Dominick Dunne: Power, Privilege & Justice - Traces of Evil   View more episodes

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Aired at 11:00 AM on Saturday, May 01, 2010 (5/1/2010)      View all transcripts from this day

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00:00:03>> I think it was a tremenus shock.
00:00:05Ov erflow funeral -- absolute door-to-door, wall-to-wall packed with people.
00:00:09Tremendous grief over her death.
00:00:11The initial reaction was purely grief.
00:00:14Very few suspected that this was anything more than a tragic death as a result of some strange bacterial problem.
00:00:20o=o=o=ñ?ñ?
00:00:21>> Narrator: But behind closed doors at the dillard mansion, suspicion builds.
00:00:27>> They thought maybe foul play had occurred and contacted the district attorney's office.
00:00:33>> Narrator: While richard signs the papers for an autopsy, big daddy pressures the authorities to take a closer look.
00:00:41>> We've got people that are suspecting things, but we still didn't have a cause of death.
00:00:45We had no idea until an autopsy was run.
00:00:48Doctors said it was toxic shock, so our hands are a little tied on how much we can do.
00:00:53Narrator: But the stories the dillards have to tell pique investigators' interests.
00:01:00>> There was a curious incident where someone left a bottle of wine on her porch along with a bottle of pills with a message that said, "to a special lady, " >> her family thought that possibly those things got her sick.
00:01:17>> Narrator: According to richard, nancy had been receiving threatening mail for months.
00:01:23>> A former boss of nancy's was involved in some very, very acrimonious litigation.
00:01:29Nancy's testimony had hurt him a great deal in that.
00:01:33>> Narrator: And the threats are still coming.
00:01:36>> Richard got a mysterious phone call on the home answering machine saying, "she got hers, " >> Narrator: Then investigators receive a phone call from the morgue.
00:01:49>> The medical examiner's office informed me that the cause of death for nancy dillard lyon was arsenic poisoning.
00:01:58>> Toxicology reports came back showing she had 100 times the normal amount of arsenic in her body.
00:02:06>> Once we got back those autopsy results, it became a murder case.
00:02:11>> At one time, arsenic was known as the king of poisons and the poison of kings.
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00:05:27>> Narrator: Days after nancy dillard lyon's mysterious death, her autopsy reveals fatal levels of arsenic.
00:05:34They quickly rule out nancy's former boss, then start taking a look closer to home.
00:05:42>> I contacted mr. dillard sr.
00:05:46At his home after the funeral and requested a meeting with him.
00:05:52He went over many things -- concerns t that nancy had discussed.
00:05:58>> Narrator: Prior to her death, nancy had confided in her father about problems at home.
00:06:04>> Nancy lyon was a very private person.
00:06:07She had been involved with her husband in a separation.
00:06:11The dillard family were not aware of the problems until just shortly before she became ill.
00:06:18>> Narrator: Then big daddy drops some big news.
00:06:22 said, "we think he may have been trying to " by "he," he was referring to his own son-in-law, richard lyon.
00:06:31>> Narrator: But all big daddy has to go on is gut instinct, and investigators will need more than finger-pointing to solve the case.
00:06:40>> We really didn't have a lot.
00:06:41We've got family suspicions, but we don't have enough to do much.
00:06:45It was such a far-out thing to consider that he could do something -- that a person could kill his wife and the mother of his children over anything.
00:06:55>> Were richard's long lashes and doleful eyes hiding óóuóuthe soul ;u[uuuuu of a monster?
00:07:01And if he had poisoned his wife, why?
00:07:04To find out, investigators would have to peer behind the facade of nancy dillard lyon's fairy-tale life.
00:07:21>> Nancy dillard was the youngest of four children, described as kind of bookish and shy, pretty young woman, smart as a whip, ambitious -- very much her father's daughter in that regard.
00:07:35>> Nancy grew up rich.
00:07:36They lived in a huge home, went to highland park high school.
00:07:41None of these kids ever wanted for anything.
00:07:44>> Narrator: While most of her friends chose big texas universities, nancy decided on hollins, a prestigious women's college in virginia.
00:07:54A few years later, nancy found her calling in landscape architecture and design.
00:08:01>> She was inspired to apply for the school of design at harvard university.
00:08:05There, sitting in one of her classes, was a young connecticut man named richard lyon.
00:08:11>> Richard certainly wasn't raised poverty-stricken, but he didn't come from anywhere near the wealth that nancy lyon did.
