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00:09On the night of May 22, 1992, Betty Wilson returned home
00:15immediately after her Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
00:22She had some last-minute packing to do for a vacation
00:25she was taking the next day with her husband.
00:31As she walked up the stairs, headed for her bedroom,
00:35she found her husband lying in a pool of blood.
00:40Clearly, Jack Wilson had been murdered.
00:43But how?
00:44Experts couldn't agree.
01:18I went up the steps, and as I rounded the top of the stairs with my head down and looking
01:27up to turn on the light,
01:30I saw Jack lying on the floor.
01:34Betty Wilson immediately ran to a neighbor's house and called 911.
01:38Listen, this is the police department. Talk to me, okay?
01:41Were you in the house, or did you walk in the house?
01:44I walked in the house.
01:45Okay, you come home, and you walk in the house, and you saw this person lying on the floor.
01:49Who is the person to you?
01:50Okay, do you know, do you know if the person that hurt him is still inside?
01:55I don't know.
01:56I got a friend.
01:58Okay.
01:59You just go stand there, and you don't go back to your house, okay?
02:03And we've got an ambulance, and we've got the police on the way.
02:05The Huntsville, Alabama, police arrived at the murder scene within minutes of the call.
02:10Lying in the hallway was a white male who appeared to have been beaten and also stabbed.
02:16He was laying in a puddle of blood there in the hallway.
02:20Lying next to the body, the apparent murder weapon,
02:23a 34-inch long metal baseball bat covered with blood.
02:28But police couldn't locate the weapon used to stab him.
02:32In Jack Wilson's bedroom, the telephone line had been cut,
02:36and a green ski mask was found on top of the bed.
02:41They also found an open pistol box with ammunition, but no sign of the gun.
02:47There were no indications the Wilson home had been explored for valuables.
02:51No drawers had been emptied.
02:53No closet searched.
02:55Jack Wilson's wallet was on the floor near his shoes.
02:59There was no cash inside, but his credit cards were.
03:02If the motive wasn't burglary, why was Jack Wilson murdered?
03:07Wilson was a 55-year-old eye doctor, very successful, well-known, and well-loved in the community.
03:15I'd even hate to estimate how many people that Jack treated absolutely free
03:20because they needed medical help and they couldn't afford to pay.
03:24Jack and Betty Wilson had been married for about 14 years.
03:28Each had three children from previous marriages.
03:31We were happy and satisfied with each other.
03:34He met every need that I or my children, my grandchildren had.
03:41He was a wonderful person.
03:43He was sincere.
03:45He was honest, straightforward.
03:48He was fun to be with.
03:51As police began searching for clues,
03:53homicide detectives learned a shocking piece of information.
03:57The county sheriff's office had received a tip just the day before.
04:03An informant in the small town of Vincent, Alabama, said she overheard a conversation
04:09that a man from Vincent had been hired to kill a doctor.
04:13That information led police on a long, convoluted journey
04:17from the backwoods of Alabama to one of its finest neighborhoods.
04:22It ended in a bitter courtroom dispute because of two conflicting interpretations
04:28of what happened during Jack Wilson's last moments alive.
04:37The body of Jack Wilson was transported to the state medical examiner in Birmingham for a routine autopsy.
04:44Dr. Joseph Embry noted a series of lacerations on Wilson's head and a fractured skull.
04:51Wilson had also suffered a fractured hyoid bone in his neck
04:55and a fractured right shoulder with a puncture wound clearly visible.
05:00Both arms were fractured.
05:03These were defensive type wounds indicating Wilson tried to fend off his attacker.
05:09And there were two stab wounds in his abdomen.
05:12Officially, the cause of death was listed as blunt force trauma to the head.
05:17The Huntsville police serology lab identified the blood found on the back
05:22to be the same blood type as Jack Wilson.
05:25But they didn't find any fingerprints.
05:28Next, police turned to the information they received before the murder.
05:33We had a concerned citizen in the county that overheard a conversation
05:37that Mr. White had stated that he was going to Huntsville over the weekend to kill someone.
05:42Huntsville police drove to Vincent, Alabama, about 100 miles away, to interview James White.
05:49He lived in a trailer on the outskirts of town.
05:52James White was a handyman at the Vincent Elementary School where his children attended classes.
05:59Betty Wilson's twin sister, Peggy Lowe, taught first grade at the same school.
06:06White had a past criminal record, a history of drug and alcohol abuse,
06:10and a dishonorable discharge from the military.
