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The meanest, cruelest, most heinous crime. I don't know that I'll ever get over it. They seemed like the ultimate power couple. She told me she would be traveling on secret missions. He had all the medals, Silver Star, Purple Heart, glamorous military careers. But was it all camouflage?

The B.S. alarms are going off in my head like you wouldn't believe. Did they have something to hide?

We start doing surveillance. Maybe you've got a crime here. Yes, I'm thinking to myself, this can't be true. Was like in disbelief what had happened to her last husband. Whoever did this was very evil. The hurt, the anger, it makes you question everybody.

It seems alive somehow here in the foothills of Tennessee's Appalachians. The creeping tendrils of mountain mist, that snake and swirl like lies. There's gold in there somewhere. So they say the sort of place where you could strike it rich. Or maybe get away with murder. Very scary, shocking and devastating. So after that mysterious death here, how could anyone trust dearest friends, the word betrayal come to mind? Oh, absolutely. Brothers in arms, it's beyond disturbing, closest family.

She looked at me as if she wished I was dead. Maybe no one. We were always looking over our shoulder, might still be had it not been for him. Pretty shocking stuff. I don't think I'll work anything like this again in my career just because of the different twists and turns. Yes.

In that toxic swamp of secret identities, of heroes and villains driven by greed, lust, power, whoever set this up and whoever did this was very evil.

So many lies, everything that you were taught as a kid was a lie. This place where the story begins seems created not for lies, but for love, the tranquil waters and soft sunsets of Bradenton, Florida. And though the local sheriff's office may seem an unlikely place to find love, here's where it struck a county detective named Bob Clancy.

Thing to say, Bobby. I to say, how many hours do we have left on to tell a funny man, Oh, welcome to Pasquale's.

A kitchen and very kind said his necessary, not just a people would be so excited to go over there to see, like, what new animal he got or, you know, like he would be like, oh, I got a new bird come over and see me cause he had got us some little turtles as kids.

He was a real animal guy. He was the eye Kristin loved his nieces to.

I used to take us out on the boat. He just always took care of us, just like he took care of his sister Cathy when they were kids, was always like the two of us doing everything.

Yeah.

Causing havoc as a sheriff's deputy, said his sister, Kathy. He once faced down a violent gang. They had knocked him to the ground and took his gun and everything and beat him up. As a matter of fact, I believe that they fired a shot, but it missed.

So he barely made it through that window. His marriage couldn't take it. And Bob Magliozzi sought love elsewhere. And then a southern belle at the sheriff's department and Aluf Secretary known as the Office Wiz, caught his eye. Her name was Martha. And who is he crazy about?

Martha. Yes, he was. He was really? Yeah.

Martha and had two sons. I always respected my mom.

She was very charming, highly intelligent.

John was adopted as a baby, met Jen as a teenager, and she became his wife. Where Sean was from was not discussed at home. But then he had Martha and the only mother he'd ever known.

A mother's the the sun and the moon and the stars to a little kid. Did it feel like she was?

I was always told since a young age that the only people you can trust completely are your parents.

In the mid 90s, Sean's mom, Martha, and was going through a painful divorce and then fell for the detective, Bob. Bob was very down to earth, and he taught me a lot of things like what how to be a man, how to be a real person. Sounds like you like Bob. I liked Bob a lot.

In 1995, Bob and Martha and got married and on holidays, Bob's sister Kathy got closer to Martha and we'd go out shopping.

That was our big Thanksgiving. You know, Bobby would stay home and the girls would just take off and go shopping.

Bob and Martha and retired in the late 90s, left Florida and bought a big secluded hillside cabin in Coaker Creek, eastern Tennessee, in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains, not far from where Martha and grew up. Place where a man could forget about being a cop and all that violence. By then, China can have their own family and visit it from time to time, Bob, especially when you treat our kids. He was fond of it. He was the real deal.

Martha and went back to work a county job, she loved numbers and they made time for friends to like Debbie Hartman.

We met at church, Bob and Martha, and just became very dear friends in Martha. And Debbie found her soul mate.

She was what I would refer to as the quintessential Southern lady, she was like a sister to me. We had the same type of upbringing, the same type of morals. We had fun together. We enjoy sharing recipes together. She had two boys. I had two girls. We talk about our children. We just were very, very close over the years.

They shared cookouts, road trips, church events, just like tips from the same time. And you could just see, said Debbie, how much Bob and Martha and loved each other. Never once did I hear them argue or have a sour word against one another. Never just very loving, the perfect couple.

And then a 2006 when Martha and was at work, a family friend stopped by to see Bob at home and in front of him. Well, he called nine one one oh one where thing I didn't go out.

And he appears to be holding Martha and got home, then called for her friend Debbie.

And she's screaming and she's like, Bob's dead. And I'm like, Bob's dad.

What had happened to Bob Clancy?

I cried for ten hours. I couldn't believe we lost such a great man. Shocking. The two of us just cried our eyes out. The next thing you know, the sheriff comes out and I'm like, what in the world is going on? And she's like, I don't know. It was the 15th of May 2006 in Coaker Creek, eastern Tennessee, IBM now where I just walked into the residence to the resident, the landing of the iron bar.

Clancy, 56 years old, was lying in his favorite recliner.

The caller, a family friend, said the body was already cold and the friend hung up and waited for first responders.

I was a detective, have been a detective for almost a year. Detective Travis Jones of the Monroe County Sheriff's Department was one of the first to go into the house. What did you see when you got there? I found Robert McClarty in a recliner. I had a pistol in one hand and an empty bottle of pills in the other hand. If you ever seen such a thing before.

No, the gun hadn't been fired, but there were pills strewn all over. Bobby Klatches body a white foam around his mouth, pointed to an overdose at a do not resuscitate order signed by Bob McClatchey and left in the kitchen said he wanted to die.

