For that, they turned to his cell phone.

00:44:13That's where the cell phone records come in as well,

00:44:15as part of us trying to pin down his location.

00:44:19The cell records appeared to place him at home during the murder.

00:44:23But couldn't he have just left his phone at home?

00:44:25He could have, ultimately, yes.

00:44:28The big question was the gun that Spencer handed over to investigators,

00:44:32the same caliber as one of the murder weapons.

00:44:35When the ballistics test came back...

00:44:38That weapon was not used in that murder.

00:44:40So just a coincidence that it was the same caliber?

00:44:42It just was a coincidence, yeah.

00:44:43And that it was given to him by Nicholas?

00:44:45Right.

00:44:45There was nothing to link Spencer to the crime.

00:44:49He ultimately was cleared as a suspect.

00:44:51But the lead about Spencer wasn't a complete dead end.

00:44:55Detectives couldn't help but note who took them down that path.

00:44:59Nick.

00:45:00In fact, since day one, they thought Nick had seemed a little too eager to help.

00:45:06It was like he was volunteering information for us.

00:45:09You know, it almost seemed to me like he didn't think we were asking the right questions.

00:45:14And so he would interject something.

00:45:18It started in the early hours of the investigation at the crime scene.

00:45:22Nick told police about his parents' home security system.

00:45:25He said he could access it from an app on his phone.

00:45:35He also wanted them to see his security system back at the apartment he shared with Jackie

00:45:40in College Station.

00:45:51It seemed like an odd thing to be thinking about right after his father was murdered.

00:45:57You know, I had armed like 12, 30 or so after we were watching TV and went to bed.

00:46:04To Detective Moore, Nick's whole demeanor seemed just odd.

00:46:08I observed him starting to run around the neighborhood trying to meet with different

00:46:12neighbors.

00:46:14It appeared like he was probing for information.

00:46:17Corey's friend Karen noticed it too, but thought it was just Nick being Nick.

00:46:21He was just very insistent and obviously upset.

00:46:25And he's very, he's also a very high energy person who's almost never sits still.

00:46:31So he was very kind of moving around and bouncing.

00:46:33And he was just wanting to know what had happened.

00:46:36So we had called him over for a gunshot residue kit because his behavior was slightly off.

00:46:43We didn't want to exclude him from a possible suspect.

00:46:46So as we asked him to turn around, he kind of was happy and did a jump as he turned.

00:46:53So this was really off behavior and smiling and joking.

00:46:57Do you think maybe he was nervous given the severity of the situation?

00:47:01Didn't appear to be nervous behavior.

00:47:03So what was it?

00:47:05Nick was pretty forthcoming about his relationship with his parents.

00:47:08There was a period where my mother and I, we were, there was a financial dispute and

00:47:14it was like really pretty heated.

00:47:16He explained that he had a good relationship with his parents, but recently there had been

00:47:20some tension between them because they had loaned him $30,000 to fund his day trading.

00:47:27Nick had dabbled in trading stocks in high school and then told his parents he wanted to skip

00:47:32college and make a career of it.

00:47:34They weren't thrilled.

00:47:36Ted and I had no illusions.

00:47:38We didn't think that it was really going to work, but we thought that we would give

00:47:41him that opportunity so that he could kind of get it out of his system.

00:47:46So Nick moved to college station with Jackie where she was studying engineering at Texas

00:47:50A&M.

00:47:51Were you hoping that Jacqueline would push him more toward the college route?

00:47:56I thought what would happen is he would get bored and I thought he would end up saying,

00:48:00hey, I'd like to start the next semester and go and go to school.

00:48:03Were you hoping that she would help with that a little bit?

00:48:07Yes.

00:48:08In the meantime, his parents transferred that big chunk of cash into a bank account so Nick

00:48:13could start his trading business.

00:48:14That's a lot of money.

00:48:15It is a lot of money, but I told him, I warned him.

00:48:18I said, this is basically the equivalent of your college fund.

00:48:21If something goes wrong and you lose it, well, then you're going to have to get a job.

00:48:30Then you're on your own.

00:48:31And you're on your own.

00:48:32Corey and Ted also continued paying some of Nick's monthly expenses.

00:48:36Was the expectation that he would pay the money back?

00:48:38He was supposed to be paying me a little bit of money.

00:48:42Plus, he was supposed to be reimbursing me for his car payment,

00:48:46his gasoline payment, and his insurance payment.

