01x08 - The Wilson m*rder

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NARRATOR: On the night of May , ,

Betty Wilson returned home immediately

after her Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

She had some last minute packingto do for a vacation she was

taking the next day with her husband.

As she walked up the stairs,headed for her bedroom,

she found her husbandlying in a pool of blood.

Clearly Jack Wilson had been m*rder*d.

But how?

Experts couldn't agree.

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BETTY WILSON: I went up the steps,

and as I rounded the top of the stairs,

with my head down and lookingup to turn on the light,

I saw Jack lying in the floor.[screams]

NARRATOR: Betty Wilson immediately

ran to a neighbor's house and called .

NARRATOR: The Huntsville,Alabama police

arrived at the m*rder scenewithin minutes of the call.

JERRY MCDANIEL: Lying in thehallway was a white male who

appeared to have beenbeaten, and also stabbed.

He was laying in a puddle ofblood there, in the hallway.

NARRATOR: Lying next to thebody, the apparent m*rder

w*apon, a inch long metal baseball

bat covered with blood.

But police couldn't locatethe w*apon used to s*ab him.

In Jack Wilson's bedroom, thetelephone line had been cut,

and a green ski mask was found on top of the bed.

They also found and openpistol box with amm*nit*on,

but no sign of the g*n.

There were no indications the Wilson home

had been explored for valuables.

No drawers had been emptied,no closets searchead.

Jack Wilson's wallet was onthe floor near his shoes.

There was no cash inside,but his credit cards were.

If the motive wasn't burglary,why was Jack Wilson m*rder*d?

Wilson was a -year-old eye doctor.

Very successful, well-known,and well-loved in the community.

JERRY MCDANIEL: I would even hate

to estimate how many people thatJack treated absolutely free,

because they needed medicalhelp and they afford to pay.

NARRATOR: Jack and Betty Wilson had

been married for about years.

Each had three children from previous marriages.

-We were happy andsatisfied with each other.

He met every need that I or mychildren, and my grandchildren

had.

He was a wonderful person.

-He was sincere.

He was honest, straightforward.

He was fun to be with.

NARRATOR: As police began searching for clues,

homicide detectives learned ashocking piece of information.

The County Sheriff's Office had received

a tip just the day before.

An informant in the smalltown the Vincent, Alabama

said she overheard a conversation

that a man from Vincent hadbeen hired to k*ll a doctor.

That information led policeon a long, convoluted journey,

from the backwoods of Alabama, to one

of its finest neighborhoods.

It ended in a bitter courtroom dispute,

because of the twoconflicting interpretations

of what happened during JackWilson's last moments alive.

The body of Jack Wilson was transported to the state

medical examiner in Birminghamfor a routine autopsy.

Dr. Joseph Embry noticed a series of lacerations

on Wilson's head and a fractured skull.

Wilson had also suffered a fractured hyoid bone

in his neck, and a fracturedright shoulder with a puncture

wound clearly visible.

Both arms were fractured.

These were defensive-type wounds,

indicating Wilson triedto fend off his attacker.

And there were two s*ab wounds in his abdomen.

Officially the cause of death was

listed as blunt force trauma to the head.

The Huntsville Police Serology Lab

identified the blood found on the bat

to be the same blood type as Jack Wilson.

But they didn't find any fingerprints.

Next, police turned to the information

they received before the m*rder.

-We had a concerned citizen in the county

that overheard a conversationthat Mr. White had stated

that he was going to Huntsvillethe weekend to k*ll someone.

NARRATOR: Huntsville policedrove to Vincent, Alabama,

about miles away, to interview James White.

He lived in a trailer on the outskirts of town.

James White was a handyman atthe Vincent Elementary School

where his children attended classes.

Betty Wilson's twin sister, Peggy Lowe,

taught first grade at the same school.

White had a past criminalrecord, a history

of drug and alcohol abuse,and a dishonorable discharge

from the military.

Police interrogated White for hours.

And he admitted being inside the Wilson

home the night of the m*rder.

-I'd been drinking for last three or four days,

popping pills, drinking, smoking dope.

And all I knew was I wanted to get away.