06:14Police interrogated White for 10 hours, and he admitted being inside the Wilson home
06:20the night of the murder.
06:22I've been drinking for the last three or four days, popping pills, drinking, smoking dope.
06:28And all I knew is I wanted to get away.
06:32They say the man got beat with a baseball bat, but I don't remember a baseball bat being around nowhere.
06:35But I do remember that I hit the man.
06:39He turned me loose.
06:40Before police returned to Huntsville, they searched White's trailer.
06:45They found a pair of shoes with a blood stain, which later matched Jack Wilson's blood type.
06:51In the abandoned house next door, police discovered a revolver, which was registered to Betty Wilson.
06:59And in James White's truck, a book of poetry from the Huntsville Public Library,
07:05which had been signed out by Betty Wilson.
07:08Police arrested James White and charged him in the murder of Jack Wilson.
07:13Then, a shocking disclosure.
07:15James White told police that Betty Wilson and her twin sister, Peggy Lowe,
07:21had hired him to kill Jack Wilson for $5,000.
07:27Betty Wilson and Peggy Lowe were immediately picked up for questioning.
07:31The police came.
07:33They jerked me around.
07:35They jerked my watch off of my arm and threw it across the room,
07:40saying, you won't need this where you're going.
07:42As police looked for a motive, rumors surfaced about the unconventional relationship
07:49between Jack and Betty Wilson.
07:51They lived separate lives with separate bedrooms and not much of a sexual relationship.
07:57Betty admitted to police she had a number of affairs while married to Jack.
08:03Jack Wilson suffered from Crohn's disease and wore an ostomy bag,
08:08which Betty admitted to friends she found repulsive.
08:11And in the mind of police, perhaps the strongest motive of all,
08:16Betty Wilson would receive the bulk of her husband's $6 million estate.
08:21The star witness, James White, without whom there was no case against the sisters,
08:27cut a deal with the prosecution.
08:30And he even had it in writing.
08:32He would implicate Betty Wilson and Peggy Lowe in return for a reduced sentence.
08:38The sisters were tried separately.
08:41Betty Wilson went on trial first.
08:44According to James White's testimony and the prosecution's interpretation of the autopsy findings,
08:50James White entered the Wilsons' home and waited in one of the upstairs bedrooms.
08:56Jack Wilson arrived home around 5 p.m.
09:00And neighbors saw him step out to the front yard to hammer a campaign poster into the lawn with a
09:07baseball bat.
09:10He then walked back inside the house and headed upstairs to his bedroom.
09:16White says he changed his mind and decided not to murder Wilson.
09:21But as he was leaving, encountered him in the hallway.
09:25The two struggled.
09:27White grabbed the baseball bat and struck Wilson in the head.
09:30Oh!
09:31Ah!
09:33Oh!
09:36He was then stabbed twice in the abdomen.
09:43White said Betty Wilson met him outside and drove him to his truck.
09:48However, police forensic experts found no evidence of White's hair, clothing, fibers, or even a fingerprint
09:56inside Betty Wilson's car.
09:59Lacking any strong physical evidence, the prosecution attacked Betty Wilson's character,
10:05and they subpoenaed one of her ex-lovers to testify about their adulterous relationship.
10:10The jury found Betty Wilson guilty of capital murder, and she was sentenced to life in prison
10:17with no chance of parole.
10:20I think Ms. Wilson was convicted on her personal conduct.
10:24She couldn't have been convicted on the evidence.
10:27I mean, the physical evidence was not there to support it.
10:30The prosecution's next task, to try Betty's twin sister, Peggy Lowe, for the same crime.
10:36All of the witnesses and evidence against her would be similar, but what they hadn't bargained
10:43for was the testimony of a defense expert who would drop a forensic bombshell that Jack
10:51Wilson was not murdered in the way the prosecution said.
10:58Eight months after Betty Wilson was convicted of murder for hire, her twin sister, Peggy Lowe,
11:05went on trial for the same crime.
11:08This time, the prosecution couldn't attack the defendant's lifestyle.
11:12Peggy Lowe was a first-grade school teacher.
11:15She and her husband were active in the local church, and she was even the lead singer with
11:20the church choir.
11:21She had a long history of helping those in need.
11:24My friends did for me what I couldn't do for myself.
11:28When I could no longer cry, they cried for me.
11:38Peggy Lowe's attorneys had time to look for new evidence and to go over the testimony from
11:44her sister's trial.
11:46One of the things they noticed was that James White never admitted killing Jack Wilson.
11:51The detectives told me that I hit him with a baseball bat or I had to hit him with something
11:55other heavy.