00:48:50His father's friend, Ted, was supportive.

00:48:52He gave Nick $5,000 to invest.

00:48:54He seemed to have an intuitive understanding of how markets work.

00:49:01But pretty soon, Corey said Nick wasn't holding up his end of their deal,

00:49:05wasn't paying his parents back for the car and expenses.

00:49:08And yet, Nick and Jackie seemed to be living the high life.

00:49:13Every time we'd see them, you know, they had on their new clothes.

00:49:17You know, they had on their new shoes.

00:49:19They had all of their new things in their new apartment.

00:49:23And I knew how that was going.

00:49:24So you're spending the money on things that you want and not things that you need,

00:49:29not your responsibilities.

00:49:31Finally, I said, okay, I'm not doing it.

00:49:34I'm not doing it anymore.

00:49:35You're not upholding your end of the bargain.

00:49:37I'm going to cut you off.

00:49:38How did he take that?

00:49:40Oh, um, he wasn't really happy with me.

00:49:43But, uh, we'd had arguments before.

00:49:47A few months before Ted's murder, Nick made good on his word.

00:49:51He paid me back.

00:49:52Did that feel good that you had to hound him, but he did it?

00:49:56Yeah, I said thank you.

00:49:58That's what Nick told investigators, too.

00:50:00Whatever problems they had were in the rearview mirror.

00:50:03But we figured it out, you know, talked, sat down,

00:50:07wrote everything out and figured it out.

00:50:09Detectives weren't convinced everything was fine.

00:50:12In fact, while Corey felt like she and Nick were under suspicion,

00:50:15she'd only been half right.

00:50:18Detectives cleared her early on and had been focusing their attention on Nick.

00:50:23That included poring over his financial records.

00:50:26With Nicholas's financial records, we see, you know, indications that his account's overdrawn,

00:50:34the trading account that supposedly has all these thousands of dollars because he's a successful day trader.

00:50:39Uh, the balances of those accounts are zero.

00:50:42So they're broke.

00:50:43They are.

00:50:44Was Nick desperate enough to betray his own parents?

00:50:49Has he ever directly asked you to kill his parents?

00:51:07Time doesn't stop after death.

00:51:10Birthdays, holidays, life's special moments continue on, colored by grief and loss.

00:51:18Two months after Ted Shaughnessy's murder, his wife, Corey, celebrated her first Mother's Day without him.

00:51:24Her new daughter-in-law, Jackie, gave her a card expressing how grateful she was that Corey had survived the

00:51:29horrible shooting.

00:51:30I, I was touched.

00:51:32Corey was thankful for what was left of her family, a family she knew had been under the microscope.

00:51:38Investigators weren't telling her much, certainly not how odd they found Nick's behavior,

00:51:43and that they found his money trouble highly suspicious.

00:51:47So all this together really started honing our investigation or leaning our investigation heavy towards Nicholas,

00:51:54that he may have had some involvement.

00:51:57Investigators searched Nick and Jackie's apartment, where they found the security system Nick had mentioned.

00:52:02He's got cameras all around the house.

00:52:04It's surprising how many he had.

00:52:06Strange, but a quick look at the security video did seem to back up Nick's alibi.

00:52:11They were home the morning of the murder?

00:52:13They were home at the time.

00:52:15They were home.

00:52:16In the apartment, investigators found a safe full of jewelry, watches, and weapons.

00:52:22There were also bullets, lots of them.

00:52:25So we found lots of ammo, which is not unusual here in Texas.

00:52:29What was unusual?

00:52:32Investigators found a box of ammunition that was the same brand and caliber of bullets

00:52:36as some of the casings found at the crime scene.

00:52:38So at the scene, it's Sig 380, and the 380 ammunition that he had there was Sig 380.

00:52:46What's more, six rounds were missing from that box.

00:52:51Okay, so this is not looking good for Nicholas at this moment?

00:52:55We definitely thought there might be a connection with that amount of rounds missing.

00:53:01To try and root out that possible connection, investigators dug into Nick's cell phone.

00:53:06Both he and Jackie had volunteered their phones to help the investigation.

00:53:11So one of the first things I noticed almost immediately, there was a pretty clear gap in data on both

00:53:15of their phones.

00:53:16Matt Danner and Stacey Casimir handled the digital forensics in this case.

00:53:21I was like, this is not normal, especially for a couple of young 19-year-olds.