And they said the man gotbeat with a baseball bat.

But I don't remember a baseballbat being around nowhere.

But I do remember that I hit the man.

He turned me loose.

NARRATOR: Before police returned to Huntsville,

they searched White's trailer.

They found a pair of shoeswith a blood stain, which later

matched Jack Wilson's blood type.

In the abandoned house next door,

police discovered a revolver which

was registered to Betty Wilson.

And in James White's truck, a book

of poetry from theHuntsville Public Library,

which had been signed out by Betty Wilson.

Police arrested James White and charged

him in the m*rder of Jack Wilson.

Then, a shocking disclosure.

James White told police that Betty Wilson

and her twin sister Peggy Lowe had hired

him to k*ll Jack Wilson for $,.

Betty Wilson and Peggy Lowe were immediately

picked up for questioning.

BETTY WILSON: The police came.

They jerked me around.

They jerked my watch off of my arm

and threw it across the room saying,

you won't need this where you're going.

NARRATOR: As police looked for a motive,

rumors surfaced about theunconventional relationship

between Jack and Betty Wilson.

They lived separate liveswith separate bedrooms,

and not much of a sexual relationship.

Betty admitted to police, she had a number

of affairs while married to Jack.

Jack Wilson suffered from Crohn's Disease,

and wore an ostomy bag, which Betty

admitted to friends she found repulsive.

And in the mind of police,perhaps the strongest motive

of all, Betsy Wilson would receive the bulk

of her husband's $ million estate.

The star witness, JamesWhite, without whom there was

no case against the sisters,cut a deal with the prosecution.

And he even had it in writing.

He would implicate Betty Wilson and Peggy Lowe

in return for a reduced sentence.

The sisters were tried separately.

Betty Wilson went on trial first.

According to James White'stestimony and the prosecutions

interpretation of the autopsy findings,

James White entered the Wilson's home

and waited in one of the upstairs bedrooms.

Jack Wilson arrived ride home around : PM.

And neighbors saw himstep out to the front yard

to hammer a campaign poster intothe lawn with a baseball bat.

He then walked back inside the house

and headed upstairs to his bedroom.

White says, he changed his mind, and decided

not to m*rder Wilson.

But as he was leaving,encountered him in the hallway.

The two struggled.

White grabbed the baseball batand struck Wilson in the head.

[grunts]

He was then stabbed twice in the abdomen.

White said Betty Wilson met him outside

and drove him to his truck.

However, police forensicexperts found no evidence

of White's hair, clothing fibers,

or even a fingerprintinside Betty Wilson's car.

Lacking any strong physical evidence,

the prosecution attackedBetty Wilson's character.

And they subpoenaed one of her ex-lovers

to testify about their adulterous relationship.

The jury found Betty Wilsonguilty of capital m*rder,

and she was sentenced to lifein prison with no chance parole.

CHARLES HOOPER: I think Miss Wilson was

convicted on her personal conduct.

She couldn't have beenconvicted on the evidence.

I mean, the physical evidencewas not there to support it.

NARRATOR: The prosecutions next task,

to try Betty's twin sister,Peggy low for the same crime.

All of the witnesses and evidence against her

would be similar.

But what they hadn't bargained for was the testimony

of a defense expert who woulddrop a forensic bombshell--

that Jack Wilson was not m*rder*d in the way

the prosecution said.

Eight months after BettyWilson was convicted of m*rder

for hire, her twin sister, Peggy Lowe,

went on trial for the same crime.

This time, the prosecution couldn't

att*cked the defendant's lifestyle.

Peggy Lowe was a first grade school teacher.

She and her husband were active in local church.

And she was even the leadsinger with the church choir.

She had a long historyof helping those in need.

PEGGY LOWE: My friends did for me

what I couldn't do for myself.

When I could no longer cry, they cried for me.

When I couldn't pray, they prayed for me.

NARRATOR: Peggy Lowe's attorneys had time

to look for new evidence, and to go over

the testimony from her sister's trial.

One of the things they noticedwas that James White never

admitted k*lling Jack Wilson.

