13x39 - Separation Anxiety

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He made lots of money and liked
to show it off.

It wasn't a phase with him.

That's how he lived.

He was known to
gamble, sometimes too much.

He had had some gambling debts.

He had some troubles with the

When he ends up
dead, his two ex-wives and a

girlfriend are all suspects, but
someone was sloppy.

You can plan and plan and
plan, but you'll never plan for

everything.

Around 2002, the
real-estate market in the

dallas/fort worth area of Texas
was booming.

And David Nixon made a fortune.

He had a very big personality.

He was always smiling, he was
always happy.

He liked nice things... nice
clothes, nice cars, nice women.

Nixon primarily
sold real estate in grapevine,

Texas, just outside
dallas/fort worth.

Well, grapevine... it's a
very vibrant city, very

suburban.

There is some money here.

But the main focus is the lake.

People want to live by it and
have very nice homes around it.

But David's idyllic
life started to unravel one

Sunday night when his ex-wife
walked into police headquarters

to report him missing.

She said he didn't show up for a
dinner meeting with their


which was very unusual.

She said he wasn't returning
telephone calls either.

David Nixon was a great
father who kept in contact with

his son, even though he was
divorced from his wife, and

would constantly keep in contact
with him.

I can't really put my finger
on anything.

I just have a gut feeling that
there's something about this one

that there's more to it than
just the typical missing person.

Just a few hours
later, a motorist 10 miles away

spotted a fire in the parking
lot of an abandoned building.

When he got closer, he was
horrified to see what looked

like a human body.

The upper portion of the body
was engulfed in flames.

An accelerant was believed to
have been used, like gasoline.

The victim, wrapped
in a blue tarp and a blanket,

was clearly a large white male
with brown hair.

Dental records confirmed it was
David Nixon.

It looked like at some point,
someone may have tried to stuff

the body down the drainage
ditch.

The body wouldn't fit.

If David's body had actually
gone all the way down into that


never been found.

Friends and family
were shocked by his m*rder.

It's such a cruel way to die...

To light someone on fire.

There was no blood

or any sign of a struggle, which
meant David had likely been

k*lled elsewhere.

But it was clear that where
the body was found was not the

primary scene... that this was
a dumping site and that the body

had been set on fire to destroy
potential evidence.

And David's body
had been wrapped in a blanket...

A possible clue to the m*rder
site.

There was a group of
filamentous wires, meaning very

fine wires, from the charred
remnants of the blanket.

Your typical blanket does not
include metal fibers, unless

it's a heat-generating blanket,
such as an electric blanket.

A fractured rib
alerted the medical examiner to

a b*llet pathway that led from
David's left side...

Through his heart.

Cause of death was a single
g*nsh*t.

It was a small-caliber
handgun.

They couldn't determine, you
know, what caliber because we

never found the b*llet.

To investigators,
it seemed strange that David's

ex-wife reported him missing
just three hours before his body

was found.

And police soon learned she had
a possible motive... a

half-million-dollar motive.

At David Nixon's
autopsy, the medical examiner

discovered that David had been
shot with a small-caliber

b*llet.

And tests showed his body had
been soaked with gasoline before

the fire.

Despite the damage, the medical
examiner was able to analyze

undamaged tissue to estimate
when David was shot.

I was able to estimate that,
at room temperature, the body

was probably deceased for 36 to


discovered.

Since David's body
was discovered Sunday night past

midnight, he was probably k*lled
either late Thursday night...

Or early Friday morning.

David's m*rder bore striking
similarities to another unsolved

m*rder that occurred just four
months earlier.

Literally happened across the
street.

The victim, a


Janet Dolan, was k*lled with a
single g*nsh*t...

Before her body was transported,
doused with gasoline, and set on

fire.

It would appear to be more
like an execution- or a

message-style m*rder when you
have somebody shot and wrapped

up and burned.

But while the
similarities between the cases

were striking, so were the
differences.

First of all, we had a female
versus a male victim.

David Nixon was
wealthy, had no criminal

history, and was not the type to
put himself in harm's way.

Janet Dolan was just the
opposite.

She probably put herself in
some very strange situations

with people she did not know.

And Janet's m*rder
seemed to be a crime of

opportunity, not something that
had been planned.

Police concluded it was possible
but highly unlikely the cases

were connected.

But investigators got a break
when they discovered forensic

evidence at David Nixon's crime
scene.