00:53:25They should have tons of data on their phones.

00:53:28It's what we're typically used to.

00:53:29It's almost like they factory reset their phones kind of together at the same time.

00:53:33It seemed very intentional, like purposeful.

00:53:36But the forensic folks knew something that perhaps Nick and Jackie did not.

00:53:41It's very common that people don't know or understand that their messages are syncing to a completely separate device

00:53:48when they delete them, and the deletions don't synchronize.

00:53:50Whenever someone deletes messages from their iPhone,

00:53:53it doesn't mean that it's deleted from, like, their other Apple devices.

00:53:56So they turned to Nick's computer, a Mac Mini, and voila.

00:54:02Messages from his iPhone had synced to his Mac Mini, specifically messages between him and Jackie.

00:54:09Now detectives could see exactly what Nick and Jackie had been chatting about before Ted's murder.

00:54:14Money.

00:54:15In the days prior to this incident, they're communicating about a dollar amount.

00:54:21You know, she asks Nicholas, do they want 50K or not?

00:54:26$50,000 for what?

00:54:29And they're talking about, you know, well, we can't afford to pay half before.

00:54:33You're thinking before means before the murder?

00:54:36Before the murder.

00:54:36It just seemed like they were talking about hiring somebody to do this.

00:54:41And if there was a murder-for-hire plot, it now looked like Jackie was in on it.

00:54:47Just days before the murder, there was another suspicious text.

00:54:51Nick tells Jackie he needs to have some money if it happens, so he can have some cash in hand.

00:54:57And he's asking her, I need you to withdraw $1,000 from your account.

00:55:03Bank records revealed she had taken out that money.

00:55:06And it wasn't just the text messages that pointed to a murder-for-hire plot.

00:55:11They'd ruled out Nick's friend Spencer as one of the shooters.

00:55:14But they couldn't shake their hunch.

00:55:16He knew more than he was letting on.

00:55:18After several meetings, Spencer started opening up about things Nick said to him about his parents.

00:55:24He said, after my parents go, I will have $8 million.

00:55:30And Nicholas talked about not only gaining the money from the life insurance, but he also talked about the money

00:55:38from the sale of the jewelry store and the sale of the property.

00:55:42But that wasn't all.

00:55:44Spencer told investigators he knew Nick had been looking for a hitman.

00:55:48Has he ever directly asked you to kill his parents?

00:55:52Yes.

00:55:54Nick had actually offered him money to kill his parents.

00:55:59And more digital sleuthing revealed another key discovery.

00:56:03Nick had told detectives he could access his parents' home security system.

00:56:07Turned out he had opened up the app the morning of the murder at 5.39 a.m.

00:56:13Which is a full five minutes before he gets a phone call that there's anything going on.

00:56:19So he's already aware of the situation.

00:56:24And when Corey calls...

00:56:25This is your aha moment.

00:56:27It's a big moment.

00:56:29Nick!

00:56:29He's not back!

00:56:30Mom!

00:56:32Dad's dead!

00:56:33Wait, what?

00:56:34Nick!

00:56:35He's already awake.

00:56:36And he's already monitoring what's going on at the home when he receives this call.

00:56:42We knew that they seemed to be closing in on Nick and Jackie.

00:56:45Rick Flores is a prominent defense attorney in Austin.

00:56:49Early on, Corey hired him to protect her son from investigators she thought were on the wrong path.

00:56:55Corey didn't think that her son had anything to do with it.

00:56:58And so I think she wanted to make sure that he had adequate representation

00:57:01and that they would ultimately rule him out and continue to find the people that did this.

00:57:06Could you sense as the weeks were ticking by that things were getting hotter for Nicholas and Jacqueline?

00:57:13Could you feel it?

00:57:14With each search warrant that was served, each affidavit had a little bit more information

00:57:17and a little bit more facts that law enforcement had been putting together.

00:57:21Flores had enough experience to sense where this was going.

00:57:25He made an agreement with law enforcement that they'd inform him if an arrest was imminent.

00:57:31On May 29th, 2018, about three months after Ted's murder, they did just that.

00:57:38Nick and Jacqueline come into your office.

00:57:39Right.

00:57:40And then the police come.

00:57:41Right.

00:57:42And arrest them.

00:57:42That's right.

00:57:43Corey was devastated, but at the same time certain it was some kind of mistake.