-The detectives told me thatI hit him with a baseball bat,

or I had to hit him with something rather heavy.

Uh-- and I think I told themthat I kept reaching until I

got something or other, and I hit the man.

And he turned me loose and I left.

NARRATOR: That was just one other things

that bothered Peggy Lowe's defense team.

The other was the crime scene.

DAVID CROMWELL JOHNSON: Howcould this man beat this man so

badly with a baseball batthat he broke his arms,

and stabbed him, and beat hishead terribly, and they're not

be any blood splatter patterns?

NARRATOR: The defense took theautopsy report and crime scene

photos to Georgia, and showed them

to Atlanta's Deputy Medical Examiner.

-And if someone is beingstruck with a blunt instrument

to cause lacerations like this, there's

going to be a spray of bloodthat, it's not only sprayed

when the instrument strikesthe head, or strikes the arm,

but also as theinstrument is raised back,

there's going to be a sprayedpattern that would go upwards

onto the wall or onto the ceiling.

And I was really struck by the fact

that, I could not really ascertain

any significant spray pattern at all.

NARRATOR: Dr. Sperry agreed totestify at Peggy Lowe's trial.

James White, once again, told his story.

But this time, he was severelychallenged by the defense.

DAVID CROMWELL JOHNSON: The whole case

rested on a man's testimony.

The man is a liar, a child molester,

shot his own men in Vietnam,he's been on psychedelic dr*gs.

He's a drunk.

He's a dope addict.

He's a cocaine user.

NARRATOR: The other strong defense challenge

came against the state medicalexaminer who did the autopsy.

-The story that the murderertold didn't make sense.

Not only did they not make practical sense,

they didn't make scientific sense.

And I believe that jurieslike scientific evidence.

NARRATOR: But the most startling testimony

was that of Dr. Kris Sperry.

-When a blunt instrument of any sort

is used to strike the headrepeatedly, it is very, very

common-- in fact, with repeated blows,

almost always you will have,not only transfer of blood

from the lacerations onto theinstrument, but hair, as well.

And finding hair embedded in blood that's

on the surface of the bluntinstrument such as the bat

would be very, very significant.

-There was no hair that Iknow of that found on the bat.

As far as the skull, I don't know of any.

But all they did was the blood typing on the bat.

NARRATOR: But Dr. Sperrywent even further saying,

he doubted that the bat wasthe m*rder w*apon at all.

And James White never admitted using the bat.

-Looking at the injuries that Dr. Wilson had,

I felt that the injury pattern,that is, the lacerations

and the fractures beneaththese lacerations,

were not of the type that would typically

be caused by a baseball bat.

Baseball bats cause crushinginjuries of the head,

and will actually crushin the bones of the skull,

just like an egg was being crushed.

NARRATOR: The linear patternsof the wounds to Dr. Wilson's

scalp led Dr. Sperry toconclude that it was more likely

a fireplace poker that was used on Jack Wilson.

This was also explain the puncture wound

found on Dr. Wilson's shoulder.

-This was rather unusual,in and of itself.

And no one really had an explanation

for that particular injury.

But when you think about a fireplace poker,

that many of them aredesigned with a sort of a hook

or a point that sticksout at a degree angle,

suddenly, that also made sense.

And it fit together with the whole pattern.

NARRATOR: The autopsy report indicated

that Dr. Wilson's hyoid bone had been fractured.

Sperry believed Wilson had also been strangled.

-It didn't make a damnhow Dr. Wilson got k*lled.

The question was, who did it?

And James White admitted to doing it,

whether he stomped him, beat him with a bat,

beat him with a stick.

But that's the type of bull thatexperts try and sell to juries.

-And he had a theory thatthere was three people-- two

to three people, that broughtthe body back to the scene

and dumped there on the scene,which was utterly, to me,

ridiculous.

-What k*lled Dr. Wilson was not the issue.

The issue was, did BettyWilson and Peggy low conspire

with James White to k*ll Jack Wilson?

And Sperry brings in thisphotograph of something that

happened in a book and shows the jury

and says, oh, itcouldn't have been a bat.

What difference does it make?

