06x13 - Horse Play

[bunniefuu]

Narrator: on a warm summer evening in ,

A young married couple took their horses out

For a leisurely ride through the woods.

One of the horses bucked and threw the rider.

The autopsy confirmed it was an accident...

But the family wasn't so sure.

Narrator: hillsdale county, michigan-- population just over ,.

This is farm country-- soybeans and corn, mostly;

A hospitable place where friends drop in unexpectedly,

And there's always room for one more at the dinner table.

-Year-old shannon mohr

Was a quiet, unassuming young woman

Who grew up in nearby toledo, ohio.

She was a very good student in school,

And she said, when she was in first grade--

'Cause she went to a catholic school--

"I'll be a nun, or I'll be a nurse."

And she became a nurse.

Narrator: in september of ,

Shannon mohr met an eligible bachelor from hillsdale county--

-Year-old david davis.

The two met at a friend's wedding.

Lucille: shannon came home from the wedding of this other nurse

And said, "mom, I met this real nice man.

"And he's just--we spent the whole evening together.

"We had such a wonderful time.

"He told me he was a millionaire.

"He has farms all over the united states and in belize,

"And he's going to call me.

We have a date set up."

I thought the world of him from the very beginning.

He was just a kind of a rugged, outdoor-type person--

Liked to fish and hunt.

I thought he was good to my daughter,

And that's the only thing that I cared about.

Lucille: and I said to her,

"Shannon, if you let this one get away from you,

You're nuts."

Narrator: after an -week courtship,

Shannon and david married

And moved to david's michigan farm.

It seemed to be the ideal place to raise a family.

They bought two tennessee walking horses,

Which were recommended because of their gentle nature.

On july , , months after the wedding,

Shannon and david rode their horses

To see their neighbor d*ck britton.

Britton: how was your ride, shannon?

Shannon: it was great.

Good. Real good. Real good.

Narrator: d*ck was having a problem with some farm machinery,

So david spent time helping him.

Britton: we worked probably half an hour on this tool.

Then shannon come up and asked me

About taking our boy norman home with them.

And I went to...

I went to turn around and tell her,

"Sure, go ahead and take him,"

And dave said, "no, you can come get him in the morning."

You know, shannon had asked me the question,

But he had answered.

And so I dropped it.

Narrator: david and shannon then mounted their horses and left.

See you later, d*ck.

Narrator: instead of going back the way they came,

They took a shortcut through the woods.

A short time later,

David raced out of the woods back to d*ck britton's farm.

d*ck, come quick!

Britton: he come riding back,

And he had blood on his shirt, and he was sweaty--

Perspiring hard,

Like he'd been in a fight or something.

Kind of half fell off his horse

And said that shannon had fell off her horse,

And she was hurt bad.

Narrator: davis said that shannon's horse had bolted.

He said she fell and hit her head on a rock.

Shannon was lying on her back.

Her eyes were closed.

There was blood on the back of her head.

Shannon's blouse was undone,

And her sneakers were off--

Which britton thought was unusual.

I think we'd better get her to the car.

Ok.

Narrator: shannon was rushed to the nearest hospital.

Britton: I was blowing the horn, tootin' it as loud as I could,

And this nurse come running out.

And I says, "we need a doctor.

I'll run to the front and tell 'em that she's hurt bad."

Narrator: shannon's lifeless body

Was wheeled into the emergency room,

Where doctors checked for vital signs.

There weren't any.

The time of death was arbitrarily set at : p.m.

The wound in the back of shannon's head

And the x-rays taken at the hospital

Were consistent with david's explanation

That she had fallen from her horse and hit her head.

Her death certificate listed the cause of death

As "multiple cranial and cervical spine injuries."

Since shannon died in one county

And was declared dead in another,

No autopsy was performed

Because of a jurisdictional mix-up.

That failure would later come back to haunt shannon's family.

Narrator: shannon mohr had two lifelong dreams:

The first, to become a nurse; the other, to raise a family.

She graduated from nursing school

And had been married less than a year.

Her dreams for a family would never be fulfilled

Because of a freak horseback-riding accident

Which took her life at .

When shannon's parents lucille and bob mohr arrived at the hospital,

Her husband david davis was in the hall crying.

They all instinctively hugged each other, just as they always did.

Lucille: he grabbed me, and as he grabbed me,

He ran his hand under my face.

And I looked, and there was deep scratches--

And I mean [span tts:fontstyle="italic"]deep[/span]scratches.

David: please, god.

Narrator: shannon's father had other concerns.

David insisted that shannon's body be cremated.

As a catholic, bob mohr was opposed.

The mohr family wanted to take shannon's body back to ohio,

To bury her there.

At that point, d*ck britton stepped in.

Britton: her mother was crying, and bob was crying,

So I stood right up and yelled at him.

I said, "dave, that's her folks."

They said, "nobody knows her out here."

I said, "let 'em take her back to toledo and bury her there."