00:57:48And I certainly was not going to believe what the sheriff's department was saying unless I had absolute proof.

00:57:58And it's also your child.

00:58:00And so you love and trust your child with everything.

00:58:04Even if detectives were right about Nick and Jackie's involvement, they knew they weren't the shooters.

00:58:10There were still two gunmen on the loose and new clues caught on camera.

00:58:15I saw these two males, who didn't appear to be the type to hang out with each other, show up

00:58:21to Nick's door and enter his home.

00:58:24At this point, we have no idea what's going on.

00:58:39Investigators believe they had two people responsible for Ted Shaughnessy's murder behind bars.

00:58:45In any other scenario, his wife, Corey, might have been relieved, even grateful.

00:58:50Instead, she was in disbelief because her son Nick and his wife Jackie had been arrested for criminal solicitation of

00:58:57capital murder.

00:58:58I read the arrest affidavits, and there were quotes in them, and the quotes could easily have been taken out

00:59:10of context.

00:59:11I am still thinking back to the way that I was treated and how I felt as though they were

00:59:18trying to trick me into saying or doing something.

00:59:22And I thought that the same thing could be done to them.

00:59:26And when Jackie was released on bail just two weeks after the arrest, Corey hoped the case was falling apart.

00:59:32I thought that that might have been a good thing, because I thought maybe Nicholas would be coming out soon

00:59:38after as well.

00:59:39Nick's attorneys advised Corey not to speak with her son about the case.

00:59:43And detectives were keeping her in the dark about the investigation.

00:59:47They still had a lot to do.

00:59:49They knew Jackie and Nick were not the actual shooters.

00:59:52So you have two shooters out there that you need to find.

00:59:55We still, yes.

00:59:57Investigators took a closer look at those security videos they gathered from Nick and Jackie's apartment.

01:00:02And they found something.

01:00:03We saw two people that arrived at the apartment on February 28th in the afternoon.

01:00:10And that's just a few days before the murder?

01:00:13Yes.

01:00:14No way to tell who the two people in the video were.

01:00:16But they did spot a potentially big clue.

01:00:20After the two males entered the apartment, eventually one of them exits the apartment wearing a green t-shirt from

01:00:28Renewal by Anderson with the phone number on it.

01:00:30That's the same company as the fingerprint from the window.

01:00:37So at this point, we have no idea what's going on.

01:00:39They contacted the window company, and luck seemed to be on their side.

01:00:44Because even though it had been years since the man in the video worked there, someone remembered him.

01:00:49Who is he?

01:00:51Cameron Bosman.

01:00:52What's his connection to Nicholas Shaughnessy?

01:00:54We have no idea at this point.

01:00:56And he didn't have any connection to the window company employee they'd already investigated.

01:01:01That was just a coincidence.

01:01:03They tracked Cameron down, and he willingly spoke to investigators.

01:01:07He says, the other guy in this picture with me, his name is Johnny Leon.

01:01:12He said Johnny had approached him a few months back about a job moving some stuff.

01:01:16They went over to Nick's place.

01:01:18That's when he said the conversation took a turn.

01:01:21Nicholas tells him that some people in Austin are costing him $30,000 a month, and they need to be

01:01:27taken care of.

01:01:28So Cameron's starting to get, you know, the hair standing up on the back of his neck is what he's

01:01:33saying.

01:01:33And he doesn't completely understand what they're asking of him.

01:01:36So he keeps asking them to clarify, and they keep telling them, the less you know, the better.

01:01:42He told the detectives he knew it was something bad and decided to leave.

01:01:46Are you getting that sense that he's telling the truth?

01:01:48Yes, he explained how he knew Johnny, like where Johnny lived.

01:01:53Investigators went over to the apartment Johnny was staying at and arrested him.

01:01:57What is Johnny saying?

01:01:58Is he confessing that, yes, I'm part of this, or is he saying he had nothing to do with it?

01:02:03No, initially he denied everything.

01:02:05He didn't know anything about it.

01:02:07When they confronted Johnny with a picture of him going into Nick's apartment, he started to open up.

01:02:12Nick was trying to hire him for a murder, and that he just didn't have it in him.

01:02:20Detectives weren't buying it.

01:02:22They kept at him.

01:02:23He did finally admit that he did travel with Nick to Austin because Nicholas was going to do the murder.

01:02:32This was just days before Ted was killed.

01:02:35What happened?