Did you see this do not resuscitate order? I did. It looked like suicide at Martha and had to spread the dreadful news to Bob's sister and nieces in Florida who was like in disbelief, like a nightmare.

Yeah, shocking. Can't imagine when she told me took an overdose and killed himself. Do you still remember that moment? Yes, I do. You know, it affected me quite a while. John, too, was grief stricken when he heard about his stepdad's death.

Must come as a shock, I think I cried for ten hours driving from Florida to Tennessee. I couldn't believe we lost such a great man. But shocking as it was to those who knew Bob intimately, it was not a complete surprise. Why four letters, PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. Back when the Vietnam War was sinking into its bloody depths, Bob volunteered to go as a Marine. It took its toll, as did life threatening incidents. During his police career.

Bob had been on heavy medications but still suffered flashbacks, nightmares, depression. Martha and told Debbie she was very troubled.

She said, I'm trying, but, you know, when I'm at work, he'll get in his Bel's. She said, Bob is abusing it. Bob, sister Kathy had also seen warning signs. How did you become aware that PTSD was really beginning to become a factor in his life that had to be dealt with?

We had been up for Thanksgiving and he had explained to me that right after the holidays that there was a program and he was going to enter it. Bob's New Year's resolution for 2006 was to finally beat PTSD, and in January he set off to Nashville for an intensive six week program run by the VA. Soon after he got there, he called his sister Kathy, with hope in his voice.

He'd made a new friend, his roommate Charles, because Marsic went by Chuck.

He had told me that he finally found somebody to talk to that understood what he went through in Vietnam because Chuck was there. Yeah, you kind of need somebody who's been through the same thing, I guess.

Yeah, right. Yeah. So he he was happy.

Bob's new veteran friend, Chuck, was no average grunt. He was the very model of a war hero, Special Forces airman, citations for valor earned in the most daring operations and such a big shot.

He was invited to the presidential inauguration where you solemnly swear Chuck was a sort of tonic Bob seemed to need.

This relationship continued after the program was over, right? Yes.

After they got out of the program in February, Bob spent most of his time with Chuck. You lived not far away in Knoxville because they did handyman jobs at each other's homes, Mom.

And, you know, kind of replace everybody else with Chuck. You know, Chuck was everything. But Bob's PTSD persisted Martha, and did what she could to pick up Bob's spirits, though that seemed to backfire when she got a makeover.

She had had her hair cut short and blonde. Big change, big change.

And I'm like, oh, my God, you look beautiful. And she says, well, I'm certainly glad you like it. She said, because Bob doesn't like it at all. He had a fit that I had, that I cut my hair off. I said, But then a lot of men like ladies with long hair. So give them time. I he'll come around.

When Martha and was at work, Chuck kept an eye on Bob.

Chuck was right there. But Bob was in a downward spiral, Martha, and complained that Bob was abusing his anti-depressants and Martha and Chuck found themselves managing one painful scare after another. And one episode, they rushed Bob to the VA hospital more than three hours away, passed out in the car, out of it, out of it.

I understand they had to stop the car because they thought they would have to do CPR on them.

Bob was stabilized and after he was deemed well enough, sent home two days later on that Monday in May, Martha and got up early and went to work as usual. She'd arranged for Chuck to check in on Bob that afternoon. It was he who found Bob called nine one one.

Debbie arrived later to find police cars and ambulances and a frantic Martha.

And and so the two of us just sat there and just hugged each other and bawled and, you know, just. Cried our eyes out, oh, was horrible, Bob is dead, the next thing you know, the sheriff comes out with Chuck in a t shirt and I'm like, what in the world is going on? And she's like, I don't know.

So they drove out west with Chuck. Police have some questions for Chuck to come in, find your friend that it wasn't kind of rushing around and all upset. No, he was calm, which was kind of suspicious. Maybe you got a crime here. Yes. Martha Ann was a mess. Her husband, Bob, dead of an overdose of PTSD medications, and she couldn't even get back into her own house. So her best friend, Debbie, and her husband took her in.

And, you know, the three of us just, you know why what happened? You know, crying, you know, all night long, just sobbing and in disbelief that that Bob was gone to be there for my mom.

I left immediately and drove through the night.

And Sean was filled with a flood of sorrow and guilt that he hadn't been there for his stepdad, Bob, as Bob had been there for him.

Bob took care of me every day. It'll make you feel close to a person who did. Debbie tried in vain to ease Martha Anne's grief. I would bring up, you know, fun things that we had done with Bob. You have to cry about it. And it would be like, I know we're not going to have that anymore, you know, that I'd start bawling and of course, then she'd start bowling with me.

And to make it even worse, Bob's best friend, Chuck, had been taken away by sheriff's deputies.

And so Debbie watched as Martha and tried to cope with their own so that she planned her husband's funeral, anxious at the same time for her friend that those small town cops had the wrong idea about Chuck.

And I thought, you know, OK, this was Bob's best buddy. Now, you know, you're grieving for Bob and you now you've got to take care of Chuck.

The tough situation for her situation, which was about to get tougher courtesy of that small town sheriff's deputy Travis Jones. Something strange here.

He thought he and the other detectives, so they held Chuuk for questioning. For one thing. Why was he so cool? His best buddy was lying there dead.

It wasn't kind of rushing around and all upset or anything like that. No calm.

He was calm, which was kind of suspicious and safe to come in, find your friend dead.

And he was calm as he had been calm and kind of strange. On the 911 call, Mr. Clancy appears to be expired. The operator suggested Chuck might try to revive Bob. If you want to try to do some type of CPR on him, I need instructions if you want to speak what we do have a do not resuscitate order on him, OK?