I said, "her people will come to her grave and put flowers on it."

I said, "she don't know anybody here."

And he backed down, said, "ok."

Narrator: the next day,

Deputies from the hillsdale county sheriff's department

Visited the scene of the accident.

They found the bloody rock--

The only rock for some distance around.

Not far away were shannon's untied sneakers,

Lying about feet apart.

And there was an area

Where the grass had been matted down.

Britton: they looked around a little bit,

Took a few pictures, and left.

And I asked them about the shoes,

And they said, "no, you can have them."

Narrator: over the next several days,

The mohrs made arrangements to bury their daughter.

David's parents, whom the mohrs had never met,

Came to the funeral.

And what they had to say made it clear

That everything david had told the mohrs about his past

Was a lie.

He was not a millionaire.

He didn't own farms all over the country.

And even more shocking was the fact

That he had been married before and had two daughters.

The mohrs believed their daughter's death

Was no accident.

d*ck britton had come to the same conclusion

Because of something davis had said the day after shannon's death.

Britton: so the next morning, we're sitting at my table,

And he wants to know about the neighbor.

He said, "does the neighbor still want to sell his farm?"

And I said, "huh?"

And he said, "never mind."

And I'm thinking,

"How can you be thinking of buying a farm

The next morning after your wife died?"

Then he left, and that-- that just kept working on me.

I kept thinking...

That don't sound right, you know, it just...

Narrator: a week after shannon's death,

d*ck britton and the mohrs took their suspicions

To the hillsdale county sheriff's office.

The mohrs discovered

That davis had taken out insurance policies

On shannon's life totaling $,

During the months they were married.

The mohrs demanded an autopsy,

And shannon's body was exhumed a month after her death.

The autopsy revealed

A /-inch gash on the back of shannon's head

Along with bruises on her upper back,

Left shoulder,

Her upper right arm,

Right hand, and left cheekbone.

But they found no evidence of foul play.

The coroner concluded

That shannon died of the head injury.

The sheriff's department considered the case closed.

Believe it or not, yes.

When they first brought her up and said there was no evidence,

I thought, "they're missing something.

There has to be."

And I knew then we had to keep going

One way or another, because something was wrong.

Narrator: the mohrs weren't the only ones who were suspicious.

Billy bowles, a reporter for the [span tts:fontstyle="italic"]detroit free press,[/span]

Uncovered some devastating information on david davis,

Painting him as a consummate liar

Who lived off money gained from suspicious insurance claims.

One claim was for a questionable fire

On a farm davis once owned.

Man: the vacant farmhouse burned,

And he collected about $, insurance for that.

The barn burned mysteriously while he was away,

And he collected $, for that.

In addition to those,

He had left a job at chrysler after a very suspicious injury,

And he was collecting workmen's compensation

And social security for that.

Narrator: bowles' investigation revealed, among other things,

That davis had studied pharmacology in college.

Armed with this new information,

The mohr family asked the state's attorney general

To open a new investigation.

Shannon's autopsy revealed

She died of a single blow to her head.

Detective don brooks had two theories.

Man: number one,

This young lady actually fell from the horse

And struck the only rock around squarely--

And it really is an accident--

Or number two, he k*lled her.

And the only way, in my opinion,

For him to get her in a position

Where he could slam her head into that rock

Was to have her completely immobilized.

So we wanted to look at the possibility

That she was drugged at the time--

Something that would paralyze her

But leave her heart still pumping

And still-- she's still alive.

Narrator: with davis' background in pharmacology,

Police asked local veterinarians

What dr*gs farmers use with their animals that can cause paralysis.

One of the dr*gs mentioned

Was a powerful muscle relaxant named succinylcholine--

Used in animal surgery.

Man: after anesthesia has been induced,

They will go ahead and give you some succinylcholine.

And what it will do is completely paralyze every...

What we call skeletal muscle.

It won't hurt the heart, but it will--

All the intercostal muscles, which help in breathing,

Or anything that you use to voluntarily move--

It will absolutely prevent those muscles from functioning.

Narrator: it's also used in humans.

In large doses, succinylcholine can be fatal.

But there was a problem.

Succinylcholine is broken down in the body almost immediately

And is therefore undetectable.

If this was the drug david davis used on shannon,

He had gotten away with m*rder.

Narrator: in the months since shannon mohr's death,

Her husband david davis sold his michigan farm and moved to the bahamas,

Where he lived on his sailboat with his new girlfriend.

Davis was waiting for the conclusion of shannon's investigation

So that he could collect the $,

From her life insurance policies.

Although the autopsy was consistent

With davis' version of her death,

The crime scene wasn't.

Davis said he and shannon were riding back to their farm

When shannon's horse bucked,

Threw her to the ground,

And her head hit a rock.

But the rock she hit

Was the only one within yards.

For some unexplained reason,

Shannon's blouse was unbuttoned,

And her shoes were removed and placed a few yards away.