01:02:37So he says they parked on a side road across from the Shaughnessy house, and he said Nicholas went up

01:02:43to the house.

01:02:44He came back after a while, said, well, I can't get in.

01:02:47And he said they both drove back to College Station.

01:02:50Johnny insisted that was the extent of his involvement, but his cell phone data from the night of the murder

01:02:55said otherwise.

01:02:57His phone usage is in the area of the Shaughnessy home at the time of the incident.

01:03:03So you now have one of your shooters, you believe.

01:03:06Correct.

01:03:07Right.

01:03:08But there's still one more missing.

01:03:11Right.

01:03:12Johnny wasn't helpful when it came to identifying the second shooter.

01:03:15Turns out he didn't need to be.

01:03:18His phone records did the talking for him again.

01:03:21Right before the murder, Johnny had been talking to a friend named Arian Smith.

01:03:26Smith denied being at the Shaughnessy house and said his ex-girlfriend would back up his alibi.

01:03:31He said, she'll vouch for me and she'll tell you that we were together.

01:03:35But she told investigators that on the night in question, he'd left her in a motel room alone.

01:03:41And he leaves in her car.

01:03:43She doesn't know where he's headed.

01:03:45So she actually tries to call him several times and she never is able to reach him.

01:03:51She also told detectives about a gun he'd been carrying around after Ted's murder, a .40 caliber, just like one

01:03:58of the guns that was used in the crime.

01:04:00Detectives later recovered the gun from one of Smith's family members.

01:04:04Does he get charged with murder?

01:04:06He does.

01:04:07Yes, he does.

01:04:08For investigators, the case was falling into place.

01:04:12Four suspects under arrest for one brutal crime.

01:04:17But was that the whole story?

01:04:19Jackie had her own version of events.

01:04:22He knew that they had a $1 million life insurance policy each.

01:04:27But he told me it wasn't about the money.

01:04:45Nick Shaughnessy sat in jail awaiting trial.

01:04:48As his mother, Corrie, struggled to comprehend the accusations against him and his wife, Jackie.

01:04:54She thought there had to be some kind of explanation.

01:04:57Was it that they were out at a club and talked to the wrong people and those people found out

01:05:02we were jewelers and meant to do us harm?

01:05:04Did they owe money?

01:05:06Did they borrow money from someone?

01:05:08I kept thinking maybe they are involved, but only in a circumstantial or tangential sort of way, which would still

01:05:16be bad, but not as bad as they wanted to kill us.

01:05:23Since Corrie wasn't talking to her son directly, her friend Karen acted as an intermediary of sorts.

01:05:30He would send me a letter.

01:05:31I'd hand it over to Corrie so she could see what was going on with him.

01:05:35And he also asked for things like books and magazines.

01:05:39Corrie sent him the things he asked for.

01:05:41More importantly, she paid for his defense attorneys.

01:05:44Nick had been in jail for two years when they invited her to meet with them.

01:05:49Nicholas's attorneys wanted to suggest to him that he take a plea.

01:05:53They asked me to go to Austin and to talk to them.

01:05:58How difficult was it for you to have that conversation with her about trying to help to get him to

01:06:03take this plea because she'd been loyal to him for so long?

01:06:07I think deep down in the back of her mind, she knew that Nick and Jackie had done this.

01:06:12I think as a mother, maybe she was not wanting to believe it, but she's a very smart woman.

01:06:19So Rick Flores went through the case with her.

01:06:21Much of it she'd heard by this point.

01:06:23But she had one big unanswered question about the .40 caliber gun recovered during the investigation.

01:06:30Was the .40 caliber that they took into evidence my husband's .40 caliber?

01:06:35And did he say yes?

01:06:36Yes.

01:06:37It was the missing gun they'd been looking for.

01:06:40Nick had given it to Arianne Smith.

01:06:43Ted had been killed with his own weapon.

01:06:46I finally had my questions answered and I knew that Nicholas had done it.

01:06:51There were no more excuses.

01:06:53No more denials.

01:06:54The son she and Ted raised and loved had wanted them dead.

01:06:58How do you wrap your brain around that?

01:07:01You don't.

01:07:02You just don't.

01:07:04In a letter to her son, she encouraged him to take the plea deal offered by prosecutors.

01:07:0935 years in prison with the possibility of parole.

01:07:13I think having Corey helped us have Nick make this decision.

01:07:19I told him that he owed it to the memory of his father to tell the absolute truth.