Chuck didn't seem to want to save his own best friend. And to the detective that do not resuscitate order CI, maybe just a little too convenient. Maybe you've got a crime here. Yes. Travis Jones wasn't alone. Bob's sister Cathy had her doubts too. Cathy knew Bob suffered from PTSD and took medication, but she refused to believe her brother would kill himself.

I mean, he could have part of his finger hanging off. He would duct tape it up and keep going.

You know, that's the kind of guy you do. Yeah.

So a pill popping brother didn't make any sense. You did not. And the suspicions deepened a week later when they traveled to Bob's funeral in eastern Tennessee, deepened their grief. They met the friend who'd reported Bob's death to the police and who was back in the community as police continue to look into him, his name was Chuck has Marsic.

How would you describe the guy? He was very creepy. There was just something about him, like when he looked at you, it was almost like he could just stare through you.

Sean again saw the same. He seemed like a tough military guy. There was a look about him, the cold stare. Yeah.

Then Cathy got a copy of the one one call and what she heard sounded like the verbal equivalent of a thousand yard stare.

Mr. Clancy appears to be expired.

And I played the tape. I played it over and over and wrote it word for word, what was in the tape.

And it didn't make sense. A couple of things. First, he said he didn't touch the body. Then he told the nine one one operator when he asked about CPR, I said he didn't need it.

He was already gone. Now, if you didn't touch the body, how would you know he was gone? How do you go on after that?

When you're full of these doubts and suspicions, you go on.

You don't have a choice, you know? But I knew I would not let it drop.

But in the end, even though Chuck was questioned at length, everything he did put under a microscope, the suspicion appeared to be unfounded. The coroner actually ruled it a suicide, and then in the weeks and months after Bob's death and suspicions dissipated like the mist in the surrounding hills, Chuck could once again walk with his head held high.

When we did the veterans parade in Knoxville, they put him on the top because he was the most highly decorated after the awful tragedy of Bob's death.

Chuck got on with his life again, said goodbye to his dear friend, and comforted Bob's widow, Martha and old boy. He's lost his best friend. She's lost her husband to grieving friends with growing feelings. It was like somebody just dropped a bomb on my head, a cruise ship courtship. I looked at her and I said, Are you and Chuck together? In the wake of Bob's death in May 2006, it was only natural, said Debbie, that Martha and stayed in touch with Chuck.

They shared a tremendous loss.

He's lost his best friend. She's lost her husband, their committees, their commiserating. You know, they're helping each other through this grief.

And there was something else Chuck said that Martha in was not feeling good. She was having issues with her back.

So it made sense, Martha, and would reduce your chores at home.

Bob, remember, loved animals, but the menagerie was too much for Martha. And so her son Sean helped her downsize.

Bob had animal rescue that he ran out of his home. He had seven dogs and. Wow. And a couple cats and chickens, some goats. And she started to get rid of all these animals as soon as he had passed away.

Then there were other changes. Weeks after Bob's death, Martha Ann invited Debbie and her husband to celebrate Chocks birthday dinner at Chuck's place.

When we got there, Martha Ann's dining room set was in Chuck's dining room. What did you think when you saw that? I said your furniture is up here. And she said, well, it certainly suits his house a whole lot better than mine. But they're just friends, their friends, their friends still.

How close were they getting? I called her one day and I said, Jim and I are going to take a cruise, Debbie and her husband had gotten an incredible deal from a friend on a week long Caribbean cruise.

And she said, Who do you think Chuck and I could go on that cruise? And it was like somebody just dropped a bomb on my head, Chuck and I. And I said, if there's still space available, I'm sure she'll be glad to accommodate you.

It turned out there was still space and Martha and and Chuck shared a cabin.

And so we're on this cruise ship and every event, you know, they're all dressed matchy matchy.

And now at mealtimes times when the waiter took orders, Chuck spoke for Martha and Chuck would speak up and say the lady will have and then he would order for her when guests around the table rolled their eyes, said Debbie Martha, and stiffened.

She said, My mother taught etiquette and a waiter would never have the nerve to speak to a lady.

Oh, my goodness. We were we were just all speechless. We were like, Hello, do you know what century we're living in?

You heard of women's lib. We're allowed to order for ourselves. I was just absolutely floored that she would make a statement like that. You know, a waiter would never have the nerve to speak to a lady. Wow.

And I thought, well, no one that is not Chuck. I mean, he wouldn't know what fork to use. Excuse me.

Debbie at last confronted her good friend, and that's when the other shoe dropped.

And I looked at her and I said, Are you and Chuck together? And she said, Yeah. And I said, Are you going to get married? And she goes, Oh, heavens, no, no.

She was surprised. Debbie wanted her good friend to be happy. And when the ship docked in Cozumel, Mexico, the group disembarked, went shopping and then returned to the liner and compared their treasures.

And I said, so, you know, what did you guys get? And Martha ends like here, just have to wait and see.

Very, very mysterious. And, you know, it was it was kind of fun.

A few weeks after the cruise and months after Bob's death, Martha and invited Debbie and her husband to lunch.

She said, I have something to show you. And I said to her, is this sarcasm and surprise? And she pulls out a ring box that has the most gorgeous wedding set you would ever want to lay eyes on. It was breathtaking rings.

And I'm like, oh, my God, this is it's I can't believe they weren't getting married immediately.

But when that time came, Martha and assured Debbie she would play the supporting role.

She said, and I want you to be my maid of honor. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm excited. Absolutely. I would love to be, you know, and I'm ecstatic for you. And I would be very honored to be your maid of honor.

Big deal to be Aspendale. So in spite of the apparent sneaking around, thought, Debbie, there was something almost poetic about the romance between Martha and and Chuck and maybe dear old Bob would approve. I'm just so happy that the two of you, you know, have found one another.