00:08:18>> His father was an insurance agent with five kids and a modest salary.
00:08:22They were a middle-class, striver type of family.
00:08:25>> Narrator: Despite their different backgrounds, nancy and richard quickly fell in love.
00:08:30>> They were always together.
00:08:32He was a quieter person.
00:08:33She was kind of the personality or the energy in the relationship.
00:08:37>> They were education-equal.
00:08:38They studied a lot together.
00:08:40Learned to mimic her handwriting and she learned to mimic his, and she wrote some of his term papers for him.
00:08:46By the time they got out of graduate school, they'd pretty well decided they were gonna get married.
00:08:51>> Narrator: After a lavish he couple settled inthe park cities.
00:08:56>> If you ask anybody in dallas, "where do the most influential, " they're gonna tell you the park cities.
00:09:06>> The park cities are known in " it's kind of an insular, country-club scene.
00:09:12These are people who have money or want to have money.
00:09:18They made the reasoned decision to live in dallas, largely on the advice of richard.
00:09:23Big daddy knew everybody in dallas.
00:09:26He could come up with jobs for both of them very quickly.
00:09:30>> As a connecticut yankee in big daddy's court, you'd think richard would have had trouble adjusting.
00:09:36But to the dillards' pleasant surprise, their new son-in-law was, as they say in texas, "happy as a gopher in soft " >> he left the lyons behind and became a dillard, and he adapted to it really well.
00:09:52The money, the influence, having the family name that gets you the jobs.
00:09:56And he fit right in.
00:09:59>> From all accounts from when they were first married -- typical park cities yuppie couple.
00:10:05Very much in love, very happy.
00:10:06>> Nancy worked for trammell crow, the donald trump of texas -- huge developer.
00:10:12She was very well-known inher professional life.
00:10:18>> Narrator: But despite their two incomes, the coue never seemed to keep their heads above water.
00:10:24>> They had no assets to speak of.
00:10:26Their home was heavily mortgaged.
00:10:28Their alfa romeo automobile was purchased on a credit card, for god's sakes.
00:10:32>> Narrator: Fortunately, there was always someone there to bail them out.
00:10:36>> Nancy's father, big daddy, was basically allowing them to continue to live on a month-to-month basis by paying off their bills.
00:10:43>> She was struggling hard to keep her marriage perfect, her children perfect, her job perfect.
00:10:48And she's tried very hard to please both her parents, but primarily her father.
00:10:54>> Narrator: But as detectives soon discover, while nancy was trying to keep up appearances, her storybook marriage was starting to show cracks.
00:11:03>> Nancy and richard's life began to change in the late '80s.
00:11:07Richard was working as a construction-project manager in houston, so he was out of town frequently.
00:11:13He often took trips with another project manager, a young woman named tami.
00:11:18During one of their trips, they started an affair.
00:11:22>> Narrator: Still, richard was committed to nancy and agreed to find his own apartment while the couple worked through their problems.
00:11:30>> She loved him.
00:11:31She'd build their plans around them being together in a perfect family.
00:11:35She wanted her children to be with their father.
00:11:38>> Narrator: Friends tell investigators that in december the couple reconciled and rich ard moved back inside the ]" ]áyáyáyáá< $44<<< l,l, ??
00:11:46B7bubble.
00:11:47It seemed like they'd put their troubles behind them.
00:11:50 dillard confided with me that the family liked richard.
00:11:54Nancy married him.
00:11:56He was the father of his grandkids.
00:11:59And he was accepted back into the family.
00:12:02>> Narrator: They spent christmas together in !íqí Connecticut, but their happy reunion was short-lived.
00:12:09A little over a week later, nancy was admitted to the hospital and never came home.
00:12:16[ Flatline ] in the days following his daughter's death, big daddy is plagued with lingering doubts about richard.
00:12:25But there's still no proof to support his suspicion.
00:12:28>> There was two views of nancy and richard -- one was a happy couple, parents of two young daughters that all family and friends adored.
00:12:37Then there was the couple that was having a problem with their marriage, but these weren't things that build a murder case.
00:12:45>> Narrator: Investigators focus on richard's behavior as his wife lay dying in the hospital.
00:12:54>> Well, it's hard to tell how someone's gonna react.
00:12:57Nurses and doctors related to us that it was more like a social event for him.
00:13:01Some of the nurses indicated that he even flirted with them.