01:07:25Nick listened.

01:07:26In April of 2021, he pleaded guilty to murder.

01:07:30That's bittersweet.

01:07:31It gives the human that he will have become a possibility at having some life, taking whatever

01:07:42he has left and doing something with it.

01:07:46The hitmen, Arianne Smith and Johnny Leon, also pleaded guilty to murder and were sentenced

01:07:51to 35 years with the possibility of parole.

01:07:55Arianne Smith told investigators what happened after they shot Ted.

01:07:59Then I hear some shots come from the bedroom as well.

01:08:02And then I heard a woman crying.

01:08:04And I said, please don't do it.

01:08:06Please, let's just go.

01:08:07Please, leave her alone.

01:08:08Let's go.

01:08:09Please, just let's go.

01:08:11So after I say that, he takes off running and I follow him.

01:08:14Her gun training may have saved her life.

01:08:17Her gun skills absolutely saved her life.

01:08:21Three of the four accused conspirators were now behind bars.

01:08:25But what about Jackie?

01:08:28Shortly after her arrest, she sat in a police interview room and told them her version of

01:08:33events.

01:08:35I really loved the lingo father.

01:08:38Jackie said she thought of Nick's parents as family.

01:08:41That's why she said she couldn't understand it when Nick brought up the idea of killing

01:08:46them.

01:08:55According to Jackie, Nick said his father was depressed, miserable with his life.

01:09:19She said Nick later told her it would be too painful for his mom to live without his dad.

01:09:24So he decided both of his parents needed to go.

01:09:27But this isn't you.

01:09:28You love your parents.

01:09:31We visit them every weekend.

01:09:32We have fun.

01:09:33We're family.

01:09:34I've always wanted what I had with them.

01:09:37I didn't think Nick really had it in him to even think about it.

01:09:43And that's why I never took it as seriously as I should have.

01:09:46So other than his dad, him thinking that his dad was miserable, what other reason would

01:09:53he have to do this?

01:09:54He knew that they had a $1 million life insurance policy each, but he told me it wasn't about

01:10:03the money.

01:10:04Jackie denied knowing specifics about the murder or the gunman.

01:10:07But according to those deleted text messages, she did talk to Nick about paying $50,000 for

01:10:13the hit.

01:10:14And I was like, well, I mean, we can't even afford to put a half.

01:10:18And I said, well, okay, maybe they'll do it for Tim.

01:10:21I wanted to shut him up.

01:10:23I was playing his game.

01:10:25She told investigators Nick drove to Austin more than once, planning to kill his parents.

01:10:30And she went with him.

01:10:32I never took it seriously.

01:10:34No, I went with him.

01:10:37You know, he wanted me to go with him.

01:10:39And I was like, yeah, sure, whatever.

01:10:40I don't know.

01:10:41I know he's not going to do it.

01:10:43And if he is going to do something crazy, then I'll be there to make sure he doesn't do it.

01:10:49Did you buy that, knowing all you knew at this time?

01:10:52I think to us, it seemed more that she was fully aware that he was serious about it.

01:10:58I don't think she had the intention to help him execute the plan or hire the people, but

01:11:06she wasn't going to stop him.

01:11:08She had no intention on stopping it because I think she had the same financial interest

01:11:13that Nicholas had.

01:11:15Jackie had stayed quiet before the murder and after it happened.

01:11:20Living with Corey and every single day, how she would cry about Ted and how she hated

01:11:28his murders and how she would blame me all when really I knew that

01:11:36it was her son and that killed me.

01:11:40She deceived Corey after the murder.

01:11:43She moved in.

01:11:44She deceived us.

01:11:47Jackie had been arrested along with Nick, then freed on bail.

01:11:51Her case just seemed to linger.

01:11:53She got to attend all of her family events and be with them, go to college, go out with

01:11:59other guys and live her life.

01:12:03Jackie divorced Nick while he sat behind bars.

01:12:06Friends of mine would share her pictures that she would post on social media.

01:12:13She would be wearing her jewelry, her diamond pendant.

01:12:17This is like rubbing it in your face, you must have felt like.

01:12:20I felt like that.

01:12:22Then, in March of 2022, nearly a year after Nick's guilty plea, it looked like Jackie's

01:12:28case was finally headed to trial.

01:12:30The charge against her was changed to conspiracy to commit capital murder.

01:12:34What would a jury have to say about her fate?