You know, I know we've lost somebody dear to us, but but something good has come out of this, so congratulations.

And besides romance, there was so much more to celebrate. Martha and Chuck were going places.

They were about to be transformed from local Tennessee romantic partners into a sophisticated Washington, D.C. power couple. Only in America. She met a man from the FBI and she would be traveling on secret missions, flying on Air Force Two or something with the vice president, Martha Anne's secret sudden change of fortune. It was five months or so after Bob's death late 2006, Martha and Chuck were about to move up in the world, Martha and broke the news to Bob's sister, Kathy.

She had parlayed her office wizardry into a big new high profile adventure with the federal government would be spending time in Washington, D.C. She told me one day that she met a man from the FBI and he offered her a job as a secretary.

She was getting a security clearance and she would be traveling out of the country on secret missions as a secretary.

Yeah, yeah. It wasn't long before Martha and was promoted as she told Kathy, she was transferred to the State Department, very hush hush. She had a limo at her disposal, two passports and with a government pension would never have any money worries again. Her schedule filled up fast. She was apparently moving in the very highest circles she was already working for or flying on Air Force Two with the vice president, including travel to undisclosed locations.

She's kind of hard to get hold of.

Oh, yeah. There was no way of getting hold of her. Sean, though. He moved to Tennessee with Jen and the kids and became a bridge inspector, couldn't reach his mom either.

I would call my mom to check in on her and she would go missing for a month at a time, two months at a time. And you couldn't reach her by cell phone or home phone. And as we find out, she's out traveling the country. And though she was clearly very busy, Martha and along with Chuck carved out time to give back to volunteer together, they traveled the country visiting military facilities. They presided over dedications and ceremonies honoring troops and Chuck handed flags to war widows at cemeteries.

Chuck would go out with all these medals and he'd go to the local high school and to veterans parades.

He also reconnected with the guys he'd served with way back when they were called Old Times.

When I first met Chuck, he had just started his training. He just fit in like all the other guys. He was just one of us. They seem to be a nice guy.

Walter and P.J. Cook are combat veterans, too. With Chuck were gunners on some of the most powerful gun ships in the U.S. arsenal back in Vietnam. They lost touch. Easy to do in such a sprawling military. But decades later, P.J. ran into Chuck at a reunion of his gunship unit called the Specter Association.

So it was kind of just good to see the guy because he was just a guy we served with. I just assumed that he completed his career like I did. And I served 22 years. Bill served 30 and we gave our whole life to this unit back in the old days, said Bill.

Chuck's nickname was Cards. But now, as it come up in the world from the lowest ranks to the highest peaks, I go up there and I talk to him.

And I said, Akash, what's up, man? How you been doing? He says, Oh, I retired here a couple of years ago. Really? Wow. And I said, Well, what what was your rank? I retire as a chief. I'm like, really?

As the former airman caught up on more than 25 years, Chuck flashed his medals.

And Chuck says you guys should check your classified records. The VA check my classified records.

And I found out I got a whole bunch of really high medals from my operations in Vietnam.

Chuck invited to his home in Knoxville, Tennessee. And I personally saw these awards on the wall and his house up in Tennessee. What did you think when you saw it? I was floored and I said, well, that's that's really great. You got this? Yes. Oh, yeah. You know, they finally released these from classification and here they are.

And Chuck had an idea. He figured the Spector association could benefit from Martha and high wattage political and business savvy.

Oh, hey, anybody that volunteers to help is great. And as the months went by, Martha and carved out time from her schedule to become association secretary, she was our recorder.

Yes, she was really good at taking down notes and making paper and so forth.

Association members were so impressed with the couple that Chuck was promoted to the board. He and Martha and traveled internationally, representing Specter, carrying the unit's mascot. There was a time for fun, too. They reveled in their newfound happiness, enjoyed their new responsibilities, of course, but also decided to live a little splash out just out of nowhere. They said that, boy, we certainly like to have an RV. And my wife says, well, you know, my boss is selling a beautiful RV.

Well, of course, they went and looked at the RV and liked it a lot.

So they made him an offer right next to the RV.

Chuck noticed a garaged anniversary edition Corvette, tempting even though he already had a Mercedes convertible.

He thought, well, I like Corvettes to tell me that. Next thing you know, they bought the Corvette, too.

And pretty soon they were parading their new toys for their old friend Debbie, a knock on the front door.

And I open the door and sitting in front of my house is this gorgeous, like three hundred and fifty thousand dollar motor home bus. Wow. And it was to die for this is what the wealthiest of the wealthiest drive.

It had been custom to Debbie and others. Martha and Chuck had made it. They put Bub's painful death behind them. And right now, a high powered couple doing good things and living well short of success a person wants to share. In early 2008, Chuck relished the opportunity to share with a group of young people stories about his many combat exploits. And what do you know? When he made his speech, there was a reporter in the room writing it all down for the local paper.

Oops. She said there's more to this story, new lives that seemed like a dream, but Chuck and Martha and we're in for a very rude awakening. The B.S. alarms are going off in my head like you wouldn't believe.

Amazing, isn't it? A life can change on a dime. In the spring of 2006, Martha Anne was burying her husband and great love Bob Clancy. But by the end of the year, she had rebuilt her life and had a new partner, Chuck.

In the meantime, Bob's sister, Kathy, had questions for Martha and about Chuck, but couldn't reach her. With the State Department travel schedule and Air Force Two duties.

I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. But at that time, when I told my oldest sister what was going on, she said, Oh, there's more to this story.

Kathy still wanted answers about her brother's death, but you know how people can start to sound like a broken record.

I think my family, friends, probably everybody was tired of listening to me saying this isn't right.