Dr. Wilson was beaten to death.

NARRATOR: But to convict Peggy Lowe,

the jury would have to believe James White.

And if Dr. Sperry was correct, the m*rder

didn't happen that way James White said.

There were now two scenarios as to how

Jack Wilson was m*rder*d.

Neighbors saw him on thefront lawn around : PM,

hammering the political poster into the ground

with a baseball bat.

Using Dr. Sperry's interpretation,

he was then att*cked byat least two individuals.

During the struggle, Wilson'shyoid bone was fractured.

He was struck at least nine times in the head,

and at least once in the shoulder,

creating the puncture woundin the back of his neck,

then stabbed twice in the abdomen.

The body was then placed in a tarp

and carried into the house,dropped onto the wooden floor,

and then turned degrees.

His head brushed against the doorway molding,

leaving a blood stain, and the swirling

blood pattern on the floor.

They smeared blood onto the bat, so it

would look like the m*rder w*apon,

took the fireplace poker and knife and fled.

The jury deliberated less than two hours.

JUDGE: Ladies and gentlemen,have you arrived at a verdict.

JURY FORMAN: Yes, we have.

JUDGE: Would you read theverdict for me, please?

JURY FORMAN: We, the jury,find the defendant not guilty.

[gasps and cheers]

BETTY WILSON: It was such a relief.

I cried so hard people thought that she

got the guilty verdict.

But they were tears of joy and relief.

NARRATOR: But how could Doctors Sperry and Embry

come to such different conclusions?

We asked two board certifiedforensic pathologists to review

the autopsy report, as well asthe crime scene photographs.

They both agreed the autopsy Dr.Embry performed was flawless.

It just wasn't enough.

Forensic science begins at the crime scene.

And the fact that police and the prosecution

never showed Dr. Embrythe bat or the crime scene

photographs until just a fewdays before the first trial

was a serious mistake.

Both experts suggested that athorough forensic examination

of the crime scene might have revealed

the cause of the puncturewound on Wilson's shoulder.

But the two experts disagreed about the bat.

One was bothered by the lengthof Jack Wilson's hair on it.

The other wasn't.

Dr. Walter Hoffman feels the lack

of a thorough forensic crime scene examination

opened the door for the defense.

-If the law enforcementagency doesn't ask for help

and does it all on its ownand then ships the body in

for autopsy, a certainvital amount of information

has been lost.

You lose the ability toreally evaluate the scene,

as it is found in a virginal state,

before anyone has walked aroundit and done anything with it.

NARRATOR: Dr. Embry, whoperformed the autopsy on Jack

Wilson, didn't visit the crime scene.

Although Dr. Embry continuesto stand by his findings,

he declined the opportunity to defend

those findings for this program.

After Peggy Lowe's acquittal, James White

recanted his confession.

In a signed affidavit he said, he never

met or even spoke with Betty Wilson.

That he was neverpropositioned by Peggy Lowe

to m*rder Dr. Jack Wilson.

And that he made it all up.

But he now says he was coercedinto signing that statement,

and has gone back to his original version.

He remains in an Alabamaprison, eligible for parole

in just a few years.

-I pleaded guilty to the case,but I didn't k*ll the man.

But I knew about the situation.

So in a sense, I feel like thatI'm here for the right reason.

-James Innocent White would have sold his soul

to get a good deal andavoid the electric chair.

I believe that's exactly what he did.

NARRATOR: Two sisters, two trials,

the same forensic evidence.

Yet, two different verdicts.

Betty Wilson has been inprison for the last four years,

serving a life sentencewith no chance of parole.

Her first appeal was turned down.

Another is pending.

Peggy Lowe hopes for the dayher sister will get a new trial.

PEGGY LOWE: There's nobody therewho cares anything about her.

There's nobody to put their arms around her.

There's nowhere for her to cry.

There's no privacy.

And the more things like that I realize,

the more pain I feel for her.

BETTY WILSON: It was a nightmare,

and it hasn't ended yet.

I don't know that it will ever end.

Not for me. Not for my children.

For my preciousgrandchildren, or my mother,

it will never end, never.

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