00:13:04>> He never acted like the concerned husband whose wife is in intensive care and could pass away at any moment.
00:13:12He was too calm and collected for that kind of incident.
00:13:17>> Narrator: Then detectives track down richard's ex-girlfriend and make a shocking discovery.
00:13:24According to her, the fling was far from over.
00:13:27>> He was talking to the girlfriend while nancy was dying in the hospital.
00:13:31>> Narrator: Tami ann, the young, blue-eyed blonde, tells police she and richard were together before andafter nancy's death.
00:13:40>> Richard would spend like a drunken sailor when it came to tami.
00:13:43He bought her gifts.
00:13:45He bought her a $4,500 watch.
00:13:47He bought her an expensive leather coat.
00:13:50He would take her on trips to the colorado mountains, to taos, new mexico.
00:13:55>> Narrator: A week before nancy had been admitted to the hospital, richard told tami his wife was dying.
00:14:03>> Richard had told her when he took nancy back home for christmas to connecticut -- he had told the girlfriend that he was taking her to a hospital up there for an incurable blood disease she was dying from.
00:14:12>> Nancy's family was incensed.
00:14:14Then jaws dropped at police headquarters as well.
00:14:18>> Narrator: Police have finally established a possible motive for murder.
00:14:22But other than richard's unhusbandly behavior, they don't have a lot to go on.
00:14:28>> It was different than most murder cases.
00:14:30We knew we weren't gonna find someone that said, "we saw him " >> theice of weapon was the unique factor in this murder investigation.
00:14:39I wasn't looking for a gun, a knife, a club -- I was looking for proof that richard lyon had poisoned his wife.
00:14:52>> But that solid proof was still out of reach for the investigators.
00:14:58With no witnesses and no traces of arsenic in the lyon home, richard may have just gotten away with the perfect crime.
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00:17:56YEAH!!!!!! ( everyone cheering ) >> Narrator: A month after the arsenic poisoning of socialite nancy dillard lyon, suspicion swirls around her husband, richard.
00:19:17But without any hard evidence, police can't risk tipping their hand.
00:19:22They ask the dillards to play along.
00:19:24>> Even though they were convinced by that point that he was responsible for nancy's situation, they had to maintain a facade.
00:19:32I think it was strained, and i don't think he sought out their company, but they still kept up the front that they were there for him, taking care of him, and they were all grieving together.
00:19:41>> Narrator: But out from under the dillards' gaze, richard is hardly the mournful widower.
00:19:46>> Shortly after his wife died, his girlfriend was at the house a lot with their daughters.
00:19:52>> I thought, you know, suspicious.
00:19:54In very bad taste if nothing else.
00:19:57>> Narrator: And investigators see other red flags.
00:20:00>> Richard lyon never made a concerned call to find out why his wife had died, how she had died.
00:20:06Those are questions that most family members want to know right away, and he never called me or the medical examiner's office.
00:20:17>> Narrator: For weeks, they contact chemical distributors, hoping for a break.
00:20:21>> We were looking for a needle in a haystack as far as where he could have bought poisons, where he could have ordered some of these things.
00:20:28>> Narrator: Then a company in houston delivers some promising news -- their records reveal not one, but four separate purchases made by a richard lyon.
00:20:39>> He had purchased quite a laundry list of various types of poisons.
00:20:44>> Richard lyon had purchased chemicals as early as january of 1990, and the last purchase -- november 27th of 1990.
00:20:53He purchased mercury, barium carbonate, sodium nitroferricyanide, arsenic, arsenic standard, arsenic trioxide.
00:21:04>> Anything that had the word "cyanide" or "arsenic" or typical things that you associate as being a poison, he was ordering.
00:21:12We had the checks, and the people at the lab in houston that were selling him the chemicals, they could i.d. him.
00:21:18>> Narrator: Records reveal richard had some of the packages shipped to his office.
00:21:22>> We had his employers at the company he worked for telling us that they were a natural, organic company.
00:21:28They did not use those type of things.
00:21:30>> It just solidified that the investigation was going in the right direction.
00:21:36>> Narrator: Detectives ask richard to come down to headquarters for an interview.
00:21:41>> [ Clears throat ] >> Narrator: When they inform him of nancy's cause of death, richard is oddly unemotional.
00:21:48>> He wasn't surprised that she had been poisoned.
00:21:51He didn't show any reaction -- very calm, very collected about the whole thing.