I know something had to, you know, had to have happened when Martha and found the time to respond to Kathy, she told her she was imagining things. She accused you of meddling right now? Yes.

She said your brother always said that you always had to get in people's business. You could never just let things let things lie. And I guess that was true.

I don't stop till I find out that she said Martha and got even more snippy.

She literally told me that I needed psychiatric help. I need to get over the fact that my brother killed himself. And I said I will never I will never believe that.

But Kathy wasn't the only one getting the brush off of Martha. And remember how Martha and promised that when she eventually got married, her best friend Debbie would be maid of honor. At the monthly meeting of the Corvette Club in Knoxville, Debbie got a surprise when the chairperson asked new members to stand.

And all of a sudden I hear this. Hi, my name's Chuck Marsic and this is my wife, Martha Ann, and we've bought an anniversary edition Corvette.

I noticed second, when he got up at the back of the room that day and said, this is Chuck and this is my wife. This is the first.

You knew how I found out.

You must have been asleep that day when you're a maid of honor.

I guess I must have. And so I said to you know, I was actually I was kind of hurt. Well, not surprised. And I said, you know what? You don't get married. Oh, we went on a cruise and we got married on the beach down in some island.

And I said, oh, you know, but I'm happy for you. I'm start. I'm happy for you.

Rude awakening, but nothing compared to the morning. Early in 2008, soon after, Chuck gave his speech to a group of students eager to hear about his many heroic combat exploits. And a story about Chuck's talk appeared in the newspaper. Vets who read it reacted with outrage. At the same time, Bill Walter was hearing about Chuck from another veterans group.

He was telling all of his war stories to them. And these guys were like, we never even heard about you before. We've had these reunions for 30 some odd years.

And this is the first one your name is anywhere on here.

Special Forces guys like Bill and PJ didn't brag about their service and like it, just some guy spouting off talking trash, trying to impress his buddies.

People want to aggrandize their service, right?

Yeah, some some guys do. But it's very rare around our people to do that, especially when you're doing it in front of our own people.

The veterans called Chuck out. Well, Chuck went home all mad because they challenged him. Doggone it, they cannot challenge me. No.

And Chuck sent the group his official military records just to prove he was telling the truth. He also told them due to an emergency, he'd be dropping out of circulation for a while, wouldn't be able to attend any more reunions any time soon.

And the B.S. alarms are going off in my head like you wouldn't believe. Bill and the others formed the Air Force and then the Air Force contacted the Veterans Administration, asked them to check this guy out. The job fell to former Marine and VA investigator in Nashville, Special Agent Nate Camera. This is definitely the case of a career.

I don't think I'll work anything like this again just because of the different twists and turns, twists and turns that would end up leading to a chilling conclusion. And right away, here's what made her the people who had served with him were very emphatic that he had not participated in these missions.

He specifically talked about the Iran hostage rescue being a part of that being at the fall of Saigon in Vietnam.

He said he was there for all big the big stuff. Yes. Naturally, the first step was to check Chuck's service records. So he went back to the Air Force and was surprised by what he found in Chuck's file, not what he expected.

His records did contain items substantiating significant combat service in Vietnam and and after Vietnam. Today, the Silver Star charts the Distinguished Flying Cross and some very, very big deal stuff, very high awards.

And they were substantiated. By names and socials and names of missions and dates that these missions took place, so as far as the Air Force knew, he was on the up and up.

Yes, but he was unsatisfied. Something was wrong here. He kept digging because down deep where it gets really mucky, evil lives, quite possibly evidence of an unimaginable crime. Mainland camera would launch a special operation to learn the truth. We start doing surveillance on Charles and Martha and Chuck in a wheelchair. Exactly what were they up to?

A crime far darker than anything investigators imagine.

It just really, really gave you the sense of, you know, whoever did this was very evil.

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Chucky's Marsic didn't know it, but he was under investigation. Well, his military record engraved him into the pages of American history. Born out by a chest full of ribbons, the combat veterans who knew him were saying this guy was a fake, which presented a dilemma for VA investigator Nate Land Camera. So you've got really good looking documents, but you're sitting in somebody's living room and he's saying to you, that's all B.S.. Yes.

From the Air Force Service members that I talked to that served with him. Every one of them was emphatic that he did not participate in any combat at all.

At all, though, Nate went back to the Air Force, asked them to double check the Air Force, really started poring over these documents of the missions and the order numbers and rather quickly determine that these were all forged documents.

They were not legitimate.

Yes, Chuck had been in the Air Force, but no act of heroism. Chuck had doctored old mission records, inserting his name and some official looking stamps, all of it convincing enough he was able to get the forged documents entered into his own Air Force record.

So he'd gone to an awful lot of trouble to lie about his service. He did. And that was no joke. Tonight, the former Marine, it's very offensive, very offensive to me personally. Yes.

Wasn't he like appearing at Arlington Cemetery to give flags to widows and so on? He was appearing at funerals, wearing his Purple Heart and comforting widows of servicemen who had died in combat.

Oh, but it got worse. As Nate kept digging, he discovered something about Martha and Martha and who never dawned a military uniform in her life, showed up at a veterans retreat and claimed that she, too, had rank and medals and combat experience. She showed off a Purple Heart.

Several of the attendees at this retreat specifically remember her talking all about working at the Pentagon, being at the Pentagon during the 9/11 attacks. And Charles was also telling people that she's a full bird colonel in the Marine Corps, retired, and nobody questioned her then.

No one believed her, but they discovered that military glory, that big time government career didn't exist, any of it. There was no high profile State Department job in Washington, D.C., no travel aboard Air Force Two with the vice president, no undisclosed locations. They were all the fantastic stories of two sophisticated con artists, a con that wasn't just about social prestige either. It was about cash, Chuck and his documents.