11:57And I think I told them that I kept reaching until I got something other than I hit the
12:00man and he turned me loose and I left.
12:01That was just one of the things that bothered Peggy Lowe's defense team.
12:05The other was the crime scene.
12:08How could this man beat this man so badly with a baseball bat that he broke his arms and stabbed
12:13him and beat his head terribly and there not be any blood splatter patterns?
12:18The defense took the autopsy report and crime scene photos to Georgia and showed them to
12:24Atlanta's deputy medical examiner.
12:27And if someone is being struck with a blunt instrument to cause lacerations like this,
12:32there's going to be a spray of blood that is not only sprayed when the instrument strikes
12:38the head or strikes the arm, but also as the instrument is raised back, there's going
12:42to be a spray pattern that will go upwards onto the wall and onto the ceiling.
12:46And I was really struck by the fact that I could not really ascertain any significant
12:51spray pattern at all.
12:52Dr. Sperry agreed to testify at Peggy Lowe's trial.
12:56James White, once again, told his story.
12:59But this time, he was severely challenged by the defense.
13:04The whole case rested on a man's testimony.
13:06The man is a liar, a child molester, shot his own men in Vietnam.
13:11He's been on psychedelic drugs.
13:14He's a drunk, he's a dope addict, he's a cocaine user.
13:18The other strong defense challenge came against the state medical examiner who did the autopsy.
13:23The story that the murderer told didn't make sense.
13:29Not only did they not make practical sense, they didn't make scientific sense.
13:33And I believe that juries like scientific evidence.
13:39But the most startling testimony was that of Dr. Chris Sperry.
13:44When a blunt instrument of any sort is used to strike the head repeatedly, it is very, very common.
13:51In fact, with repeated blows, almost always you will have not only transfer of blood from the lacerations onto the
13:59instrument,
14:00but hair as well, and finding hair embedded in blood that's on the surface of the blood instrument, such as
14:07the bat, would be very, very significant.
14:10There was no hair that I know of that was found on the bat.
14:13Parts of skull, I don't know of any, but, you know, all they did was the blood typing on the
14:17bat.
14:17But Dr. Sperry went even further, saying he doubted that the bat was the murder weapon at all.
14:25And James White never admitted using the bat.
14:29Looking at the injuries that Dr. Wilson had, I felt that the injury pattern,
14:34that is, the lacerations and the fractures beneath these lacerations,
14:39were not of the type that would typically be caused by a baseball bat.
14:43Baseball bats cause crushing injuries of the head, and will actually crush in the bones of the skull,
14:50just like an egg is being crushed.
14:51The linear patterns of the wounds to Dr. Wilson's scalp led Dr. Sperry to conclude
14:57that it was more likely a fireplace poker that was used on Jack Wilson.
15:03This would also explain the puncture wound found on Dr. Wilson's shoulder.
15:09This was rather unusual in and of itself,
15:11and no one really had an explanation for that particular injury.
15:14But when you think about a fireplace poker,
15:16that many of them are designed with a sort of a hook or a point
15:20that sticks out at a 90-degree angle,
15:22suddenly that also made sense, and it fit together with the whole pattern.
15:26The autopsy report indicated that Dr. Wilson's hyoid bone had been fractured.
15:32Sperry believed Wilson had also been strangled.
15:35It didn't make a damn how Dr. Wilson got killed.
15:40The question was, who did it?
15:44And James White admitted to doing it,
15:46whether he stomped him, beat him with a bat, beat him with a stick.
15:51But that's the type of bull that experts try and sell to juries.
15:57He had a theory that there was three people,
16:00two to three people, that brought the body back to the scene
16:03and dumped it there on the scene,
16:04which was utterly, to me, ridiculous.
16:08What killed Dr. Wilson was not the issue.
16:12The issue was, did Betty Wilson and Peggy Lowe
16:15conspire with James White to kill Jack Wilson?
16:19And Sperry brings in this photograph of something that happened in a book
16:24and shows the jury and says, oh, it couldn't have been a bat.
16:28What difference does it make?
16:30Dr. Wilson was beaten to death.
16:32But to convict Peggy Lowe,
16:34the jury would have to believe James White.
16:37And if Dr. Sperry was correct,
16:40the murder didn't happen the way James White said.
16:46There were now two scenarios as to how Jack Wilson was murdered.
16:52Neighbors saw him on the front lawn around 5 p.m.,
16:56hammering the political poster into the ground with a baseball bat.