00:21:55Now, you would think, your wife had died a month before from a very strange arsenic poisoning, but he didn't ask how she could've got it -- no questions.
00:22:03>> Narrator: When they ask him how nancy could've come in contact with arsenic, richard coolly informs them he and nancy were developing a new formula for killing insects.
00:22:14>> Both were semi-inventors.
00:22:16They were working on ways to kill fire ants.
00:22:19>> Richard had actually done some drawings where he'd drill down into the mound and put the arsenic at the base of the mound to kill the queen.
00:22:27>> Narrator: With nothing to hold him on, detectives are forced to turn richard loose.
00:22:32>> We were trying to do as much as we could do.
00:22:34We were trying to get all of our forensic evidence that we can find gathered together, because we don't need him any more suspicious than he is.
00:22:41>> The police could only keep nancy's cause of death from the press for so long.
00:22:46When word of the poisoning leaked out, dallas was abuzz.
00:22:51>> Neighbors of 37-year-old nancy dillhey can't understand why anyone would want to kill this mother of t.
00:22:59>> Her death was a tremendous shock, but it's a different sort u find out that a young mother and upstanding member of the community, in fact, had been murdered.
00:23:08>> There was a lot of interest in this case.
00:23:10This is a highland park family who have a ton of money, and i think people were attracted to the fact that it was a whodunit.
00:23:18>> Police are remaining tight-lipped about the suspectthe investigation.
00:23:23>> The thing was pretty much a media circus.
00:23:26And there was just as much untrue information in the newspapers as there was true information.
00:23:32And there was a lot of wild speculation.
00:23:34>> Narrator: With pressure mounting and the dallas elite demanding answers, police go public.
00:23:39>> Police investigators confirm they have only one suspect in their probe of the arsenic murder of nancy dillard lyon.
00:23:45Police say they are looking hard at her husband, richard lyon.
00:23:50>> With the heat turning up, here's where marrying rich may have saved his skin.
00:23:56Richard hired the most expensive lawyer he could find and hunkered down for the fight of his life.
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00:27:36>> Narrator: Days after police name richard lyon as their prime suspect, his newly retained defense attorney holds a press conference.
00:27:45>> There was a lot of talk in the community.
00:27:47And I could walk into a barbershop or something and could hear people talking about the case.
00:27:52There was a tremendous feeling that richard was guilty, and as a result of that, you have an entirely negative climate that's built up against your client.
00:28:02>> Contrary to the accusations made recently by the police, i did not poison my wife, nancy dillard lyon, nor did i have anything to do with her tragic death.
00:28:15>> I can tell you that our investigation on his behalf is very thorough.
00:28:19In the event that this case becomes a murder charge, this will be an honest-to-goodness perry mason-style whodunit.
00:28:30>> Narrator: Investigators decide it's time to make their move.
00:28:34With the girlfriend and receipts linking him to chemicals, their case is circumstantial but convincing.
00:28:41>> We knew we'd never get a confession from richard that he had done this.
00:28:44We knew we weren't gonna find someone that said, "we saw him " we decided we had enough when we knew we weren't gonna get any more.
00:28:51>> Narrator: On a may morning, five months after nancy's death, richard is charged with first-degree murder.
00:28:58>> Lyon was driving down preston road early this morning after dropping his two daughters off at child care.
00:29:04Police pulled him over, which apparently came as a total surprise.
00:29:08>> Richard lyon looked terrified to be in that situation -- maybe a little shocked to be in that situation -- but absolutely terrified.
00:29:15>> Richard lyon's arrest warrant paints a damaging picture of a man who says he didn't do it.
00:29:20Police later learned richard lyon ordered and purchased barium carbonate, arsenic, and other chemicals through his employer.
00:29:27The employer tells police lyon is not authorized to order such chemicals.
00:29:35>> Richard's bluff had been called.
00:29:37Everyone in dallas was ready to send him to the chair.
00:29:41But he wasn't about to fold s hand, because he had one naughty little c to play.
00:29:50>> I got a call one night a little after 10:00 from richard.
00:29:54And he said, "you need to come over here right now.
00:29:57" I get up, get dressed, I go over there, and richard is in the bedroom, and he's found notes from nancy.
00:30:06And in those notes are things where nancy expresses a fear of sex when she's not in control.
00:30:13She feels helpless.
00:30:16>> Narrator: Then richard reveals a dark family secret.