I knew we had a very substantial fraud case because those documents in particular were used to get benefit money from the VA and Social Security, as well as source documents that gave legitimacy to his claim.

Chuck was claiming thousands of dollars a month in disability payments. And then look at this look like Martha and was helping Chuck, for example, on statements she signed supporting Chuck's claim for 100 percent disability. She claimed that he was homebound and he could not take care of himself.

He would not be able to feed himself.

He he wouldn't bathe. He would just be wandering around the house aimlessly, guys in bad shape, really bad shape.

He should be getting more money from the VA than what they're paying him.

Look, tonight, like he'd uncovered a major scam. And if Chuck was scamming the VA, what was Martha and up to?

Nate ran her name and what do you know, Martha and was getting Social Security disability payments herself because of she claimed to have back issues where she couldn't walk.

She was wheelchair bound and he found out that, well, Martha. And was entitled to some of her dead husband's benefits. She was claiming a lot more together. Martha and Chuck were bilking the government for about ten thousand dollars a month.

They wanted Martha and and Chuck or Charles, as his name appeared in the records, to be charged with fraud. But first, he needed proof they were lying about being disabled.

So we started doing surveillance on on Charles and Martha and Nate.

And fellow investigators got into the back of a surveillance van with their video camera and they waited.

We had several agents all participating in surveillance.

And it wasn't long before Martha and Chuck appeared outside their home here. They are supposedly disabled people, but by the look of it, perfectly fit.

We observe them doing hours and hours of yard work outside their home. We were. Strenuous stuff, yes, very strenuous stuff for hours at a time at their Knoxville house, watch them pressure washing their driveway and their house and clearing brush bending over.

No sign of back trouble lifting heavy objects. But look at this. Here they are arriving at the VA for one of Chuck's regular assessments.

You assume that their demeanor is going to change anyway. Yeah, well, we quickly found out that that was the case, Martha, and lifts a heavy wheelchair out of the car.

Chuck gets in, she wheels him into the VA center, a picture that might ring pity from even the hardest heart. Sometimes when they followed Martha and she was moving out pretty good to where you would almost break a sweat trying to keep up with her.

And when Martha and had her appointments, she and Chuck would switch positions to actually got to be kind of humorous.

But the couple had only one wheelchair. So they got to thinking and here's how Dr. Seuss would write it.

And then they got an idea, the wonderful, devious idea. That's true in a way that yes.

What if they'd arranged the schedules so that Martha and Chuck had their appointments at the very same time? Who would get in the wheelchair then? You wonder what happened.

A conniving couple caught in a trap. This can't be true. And Martha and Sunshine is about to launch an investigation of his own. I had to know the truth.

VA investigator Maitland Camer had set a trap.

He knew Martha and Chuck had just one wheelchair as they faked disability, so he set up appointments for them at the Social Security facility at the same time.

So they arrived at the facility and then as we suspected, they only had one wheelchair. So, Charles, instead of using a wheelchair, he had a walker and a cane, a walker and a walker and a cane both and a knee brace, stilt leg, stilt legged.

And then he was toting an oxygen tank as well as Chuck fumbled his way inside, made and his agents were waiting, busted. I interviewed Charles.

We pulled him into an office and then Martha and was being questioned by another VA agent and the Social Security Administration OIG agent, Martha and and Chuck al-Marzooq had been found out.

Chuck was no decorated hero and never once seen combat, no silver stars, no Purple Hearts.

Those ribbons all fake and Martha and had never walked the hallways of the Pentagon as a Marine colonel, much less been in the 9/11 attack or flown on Air Force Two. Confronted with the evidence, they confessed to perpetuating a complex and massive fraud and fake disability claims. Had you or your partners in the investigation ever encountered people who were so complexly fraudulent?

I don't think I'll work on a case like this again in my career, but the really sinister stuff was yet to unfold. Because family and friends were only just finding out about the fraud in the summer of 2012, over early morning coffee, Martha Anne's best friend, Debbie Hartman, was reading her newspaper.

And I'm thinking to myself. This can't be true, this can't be true, so I started yelling at the top of my lungs, Yujin, get up, you've got to come see this. Debbie's husband, Jim, is a Marine veteran. Neither he nor Debbie could believe what they were reading for the federal government stole money from our veterans. Is it the money that mattered or they don't know? It was the fact that they took it out of veterans pockets that need it.

That just sticks in my craw. That hurts. It must be quite something to know that this woman who was your best friend, hid herself from you and conned you always took me for a complete sucker jock to he would go and present the flags to a widow of a veteran who had lost his life.

That's that's cruel. The people that he took it under that don't deserve that. And it wasn't long before Sean. Again, we're reading online in disbelief about Shawn's own mother, Martha, and caught in an outrageous fraud with Chuck.

And we found out that they were arrested on eight federal indictments. That's how you found out? That is how we found out. We had no idea what made your heart stop.

Very overwhelming Martha and stole her dead husband's valor. My mom never served a single day in any armed services unit. She assumed Bob's Purple Heart and told these veterans groups that that was her Purple Heart that she received in the 9/11 Pentagon attack.

By early 2013, Martha and Chuck were sentenced.

Charles got 30 months federal and then Martha and got 20.

They'd spent most of their ill gotten gains, of course. So before she began her prison sentence, Martha and prepared to sell the house for restitution.

She started, you know, boxing up all of her belongings and selling things and closing up the house.

But Martha Ann was a notorious packrat. She had kept everything trunks full of clothes, thousands of pages of receipts, contracts, documents. So what did she do?

She gave them to her son, Sean, and his wife, Jan for safekeeping.

If she asked me to do something, I will do well.

And in a way, I suppose if she gave things to you, then the feds or the other investigative agencies maybe wouldn't have access to them.