01:12:38And what would Nick say to us?

01:12:42I'm trying to think of, honestly, what was going on in your brain.

01:12:44You know, how does this happen?

01:12:59Nick Shaughnessy says he's had time to think about what he's done.

01:13:03How he ended up here.

01:13:05Why did you agree to sit down and do this interview with us?

01:13:09Nothing can ever undo what I did, but it's an attempt to make known factors that are not

01:13:17already known and to correct some of the narratives that are out there.

01:13:22Nick says there's one part of his story everyone agrees is true.

01:13:25He had a charmed childhood filled with love and support.

01:13:30It was a perfect life, you know, everything you could ever dream of.

01:13:35I had parents that cared for me, would do anything for me.

01:13:39But he says by the time he hit his teens, he was searching for an identity.

01:13:43After blowing through the money his parents gave him for his day trading business, Nick

01:13:47says he and Jackie discussed how he was his parents' sole heir.

01:13:51This could all be ours, you know, and...

01:13:54Like, you're the only child, you would get all the money, the life insurance, the business,

01:13:59the house.

01:14:00And so the more that it became, that it was passively talked about, the more of a reality it sadly

01:14:10became.

01:14:10What is that conversation of how are we going to kill them?

01:14:15It was a sad conversation.

01:14:20Like, part of me is like, damn, this is my family.

01:14:25The other part of me is creating a new life.

01:14:29Why do you need a new life?

01:14:31What's wrong with your old life?

01:14:32Your parents loved you.

01:14:33They gave you everything.

01:14:34I was seeking validation and trying to create a new sense of identity.

01:14:39Validation from who?

01:14:41Through Jackie at the time.

01:14:42From Jackie?

01:14:43So you're trying to impress Jackie?

01:14:45I guess you could say that, yes, ma'am.

01:14:47And what was this identity to be?

01:14:49That you were married and you were rich and you could have anything you wanted?

01:14:54Unfortunately so.

01:14:55Power?

01:14:56I can't speak to what enticed her about it, but, you know, the power, the potentially having the store.

01:15:04I mean, I'm trying to think of, honestly, what was going on in your brain.

01:15:06Like, is there a chip missing?

01:15:08Is it, you know, were you somehow born evil?

01:15:13You know, how does this happen?

01:15:14Because teenagers mad at their parents or who want a new life, they don't kill their parents.

01:15:20Most definitely.

01:15:21I wish I had an answer.

01:15:23Like, I don't know if, is there a chip missing like you said?

01:15:27Like, it happened and I own my actions.

01:15:30I understand.

01:15:31But I can't explain.

01:15:33I can't justify them.

01:15:35Why not do it yourself?

01:15:37I'm a coward.

01:15:38I couldn't do that.

01:15:40Like, honestly.

01:15:40You don't think it's cowardly also by hiring people to go kill your parents?

01:15:45Most definitely.

01:15:46It's extremely cowardly.

01:15:48You had months to change your mind.

01:15:51This was a well-thought-out, cold, calculated plan.

01:15:56All the doubts and all the hesitations were outweighed by Jackie's confidence and everything.

01:16:06And we would just go back and forth between talking each other into this idea, not out of it.

01:16:12Nick told investigators, and us, he doesn't think Jackie was completely honest about the role she played.

01:16:18She was very involved with the planning.

01:16:21After the murder, your mom never thought at all that you would be involved in this.

01:16:25She got you an attorney.

01:16:26She felt bad for you.

01:16:27How are you acting like everything's fine and being there as a shoulder to cry on for your mom when

01:16:33you were responsible the whole time and you knew it?

01:16:36It was truly eating me up inside.

01:16:39Like, to see the pain that we had caused, it was not a good feeling.

01:16:43The hardest part about this is she wanted a baby so bad.

01:16:47She gave you a life that most people could never dream of, along with your dad.

01:16:53They did everything for you, and this is how you repay them.

01:16:59It was my most deepest regrets.

01:17:02Nothing should ever get to that point.

01:17:07If I could trade places with my father, I would, just to give that back to my mom.

01:17:11Do you think about your father a lot?

01:17:14Do you miss him?

01:17:15All the time.

01:17:16I miss him getting on my ass.

01:17:18I miss him, like, joking with me.

01:17:26It's something that I'll never have again.

01:17:28This is the ultimate act of betrayal.

01:17:33Yeah.