00:30:20>> Richard had related to me that he had learned that nancy had had an incestuous relationship with her brother.
00:30:31>> When nancy lyon was 11 years old and her brother was 13, their mother caught them having sex.
00:30:39She was horrified.
00:30:41The family's reaction, beyond away to boarding school, was apparently virtually nil.
00:30:48I think it was something that stayed with nancy for her whole life.
00:30:52In fact, when richard began having an affair, she partially blamed herself.
00:30:57>> Narrator: In the year before her death, old wounds had resurfaced.
00:31:02>> Her father, big daddy, insisted that his children had simply been playing doctor and it was perfectly normal.
00:31:08Nancy knew it wasn't perfectly normal, that it was far beyond perfectly normal.
00:31:13>> She was a very messed up young lady inside.
00:31:16Do I think she was desperate?
00:31:18I think absolutely.
00:31:18Richard's probably the first man in her life she ever really loved and trusted, and so when he was thinking about moving out and getting a divorce, I think that was very traumatic for her.
00:31:31>> Narrator: Richard tells his lawyers that while they were separated, he noticed that nancy had received a bouquet of flowers.
00:31:38>> Nancy told him that these flowers had been sent by the school where the girls were enrolled.
00:31:44Richard looked at the card, and it said something like, "we're so sorry that you're being treated like you are by your " we were able to trace those flowers, and nancy had sent them to herself.
00:31:55>> Narrator: Was the same true of the bottle of wine and pills she supposedly found on her doorstep?
00:32:02>> Nancy said that she found a bottle of wine on the front porch of the duplex and that even though it was uncorked, she drank it.
00:32:11Okay. let me rewind that.
00:32:13This is a woman who went to harvard -- a smart woman.
00:32:17She finds a bottle of wine on the front porch of her house and she drinks it?
00:32:22And she in a very dramatic way gives the bottle of wine to the nanny and says, "if anything happens to me, you please give " >> Narrator: The defense also learns that nancy admitted herself to the hospital several times before her final visit.
00:32:38>> I have no doubt that several of the hospital visits that she had before then were feigned.
00:32:44There was never any real diagnosis of what was wrong with her on any of those, but it was effective, because every time she would do that, richard would rush to her bedside and pay particular attention to her.
00:32:54>> Narrator: But the most puzzling revelation comes from the defense team's toxicology expert.
00:33:01>> I sent the hair samples, the fingernail samples, blood samples -- all for routine analysis.
00:33:07And it was very, very strange what came back.
00:33:10If someone is exposed to arsenic, the level of arsenic in their hair and in their fingernails should be roughly the same.
00:33:18And in this case, the arsenic in nancy's fingernails was five times the amou in her hair.
00:33:28The only forensic explanation for that was that nancy had personally touched the arsenic with her hands.
00:33:36>> Narrator: The results also show that the highest doses of arsenic were ingested three weeks before nancy's death and the day she went to the hospital.
00:33:45>> The state can only putabout seven days before she went into the hospital.
00:33:51>> The conclusion then was that nancy must have been ingesting the arsenic herself.
00:33:59>> The "blame the victim" defense usually turns my stomach, but you have to admit guthrie laid out a pretty compelling case.
00:34:09Dallas had a crime for the ages on its hands, and people couldn't wait to hear all the sordid details.
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00:38:13>> Narrator: In the days leading up to richard lyon's murder trial, the people of dallas are braced for a soap-opera-style drama.
00:38:21>> The high-profile family.
00:38:24Harvard graduates.
00:38:25Living in park cities.
00:38:27That was kind of an attention grabber.
00:38:29And then secondly, arsenic poisoning.
00:38:31Those don't come up very often.
00:38:33>> People outside of the bubble would get a chance to peer inside the bubble.
00:38:37It was a voyeur's dream.
00:38:39Even for texas, where so many trials, so many crimes seem to be texas-sized, this was going to be a dandy.
00:38:50>> Narrator: When the trial opens, the prosecution is confident the jury will connect the dots.
00:38:57>> I would've loved to been able to show when he ordered chemicals and had a direct timeline and path from the company to him to her mouth.
00:39:05But I knew we were right.
00:39:06I knew that he was the right guy.
00:39:08>> There was obvious physical evidence showing that the woman had been poisoned.
00:39:13Evidence indicating that richard lyon had purchased the poison.
00:39:17There was ample evidence of his love affair.