There were tire impressions
found within 10 feet of David's

body.

It obviously, we believe, was
the vehicle that transported him

there.

The tracks were
from a dual-axle vehicle,

meaning it was a truck with two
sets of tires on the back and

one set on the front.

There's two sets of tires,
two sets of different tires...

The front and rear.

Those had dramatically different
tire-tread impressions.

But who wanted David Nixon dead?

The thing that I've seen when
you're dealing with m*rder cases

is that there's generally two
reasons people k*ll... love and

money.

David's ex-wife
Donna had both of these motives.

There were problems in David
and Donna's relationship.

Obviously, he left her for a
young flight attendant, which,

of course, hurt her deeply.

Donna would also
benefit from David's

half-million-dollar insurance
policy until their young son

came of age.

In crime investigating, one
of the cardinal rules is follow

the money.

And, of course, the ex-wife had
just been named a beneficiary of

an insurance policy, and the
first thing police were gonna do

under those circumstances was
take a good, long, hard look at

her.

But Donna was
cooperating fully with the

investigation and was an
unlikely k*ller.

She also had an alibi for
Thursday night and Friday

morning, the estimated time of
death.

As the investigation went
along, it was clear that the

evidence did not point in the
direction of Donna.

David's second
ex-wife also had an alibi for

the time of David's m*rder... an
alibi confirmed by numerous

witnesses.

Next, investigators questioned
David's current girlfriend,



Tracey said she last saw David
on Thursday and she assumed he

was headed to las Vegas, where
he liked to gamble.

Was headed to las Vegas, where
he liked to gamble.

It was discovered that he had
had some gambling debts and he

had some troubles with the IRS.

Tracey consented to
a search of the house she shared

with David.

We searched the home with
luminol.

We did a search with cadaver
dogs.

They found no
evidence of blood, and the

cadaver dogs didn't find
anything either.

But investigators did find one
possible clue.

As they searched the house,
they found electric-blanket

controls, but they didn't find
an electric blanket, which was

kind of odd because they found
David wrapped in an electric

blanket.

A day later, police
found David's white Lexus

abandoned in a supermarket
parking lot within walking

distance of their house.

There was no blood or sign of
v*olence in the car.

But something immediately caught
investigators' attention.

One of the first things
investigators notice is that the

seat is pushed up toward the
steering wheel, which would

indicate that a much smaller
person had been in it last and

not a big man like David Nixon.

Investigators hope
the store's security cameras

might shed some light on who
left David's car in the lot.

When police
interviewed David Nixon's

live-in girlfriend,
Tracey frame, she claimed David

was headed to las Vegas on the
night he disappeared.

Tracey also revealed she didn't
have an alibi for the night

David was m*rder*d.

She said she was at home alone.

We as a family didn't really
know much of anything.

He didn't bring her up.

I never spoke to her on the
phone.

She was a mystery to all of us,
really.

A background check
revealed the two had an

interesting past.

The couple met at a lake party
shortly after David's second

wife left him.

Tracey was a successful
accountant with no children.

Shortly after they got together,
David bought two matching

cars... a black Lexus for
Tracey, a white one for him.

And because he owed back taxes
to the IRS, David decided to

place his house in Tracey's
name... a decision he came to

regret.

David wanted to regain
control of the house, and Tracey

wanted to make sure that she
kept the house in her name.

But there was one
seemingly insurmountable hurdle

to her being a suspect.

In looking at her,
investigators had to decide how

she could've moved the body.

After all, she was... although
she was a trim and strong young

woman, she was almost half the
weight of David, and moving him

would've been no easy task.

Then Tracey's
neighbors told police they saw a

large rental truck parked at
their house during the weekend

David went missing.

Next, police analyze the
security video of the

supermarket parking lot where
they found David's car.

At 1:34 A.M., just 37 minutes
before David's burning body was

found, a woman got out of
David's white Lexus, walked to a

black Lexus, and drove away.

You kind of look and go, "you
know, that looks like Tracey,"

especially when she got in the
black car.

You're thinking, "man."

Four hours earlier,
the black Lexus drove into the

lot, the same woman got out,
walked across the lot to a

rental truck, and drove away.

Tape showed that the previous
afternoon, this same woman had

parked the rental truck in the
lot, then left on foot with a

large black dog.

Tracey had a large black dog.

It does seem to be highly
coincidental that the same

person that you're looking at
would also have a black Lexus, a

white Lexus, access to a penske
truck, and to walk a dog similar

to the one that Tracey frame
had.