The grass was matted around the body.

Police wondered whether davis might have injected shannon

With some kind of paralyzing agent, like succinylcholine, before her death.

There was no known test to identify succinylcholine,

But local scientists heard about a new test developed in sweden

Which was having some success finding succinylcholine

Even in embalmed tissue.

Dr. Robert forney and tom carroll

Took shannon's tissues to the karolinska institute in sweden.

It took a team of toxicologists several weeks of trial and error

Just to extract a sample they could test.

Man: we were working -hour days

Working on trying to get the method perfected.

And once we got the method perfected,

Then we started analyzing all of shannon's tissues.

Narrator: the tests were conducted with a mass spectrometer,

Which bombards chemical molecules with ions--

Shattering them into their molecular components.

The fragmentation creates a chemical fingerprint

That can be compared to other chemical fingerprints

To determine the unknown's identity.

After weeks of testing and hundreds of tests,

Scientists finally got a break.

I looked over in one corner,

And in that one corner was one piece of paper.

And on that piece of paper was a perfect mass spectra of succinylcholine.

And that piece of paper was identified

To have come from shannon's tissues.

That caused...a riot.

Narrator: when prosecutors in michigan learned the news, they were elated,

But they didn't feel it was enough.

They wanted more evidence and needed to know where davis had injected her.

As a result,

For the second time, shannon's body was exhumed.

Carroll: the vast majority of the injuries sustained by shannon

Were on the left side of her body--

Her left shoulder, her left back,

And the left side of her head--

Which would indicate a fall to the left

And then falling on your left.

On her right side, however,

There was a bruise

In the upper quadrant of the right arm

And also on the hand.

So those were the only bruises that you saw on her right side.

Narrator: dr. Forney took tissue samples from all the bruise sites

And returned to sweden.

He discovered that shannon's right wrist and upper arm

Had much higher concentrations of succinylcholine

Than her other tissues--

An indication that davis had injected her twice.

Based on that evidence,

David davis was finally charged with shannon mohr's m*rder.

When police went to arrest davis,

He was nowhere to be found.

The search for davis dragged on for months...

And then years.

Narrator: police believe that david richard davis m*rder*d his wife

By injecting her with a lethal drug,

Making the death look like a horseback-riding accident.

The drug he allegedly used was believed to be undetectable,

But a team of determined toxicologists found it.

For / years,

Davis eluded police before they finally got a break.

A story about shannon's m*rder appeared on network television.

An old girlfriend of davis' called police with a tip.

She called, and she wanted to tell me about an individual

That she thought could be david davis.

She knew him by a different name.

However, she was very, very reluctant to get involved.

She was in fear of her own life.

Narrator: the caller revealed

That davis was living in american samoa

With a samoan wife,

Under the name david meyer bell.

In the years since shannon's death,

He had lived in california, alaska, and hawaii.

He had taken flying lessons

And had become an expert bush pilot.

The f.b.i. Arrested davis

At the pago pago airport,

And he returned to michigan for trial.

Man: we know that he courted

And dated several women before shannon

And asked each of them to marry him

In an extremely short period of time.

In something like months,

He asked different women to marry him.

The first one who said yes became his victim.

Narrator: blumer said the motive was money

And that the m*rder was premeditated.

Prosecutors believe that after the couple left d*ck britton's farm,

Davis coaxed shannon off her horse

Under the pretext of having sex.

The couple had a habit of making love outdoors.

As shannon took off her shoes and unbuttoned her blouse,

Prosecutors believe davis snuck up behind her

And injected the succinylcholine in the shoulder.

The injection didn't take effect immediately.

The two fought, matting down the grass.

He then hit shannon on the head with the rock

And injected her again-- this time in the wrist.

The dose k*lled her instantly.

Blumer: if you're given an injection of succinylcholine

Outside of the hospital,

Where they can help you breathe by a respirator,

You'll die of suffocation,

And that's exactly what happened to shannon davis.

I believe that the succinylcholine

Answered the ever-present question

In the jury's mind-- and that was,

"If she didn't die from being thrown off a horse,

Then what k*lled her?"

We had to have that answer for the jury.

Narrator: the jury deliberated for / hours.

Lucille: my heart was pounding so hard.

And I thought, "it's over. We've got him."

Narrator: david davis was found guilty of first-degree m*rder.

I remember the courtroom was just full--

Burst of applause.

And instead of standing around and shaking hands,

I had to leave.

I had to leave the courtroom.

There was a law library right off the courtroom,

And I had to go in there.

And, uh...

It was pretty emotional.

Narrator: he was sentenced to life in prison.

Lucille: I know we went out to the cemetery right afterwards.

And we looked down and said, "we got him."

He was that good of a liar...

That I shouldn't feel too bad that he fooled us.

But I think of her living with a k*ller all that time--

Months, and I didn't know it.

And I also think I should have picked something up,

And I didn't.