00:39:19I think that people felt it was the prosecution's case to lose.
00:39:23>> Narrator: But richard's side tries to poke holes in the state's circumstantial case.
00:39:28>> Take the fact that this guy went to harvard.
00:39:31He's a smart guy.
00:39:32And he sets out, according to the prosecution's theory, to murder his wife by poisoning her with arsenic.
00:39:38Do you really think that a guy like that is gonna go buy arsenic under his name and have it shipped to his business address?
00:39:45There'd be a clear paper trail.
00:39:47And I think it's important to remember that richard is the one who insisted that nancy go to the hospital.
00:39:54>> I, frankly, always thought it was strange that a guy would poison his wife and then take her to the hospital.
00:40:01I wouldn't poison my wife.
00:40:03But if I was, I think I'd wait till she was dead before i called anybody, and I would make sure I wasn't there while she was dying.
00:40:19>> Narrator: As opening arguments begin, the courthouse is jam-packed with spectators.
00:40:25>> There was something like 1,400 people down there trying to get 86 seats.
00:40:29>> It was packed every day.
00:40:30And it was packed with well-to-do people, and there was a lot of media there.
00:40:36>> The dillards had actually engineered it so that they had people coming in to fill the galleries.
00:40:43They actually had a schedule of people to come to trial to fill the seats up.
00:40:47The only two people in the courtroom that were for richard were his parents.
00:40:53>> Narrator: The prosecutor comes out swinging more than punches.
00:40:57>> We were a little distracted by the prosecuting attorney's hair.
00:41:02Jerri sims had knee-length, hip-length hair that when she got up, she would kind of flip it.
00:41:08A lot of the reporters commented on it -- you know, "okay.
00:41:11" sims was stealing the spotlight.
00:41:16After one particularly dramatic entrance to the courtroom, one of the dillards' socialite supporters was heard to say, "my " >> I think that he hated nancy.
00:41:32But I think the main thing -- he wanted that dillard name still attached to him.
00:41:36The influence of the family.
00:41:38The jobs they could get him.
00:41:39He could not divorce her and keep those things.
00:41:42>> He wasn't mr. nice guy.
00:41:44He felt that by slowly poisoning her, it would look like she was just a sick woman and no one would know the difference.
00:41:51>> Narrator: So how did the suspect deliver the poison?
00:41:54The prosecution doesn't know for sure, but a shocking discovery at richard's old apartment gives them a likely m.o.
00:42:04>> The young lady that was living there was looking for some medication in her medicine cabinet and ran across a pill bottle.
00:42:14It was medication for nancy lyon.
00:42:17>> Narrator: Tests reveal that someone had tampered with the pills and laced them with cyanide.
00:42:22>> These were capsules that i believe richard was giving to nancy.
00:42:28She didn't know that she was daily being poisoned by him.
00:42:32>> I think he was experimenting with different things, trying to find out what he could give her that would kill her.
00:42:37We had the evidence that he had ordered different types of compounds with arsenic in it.
00:42:42We had the checks and the people actually at the lab that were selling him the chemicals.
00:42:46>> Narrator: But the prosecution is still missing a few pieces of the puzzle.
00:42:51>> The forensic evidence indicated that she had a large dose of arsenic about three weeks prior to going into the hospital, another dose probably on the day she went into the hospital.
00:42:59That was a period before the state could ever put any arsenic in richard's hands.
00:43:04>> Narrator: The more likely suspect, they say, is nancy herself.
00:43:09The defense painer as a desperate woman dealing with the painful scars of incest.
00:43:15>> Nancy, needless to say, had a lot of issues.
00:43:17Her husband was sleeping with another woman.
00:43:20She was facing divorce.
00:43:21The defense saw that as a vulnerability.
00:43:24I think they saw nancy as being a viable candidate for suicide.
00:43:29>> Narrator: The notes richard found after nancy died are submitted as evidence and read aloud to the gallery.
00:43:35>> "Trying hard to have the " " " " " "when I don't have power, I feel inadequate, and when I don't " "fear of bill and what his desires are -- sex, sick sex, " >> Narrator: An already stunned courtroom is then hit with another surprise when the defense reveals a receipt from a company named chemical engineering.
00:44:08The owner, charles couch, takes the stand.
00:44:11>> Couch explained that he took a phone call from a woman who asked about poisons that might help eradicate a fire-ant problem in her backyard.