Well, yes, but when those boxes of records arrived, Sean and Jen dived in ravenously to see what they could uncover.

Who keeps almost 30000, 30000, 30000? That must have been some job going through all of this stuff. It was overwhelming. It was I did feel can conflicted about digging into my mom's affairs, but I had to know the truth.

Then Sean turned on one of the computers his mom had sent for safekeeping. He intended their kids to use it, so he wanted to be sure it was clean. He checked the trash bin and couldn't believe what he saw.

There were photos of my stepdad, Bob, deceased, dead, dead. There were many photos.

And there they were, photos of Bob Clancy lying dead in his recliner in 2006. What was it like to see those pictures disturbing?

Here were the pictures that told an entirely different story to what Sean and Jen knew.

And one picture, Bob, would have a pistol in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other. And another picture, Bob, would just have a bottle of pills and nothing in the other hand.

And it was odd the way he was in the chair, the way his leg was placed. Looking back at that, I think you can tell that was body manipulation.

The pictures didn't appear to be police photos because they were all apparently taken before any police arrived on the scene. So you called the cops right away.

Sean Conflicted, was suddenly faced with the prospect he may be implicating his own mom and so torn, he called Nate the VA investigator, and began to tell him all about Bob Clancy's death in 2006.

He said, I just want to talk to you guys about this and get it off my chest because it's really been bothering me. And if there's nothing to it, great. But if there is, I think it needs to be investigated. It's like pulling a strand.

Yes. And now the string led back in time, six years back to that dismal afternoon in the Tennessee hills when Chuck called 911 to report a suicide. It was just part of a very complex evil scheme. That was the sense that I got when I first saw the photographs.

So maybe this wasn't, after all, just a fraud case. Maybe he thought someone had gotten away with murder. Did you suspect that he killed his friend Bob? That was a possibility. The old suspicions about Chuck, what had happened to the investigation all those years ago?

It was devastating. I felt guilty about get blown it this.

VA special agent Nate Lamb had Martha and McClatchey and Chuck Marsic for fraud, but his investigation was about to take a sudden turn to evil. He had learned about the suspicious photos Sean and Jen found in the computer, Martha, and had given them pictures of Bob lying dead.

Sean contacted the US attorney and said, I have some information that you might want to know that may be helpful to the investigation.

There were a lot of phone conversations between Sean and me, and that night they learned there had been an investigation into Bob McClatchey death six years earlier in 2006.

Remember, Detective Travis Jones had been called to the house after a 911 call placed by Chuck.

I just walked into the residence, just a plant growing in the landscape of the fire.

Back then, the detective thought Chuck was acting way too calm, was avoiding CPR on his best friend, and was staging that perhaps too convenient, do not resuscitate order.

And it turned out the detective had good reason to want to question Chuck after he discovered a digital camera inside a backpack.

Who found the camera? I did. Did you assume anything about its ownership or anything like that? No, I just assumed it belonged to the residents there. Mr. Clancy. Did you think as you're opening it up, hey, wait a minute. Maybe I shouldn't be doing this or not?

It never crossed my mind at the time because that was standard practice on the assumption that what that is no need to get a search warrant for a dead guy's camera.

On the camera were pictures of the deceased Bob McClatchey, his body positioned differently than the way the police found it. They were the same picture Sean later found on the computer, some showing Bob McClatchey holding a revolver. Others the revolver and the pill bottle. What did you think when you saw that?

That we had a staged scene, a staged scene. Maybe you got a crime here?

Yes. That's when the detective decided to question Jack.

We took him down to the sheriff's office at the sheriff's office. Confronted with the photo evidence, Chuck's story changed dramatically, his first statement to the police. And then he arrived at the house after Bob died and called nine one one. Now, he was telling them that when he arrived, Bob wasn't quite dead, but was taking his last gasps he had come home.

Uh, Mr. McClarty said he was still alive and he was barely breathing.

Chuck said he was the one who staged the scene and took the photos because he didn't know Bob was going to die and hoped that photos of his friends suffering might help Bob leverage more benefits from the VA.

Did you suspect that he killed his friend Bob? That was a possibility.

At the time, Detective Jones believed he had at least a case of negligence.

His negligence caused his death. That was the evidence we had at the time. If he had moved quicker or called 911 sooner or tried to do CPR or something, his friend would still be alive.

He let him die before he called Carl.

No one was charged with tampering with evidence and criminal negligence. So it must have seemed like you kind of had him on that.

That's what we thought. But that's not what happened.

Before the case could go to trial, a judge ruled the photos taken by Chuck were not admissible in a court of law.

Why? The camera belonged to Chuck, not Bob and Detective Jones that gathered the photos without a search warrant in the courtroom. That was it. The case against Chuck is Marsic collapse.

Go back to that time when you got that ruling and it was basically thrown out and you weren't going to get that case at all.

What was that like for you? It was devastating. Did you feel as if you're responsible? I did. I did. I felt guilty about had blown it. Yes.

Six years later, in 2012, Chuck was a convicted con man and investigator. Nate Lancaster was looking at the very same images on the computer. And I knew that the local sheriff's department had some suspicions that Chuck had done something but really weren't able to substantiate anything through, you know, charges being able to stick.

But tonight, maybe Chuck was up to his lying eyeballs and Bob McClarty death. It just really, really gave you the sense of, you know, whoever set this up and whoever did this and whoever took these pictures was very evil.

Chuck had taken the pictures, but what were they doing on the computer Sean got from his mother, Martha, and then Nate and the state investigators who joined him came up with a plan. They put Sean and Jen on the spot that get Sean to spy on his mom. John was about to become an undercover agent.