Because the camera
was so far away, there was no

way to positively identify the
woman.

If this was Tracey frame, they'd
need some way to prove it.

If this was Tracey frame, they'd
need some way to prove it.

Police had
surveillance tapes showing an

unidentified woman parking two
different cars in a

shopping-center parking lot next
to a large rental truck.

The two cars matched the make
and model of those owned by

David Nixon and his girlfriend,
Tracey frame.

Police also had surveillance
video of the same woman walking

into the store on the night
David's body was discovered.

Wasn't able to really pick
her up throughout the store but

could pick her up at the
register again.

The woman purchased
garbage bags and two bottles of

muriatic acid.

Although muriatic acid is
sold in small amounts to private

individuals, mostly it's used as
a solvent or a cleaner in heavy

industry.

That's when
investigators noticed something

important.

In order to save 34 cents on her
purchase, the woman used her

discount card.

And store records showed the
name on the card was none other

than Tracey frame.

After the purchase, she drove
away in the rental Van.

The rental agency told
investigators they had rented

that same truck to three other
people in the days after Tracey

returned it.

Investigators found no blood or
any trace of acid inside the

truck.

But the tire impressions were
potential evidence.

My job was to see if there
was any relation between the

tires that were photographed of
the moving vehicle and what was

left at the scene.

By laying the test
impressions over the evidence

photos, analysts were able to
compare all six tires on the Van

to those found at the scene.

I was able to document that
six different tires...

That had two different types of
tire-tread impressions...

Two different sets of class
characteristics, were

represented very neatly on the
scene.

This meant it was
virtually certain Tracey's

moving Van left these tire
tracks.

But one question remained.

A lot of folks have asked
the question, you know, "how

does a woman Tracey's size move
a guy that large?"

The answer...

A hand truck came with the
moving vehicle.

She merely has to place the
hand truck on the bed beside him

and roll him over on top of it
and strap him to it.

Once he is strapped to that hand
truck, then it's just a matter

of pulling the hand truck
around.

Investigators
believe Tracey knew David was

planning to leave her and she
wanted to keep the house that

was still in her name.

Late Thursday night, as he
slept...

She shot him with an
unregistered handgun friends

said he kept in the house.

She wrapped the body in blankets
from the bed.

The next day, Friday, she drove
David's car to the rental

agency, where she rented a
moving Van.

She waited until nightfall and
used a hand truck to get David's

body into the Van.

Then she drove 14 miles to the
isolated parking lot, where she

tried to dispose of the body in
a large drain.

But it was too big.

It wouldn't fit.

She panicked and left, leaving
the tire impressions.

Worried that she'd have to
explain why the moving Van was

parked at her house for an
extended period, she parked it

at the supermarket and walked
home with her dog.

On Sunday night, she returned to
the supermarket, bought trash

bags and muriatic acid, and
identified herself by using her

discount card to save 34 cents.

That night, she cleaned the
truck, doused David's body with

gasoline, set it on fire, then
exchanged vehicles again and

returned home.

Once in custody, Tracey was
found to have linear bruises on

her thighs at exactly the height
the hand truck would have hit

her body.

Police also found evidence that
Tracey purchased a new mattress

for her bedroom and had the old
one removed.

We don't know where the new
mattress came from.

I would think that that mattress
was probably taken to...

One of these illegal dumping
sites as opposed to, you know,

obviously, being put in a
dumpster somewhere.

Police believe that
money was the motive.

Tracey was complaining about
David one time.

Her friend Carol... she said,
"well, why don't you just leave

him?"
And she said, "well, without

him, I'd be living in an
apartment and driving a Honda."

In march of 2005, a
jury took just four hours to

convict Tracey frame of
first-degree m*rder.

She was sentenced to 40 years in
prison.

She'll be eligible for parole
after 20.

Police were looking at the
totality of the coincidences...

The black Lexus, the white
Lexus, the penske truck, the

woman walking the dog, and, at
the same time, her personal

shopper's card being used to buy
some muriatic acid.

It was just too much for police
not to determine that she was

probably the one.

The fact that, you know, she
ran that card over and saved...

I don't know.

What was it... 34 cents?

Something like that.

Nice.

Science was this case...

Pure and simple.

I mean, there was... there was
really nothing else.

That's what sealed it for her.

You can plan and plan and
plan, but you'll never plan for

everything.