17:04Using Dr. Sperry's interpretation,
17:07he was then attacked by at least two individuals.
17:10During the struggle, Wilson's hyoid bone was fractured.
17:13He was struck at least nine times in the head
17:16and at least once in the shoulder,
17:18creating the puncture wound in the back of his neck.
17:24Then stabbed twice in the abdomen.
17:26The body was then placed in a tarp
17:29and carried into the house,
17:32dropped onto the wooden floor,
17:34and then turned 180 degrees.
17:44His head brushed against the doorway molding,
17:47leaving a blood stain
17:48and the swirling blood pattern on the floor.
17:56They smeared blood onto the bat
17:59so it would look like the murder weapon,
18:01took the fireplace poker and knife,
18:04and fled.
18:14The jury deliberated less than two hours.
18:18The jury deliberated less than two hours.
18:18Ladies and gentlemen, have you arrived at a verdict?
18:20Yes, sir.
18:21Would you read the verdict for me, please?
18:23With the jury, by the decision, not guilty.
18:27It was such a relief.
18:29I cried so hard.
18:31People thought that she had gotten a guilty verdict.
18:34But they were tears of joy and relief.
18:37But how could Drs. Sperry and Embry
18:39come to such different conclusions?
18:42We asked two board-certified forensic pathologists
18:46to review the autopsy report
18:48as well as the crime scene photographs.
18:50They both agreed the autopsy Dr. Embry performed
18:54was flawless.
18:55It just wasn't enough.
18:57Forensic science begins at the crime scene.
19:00And the fact the police and the prosecution
19:03never showed Dr. Embry the bat
19:05or the crime scene photographs
19:07until just a few days before the first trial
19:10was a serious mistake.
19:12Both experts suggested
19:14that a thorough forensic examination
19:16of the crime scene
19:17might have revealed the cause
19:19of the puncture wound on Wilson's shoulder.
19:22But the two experts disagreed about the bat.
19:25One was bothered by the lack
19:27of Jack Wilson's hair on it.
19:29The other wasn't.
19:32Dr. Walter Hoffman feels
19:35the lack of a thorough forensic crime scene examination
19:38opened the door for the defense.
19:41If the law enforcement agency doesn't ask for help
19:44and does it all on its own
19:46and then ships the body in for autopsy,
19:48a certain vital amount of information
19:51has been lost.
19:52You lose the ability
19:53to really evaluate the scene
19:56as it is found in a virginal state
19:58before anyone has walked around it
20:00and done anything with it.
20:01Dr. Embry, who performed the autopsy
20:03on Jack Wilson,
20:05didn't visit the crime scene.
20:07Although Dr. Embry continues
20:08to stand by his findings,
20:10he declined the opportunity
20:12to defend those findings for this program.
20:14After Peggy Lowe's acquittal,
20:17James White recanted his confession.
20:20In a signed affidavit,
20:22he said he never met
20:24or even spoke with Betty Wilson,
20:26that he was never propositioned
20:28by Peggy Lowe to murder Dr. Jack Wilson
20:30and that he made it all up.
20:33But he now says he was coerced
20:35into signing that statement
20:36and has gone back to his original version.
20:40He remains in an Alabama prison,
20:42eligible for parole in just a few years.
20:45I pleaded guilty of the case,
20:46but I didn't kill the man,
20:47but I knew about the situation.
20:49So in a sense,
20:50I felt like that I'm here
20:51for the right reason.
20:53James Denison White
20:54would have sold his soul
20:55to get a good deal
20:57and avoid the electric chair.
20:59I believe that's exactly what he did.
21:02Two sisters,
21:03two trials,
21:05the same forensic evidence,
21:07yet two different verdicts.
21:11Betty Wilson has been in prison
21:13for the last four years,
21:15serving a life sentence
21:17with no chance of parole.
21:19Her first appeal was turned down.
21:22Another is pending.
21:24Peggy Lowe hopes for the day
21:25her sister will get a new trial.
21:27There's nobody there
21:28who cares anything about her.
21:30There's nobody
21:31to put their arms around her.
21:34There's nowhere for her to cry.
21:37There's no privacy.
21:40And the more things like that I realize,
21:44the more pain I feel for her.
21:47It was a nightmare
21:48and it hasn't ended yet.
21:51I don't know that it'll ever end.
21:54Not for me,
21:55not for my children,
21:57for my precious grandchildren
21:59or my mother.
22:03It'll never end.
22:07Never.
22:29I don't know that it'll ever end.
22:40Transcription by CastingWords
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