01:17:34It most definitely is, and it's not something that I'm proud of.

01:17:39One defendant remained.

01:17:41Jackie's case was moving slowly.

01:17:43And then in June 2023, she agreed to plead to a lesser charge, attempted conspiracy to commit murder.

01:17:51The court gave her something called deferred adjudication.

01:17:54It's pretty unusual, very unusual for these types of cases.

01:17:59Nick's attorney, Rick Flores.

01:18:01So a deferred adjudication in Texas is a way for somebody to plead to an offense, be placed on probation,

01:18:08but ultimately not be convicted of it.

01:18:10There's no finding of guilt if somebody completes deferred adjudication.

01:18:15The terms of Jackie's sentence?

01:18:18120 days in the county jail and probation for the next 10 years, during which every year on the anniversary

01:18:25of Ted's murder, she'll go to jail for two days.

01:18:29Pretty remarkable that he got 35 years and she gets 120 days in the county jail and two days every

01:18:36year on the anniversary of Ted's death.

01:18:38Huge, huge gap between those two sentences.

01:18:42I think the only difference between what Nick did and what Jackie did is the relationship, is that these were

01:18:48Nick's parents.

01:18:49Do you think Jacqueline got off easy?

01:18:52Yes.

01:18:54I would have liked to have seen a different sentence than that.

01:18:57She was involved in the planning?

01:19:00She could have stopped it all.

01:19:01In a statement, the Travis County DA's office told us Jackie provided helpful information and that the investigation revealed information

01:19:11that reduced her culpability.

01:19:13The statement also says their office is committed to holding people who commit violent crimes accountable.

01:19:19Corey's not so sure about that.

01:19:21Do you feel like Jacqueline Edison essentially got away with murder?

01:19:24Absolutely.

01:19:26My husband is dead.

01:19:27My life is over.

01:19:28I'm supposed to be dead.

01:19:30And she gets probation.

01:19:32Is there anything you want to say to the district attorney?

01:19:35The term re-victimization comes to mind.

01:19:39And it is every bit that.

01:19:41Corey didn't attend Jackie's plea hearing.

01:19:44But she did record this victim impact statement for the court.

01:19:47We opened our home and our hearts to you.

01:19:50And you and Nicholas took everything from us.

01:19:54How long will it take for you to find another family to destroy?

01:19:58How long will it be before Bonnie finds her next Clyde?

01:20:02You are a monster.

01:20:04You are evil.

01:20:06And everyone needs to know it.

01:20:10Jackie has already served her 120-day jail sentence.

01:20:14Neither she nor her lawyer wanted to answer our questions.

01:20:19Corey hasn't spoken to Nick since his arrest.

01:20:22What would you say to her if she's going to watch this?

01:20:29I wish that I could express how truly sorry I am.

01:20:34And that the pain that I caused her was so selfish.

01:20:39And I'm trying each and every day to be the best version of myself to hopefully show the world one

01:20:48day that that is not who I am.

01:20:51I have written to him, but I keep the letters.

01:20:55I never intend to send them.

01:20:57What do you say in the letters?

01:20:58Lots of things.

01:21:00One of which is how much I know he would like me to talk to him.

01:21:05But even though I will always love my child, I don't love the person that he is now.

01:21:16In fact, I really hate the person that he is now.

01:21:20And I can't tell you what I would give in this world to be able to talk again to his

01:21:28dad.

01:21:28But I can't.

01:21:30And so he's not going to get to talk to me because ghosts can't talk.

01:21:34And I'm supposed to be dead.

01:21:37The legal cases are now closed.

01:21:40It's already warm.

01:21:41And those who love Ted are forced to carry on without him.

01:21:45My friend is gone.

01:21:50I don't get to grow old in that friendship.

01:21:54There's not a negative bone in that man's body.

01:21:58He was a rare gift.

01:22:00And he deserved to live to be an old man.

01:22:04And to live life.

01:22:08What do you miss the most about, Ted?

01:22:11Everything.

01:22:17Just my best friend.

01:22:19Yeah.

01:22:20The little things.

01:22:24Just everything.

01:22:27All the little moments that added up to a beautiful life together.

01:22:37That's all for now.

01:22:38I'm Lester Holt.

01:22:40Thanks for joining us.

01:22:41I'm Lester Holt.

01:22:44I'm Lester Holt.

Dateline NBC - Season 35 - Episode 01 Eng Sub

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