00:44:20The woman identified herself as nancy lyon.
00:44:24>> The invoice has nancy's work number on it, it has her home phone number, and it has a texas driver's license number.
00:44:32The invoice from couch's firm showed that she had purchased the chemicals.
00:44:38The only forensic explanation for nancy having five times the amount of arsec on her fingernails is that she had to have touched the arsenic.
00:44:46And I think that what happened in this case is that nancy ingested arsenic herself in a bizarre plot to try to keep richard in the marriage, and she accidently put too much arsenic in her blood, and I think that's what killed her.
00:45:03[ Flatline ] >> richard's attorney had kept his promise.
00:45:10This was truly a perry mason-style turn of events.
00:45:15But this texas tale had one more unbelievable twist.
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00:49:35>> Narrator: In the final days of testimony, the state tries to rebut the assertion that nancy dillard lyon poisoned herself.
00:49:42>> We investigated every possibility.
00:49:44Maybe she had done it to herself.
00:49:46Maybe she had accidently ingested it.
00:49:49The first thing that the doctors told us -- there's no way you would use arsenic to kill yourself.
00:49:54She was in such pain.
00:49:55It was horrible.
00:49:56Her organs shut down over a long period of time.
00:49:59The medical examiner said nobody would put themselves through that.
00:50:02>> Narrator: The prosecution also has to account for the high levels of arsenic in nancy's fingernails.
00:50:08>> My explanation for that was, and the doctors seem to agree, e throwing up that would have arsenic in it -- that you could get that on your hands and it would change the arsenic levels in your fingernails.
00:50:19>> Narrator: The state then calls a handwriting expert to analyze nancy's notes.
00:50:25>> The handwriting seemed just slightly different from those last notes about the incest and the rest of the notations on the page.
00:50:32>> Nancy and richard had gone to graduate school together.
00:50:35They learned to write like each other so they could work on each other's projects.
00:50:38If you took one writing by him, one by her, it looked almost identical.
00:50:42And that fbi expert in handwriting, he could definitively say, "she did not write these things.
00:50:48" >> without equivocation, he said, "the notes about incest were made in the hand of " >> Narrator: Then the state delivers a final blow.
00:51:01On rebuttal, charles couch returns to the stand and tells the jury the typed receipt doesn't belong to his company.
00:51:11>> He always handwrote his receipts.
00:51:14He never typed them out.
00:51:16Someone had copied the chemical engineering letterhead, had placed it on a blank receipt, and the list of the chemicals were added to the receipt page, making it look like a legitimate receipt for a purchase.
00:51:29>> That, I think, did it for me and for some others, too.
00:51:32That was kind of hard to refute.
00:51:34>> The couch testimony was an indication of a lie, and juries don't like to be lied to.
00:51:39Above all else, juries don't like to be lied to.
00:51:44>> Narrator: It takes the jury less than an hour to return with their verdict.
00:51:49>> "We, the jury, find the defendant, richard allen abood lyon, guilty " okay. thank you.
00:51:56>> I don't think a single person in the courtroom was surprised by the verdict except richard lyon.
00:52:01He could not believe it.
00:52:02He could not believe he had been convicted.
00:52:10>> Narrator: Three weeks later, the judge decides his fate.
00:52:13>> I started getting all these letters in, and there were a lot of them.
00:52:18I think most of them were really in support of harsh punishment for him.
00:52:22I started thinking about, "what does it take to go buy arsenic and plan to give it in doses to your wife, the mother of your " I don't care how much you dislike her or how much you may want to be with somebody else.
00:52:33There are options, like divorce.
00:52:35And I just started to see a picture of a guy who really needed to be punished severely.
00:52:44>> Narrator: Richard receives the maximum -- life in prison.
00:52:51For big daddy and the rest of the dillard clan, the long and painful wait is finally over.
00:52:56>> It was the family that went to the police department and told them of their suspicions.
00:53:02And if they hadn't done that, they never would have autopsied the body, and they never would have known she was poisoned.
00:53:08>> They had powerful friends, certainly a lot of wealth, and i think were maybe more educated about pursuing justice for their daughter than someone with maybe not so much wealth would have been able to do.
00:53:20>> Narrator: More than a decade later, richard's attorneys continue to defend him.
00:53:26>> My grandfather used to have a saying.
00:53:28" based on all of the evidence, iike that richard should have been convicted.
00:53:34I think that the forensic evidence is highly significant.
00:53:38How could nancy's fingernail get that arsenic on it?
00:53:43I mean, that's huge.
00:53:45 couch before he testified, we both looked at the invoice.
00:53:50He did not raise any issue that it was not his receipt at all.
00:53:54 couch thought that he was gonna be in trouble for selling those chemicals.
00:53:58I think his testimony was to protect himself.
00:54:01>> Narrator: But there aren't many other people in the park cities losing sleep over richard's fate.
00:54:07>> Richard lyon was very cold.
00:54:09He had an air of superiority about him.
00:54:11I don't think he ever thought he would get caught.
00:54:13He was obviously confident enough to go back in and forge documents and not expect us to catch that.
00:54:18>> Richard lyon thought he was better than the law.
00:54:22He's an intelligent person, but he wasn't a smart criminal.
00:54:29>> People like richard lyon can't see beyond losing the lifestyle.
00:54:33They don't necessarily want the spouse anymore, but they don't want to lose the lifestyle that the spouse allowed them to live.
00:54:40>> People assume, "if I had a lot of money, I'd sure be a lot happier.
00:54:44" the reality of it is, how much money you have and where you went to school doesn't matter.
00:54:51We're all human, and we can fall prey to all of our inadequacies.
00:54:54And that's certainly true in this case.
00:54:59>> Among the ways of committing murder, poisoning requires an especially cold heart.
00:55:06Richard lyon watched a person he once loved die a slow and f& Painful death.
00:55:12B0b8b9 too bad he hasn't gotten a taste of his own medicine.
00:55:16FOR truTV, I'M DOMINICK DUNNE.
00:55:18úXlC >> City officials are describing the case as a double murder.
00:55:27>> Narrator: A judge and his wife gunned down in their home.
00:55:30>> That was a big mystery -- who did they come to kill, and then, why?
00:55:34>> Motives usually come right down to the same old thing -- greed.
00:55:37>> Narrator: An outrageous ..
00:55:39>> There were millions of dollars.
00:55:41>> Narrator:..And a mayor with a dirty secret.
00:55:43>> Any suggestion that I was involved in planning the murder of vince and margaret sherry is an outright lie.
00:55:50>> Bloodshed and betrayal on the bayou, tonight on "power, privilege, and justice.
00:55:56--Captions by VITAC--www.vitac.com Captions paid for bythe courtroom television network, llc [ siren wailing ] >> Narrator: In september of 1987, police in biloxi, mississippi, are called out to the home of one of the city's most prominent political ..
00:56:49Vincent and margaret sherry.
00:56:51He's a state court judge, she's a city councilwoman -- or at least, they were.
00:56:59>> I heard it on the police radio about a suspicious death on hickory hill circle.
00:57:04Told me to get to the scene as quick as I possibly could.
00:57:09I went in the house, went in the front door.
00:57:12It was sort of out of the ordinary.
00:57:14There's nothing disturbed.
00:57:19And then you got to the room where vince was, and he's laying on his back by the fireplace.
00:57:26[ Silenced gunshots ] >> Narrator: The judge had been shot three times in the face.
00:57:32Burriss then goes down the hallway to the master bedroom.
00:57:37>> Margaret sherry was on the floor with her shoulders against the bed and her feet up under the dresser.
00:57:45>> Narrator: He finds spent .22-caliber shells near both victims.
00:57:49>> We also had small bits of foam recovered that indicated it was likely a silencer-equipped weapon.
00:57:56We also recovered several unidentified fingerprints, which were submitted for comparisons.
00:58:06>> Margaret's purse was in the den.
00:58:08It was open.
00:58:09It had cash in it.
00:58:10It had credit cards in it.
00:58:11I think vince's wallet was on a dresser in the bedroom -- credit cards and stuff in there.
00:58:16>> The house had not been ransacked.
00:58:19No valuables appeared to be missing.
00:58:22It was not a routine burglary or robbery.
00:58:25>> Narrator: Close friend pete halat, who found the sherrys, says the front door was unlocked when he got there, but he didn't see any sign of an intruder.
00:58:33>> We're thinking, "this person came in for the sole purpose of " >> it's not every day in mississippi, at least -- and i don't think anywhere in the country -- that a state circuit court judge and his city councilwoman wife are murdered execution-style in what's obviously a contract murder.
00:59:07>> It was kind of an unusual thing to see, because it was an area that was mainly populated

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