What's it like to phone your mother knowing that you're going to be putting her on tape? It had to be done. I asked her why the pictures were there and she said photos of Bob. Life can get so busy with kids, work, you name it, that it can feel like you never get to spend quality time with your family and friends. Our sponsor, Hunter Killer, is a murder mystery subscription box.

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It should be noted that Sean's relationship with his mother, Martha, and was never particularly warm Martha and wasn't exactly the cuddly protective type, I think I was more scared of my mom.

Looking back. Remember, Sean had been adopted as an infant by Martha Anne and her first husband in Florida. He said his mom was strict and quick to punish if John crossed her red lines.

You knew that was your life was not going to be as pleasant for a period of time.

What did you think when you saw her treating Sean that way? It made me angry.

Even so, Sean tried to stay loyal to his mom. Now, he was about to go against her in a way he never could have imagined. He's seen the photos of Bob's dead body, contacted the investigator, eight line camera, and now he and Jen were turning up more evidence for Nate's investigation.

We were coming across all of these, what we would call crazy, crazy documents. We couldn't wrap our brain around them.

And one of those mind boggling documents was Bob Clancy's will. Bob had been married before he met Martha and had a daughter. The daughter hadn't seen Bob at years, and she was cut out of Bob's will.

He wanted nothing to do with her. And I don't want you to know about my death. And I'm leaving you one dollar of of my estate.

The wording seemed especially harsh. I didn't know Bob McKinzie.

Most fathers would not write something this cruel to their to their only daughter. I just realized that this is just not adding up. And it just was very, very suspicious.

Bob's sister, Kathy, thought it was fishy to I knew this wasn't Bobby's as well.

And I even said that to my daughter's uncle. Bobby would have never put this in here.

No, never. Nate concluded that Martha and the sole beneficiary had forged the will, came from Martha and not from came from Martha, and the will in particular ended up being a major part of the investigation.

And then they discovered a curious date or dates Martha Anne's wedding to Chuck.

If you wait until after you turn 57 and remarry, then you can keep the benefits for the rest of your life. And she ended up marrying Chuck in Las Vegas, Nevada, one day after her fifty seventh birthday, which allowed her to keep the the VA benefits associated with Bob for the rest of her life.

Martha and used the same formula to claim her husband's Social Security disability benefits.

There was a stipulation under her Social Security benefits that she could not remarry and prior to her sixtieth birthday. So, of course, the little dancing ended. Yes. So they then got married again three years to the date after their first marriage.

So, yeah, they had essentially two marriage dates with so much compelling evidence against Martha and Chuck, they'd figured it was more than a coincidence that Martha Ann had married the man who was last known to be with her husband, Bob. If Chuck had murdered Bob and Martha and who'd married Chuck just five months after Bob's death, must have known something.

We really never believed that she could be capable of killing Bob. Just who would do such a thing? Well, and we knew that Chuck was the last person with Bob, so we really didn't think Martha was the one that had killed Bob.

I think we both believe that it was Chuck, but they wanted to be sure if there was a murder conspiracy, maybe a son could find out from his mother. They decided to recruit Sean, get him to wear a wire and place a call to his mom, Martha, and and ask her what she knew about the photos. Sean agreed.

So he was willing to make the phone call and we gave him a recording device.

What's it like to phone your mother knowing that you're going to be putting her on the spot that way on tape with somebody listening?

Well, had to be done. A nervous. I was nervous, but at the same time, you got to know you have to know Nate and Sean's wife Jen, listening as the call began. We talked for about an hour, about forty five minutes to an hour. He's like, Hey, Mom, the kids were on the computer over the weekend and when I got in the trash, I found like over a hundred photographs in there of Bob dead.

I asked her why the pictures were there and she said photos of Bob.

She started saying, I think those are police photos, Sean. And he was like, Mom, these photographs are not police photos.

And then he said he has a pill bottle and a pistol and then he doesn't and he's he's dead. Why are these pictures in here?

Spontaneous reaction to this being posed to her was, for God sake, Sean, delete those photographs, you know, and that was kind of what we were looking for.

What did you think when you got off that phone call? Did you think this woman was part of it?

I really started thinking that she's guilty. She has more of a role in Bob's death and she put on. Nade agreed with the suspicious will the wedding dates and the photos of Bob Dessy, Nate and his investigators believe they were dealing with a murder conspiracy, that Bob had not killed himself with an overdose of antidepressants, but had been deliberately poisoned. And as they confronted their two suspects, one of them was about to sing like a canary.

The lovers start pointing fingers.

It was unheeded. She maintained her innocence from the very beginning. A dramatic courtroom showdown, Chuck versus Martha.

And did you kill my husband so I could not?

It was a cold night, December 2012, VA Special Agent Maitland Camera waited outside a jail cell in Tennessee, nervous, uncertain inside, investigators were trying to persuade Chuckers Marsic to reveal finally the real story of that deadly Monday in 2006. Who did what? Why?

Then out came the investigators smiles on their faces.

Chuck talked, and that was kind of like the culmination of everything, knowing that what we had suspected was correct.

Nate understood full well the stage was set for an epic, he said.

She said battle between two major league con artists. He couldn't know whose story would win, but Nate was pretty sure the one finally telling the truth. I was shocked. We didn't suspect it anymore. Now we know.

In November 2015 in Madisonville, Tennessee, Martha and McKenzie went on trial.

She was charged with first degree premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit first degree murder. Attorney Matthew Rogers was appointed to defend Martha and accused of poisoning Bob with his PTSD medications and conspiring with her lover Chuck to make Bob's death look like a suicide and then stealing Bob's assets and benefits. A guilty verdict could mean the death penalty.

But Martha Ann was fully ready to defend herself with an absolute blanket denial.

She maintained his innocence from the very beginning. She made it very clear that she wanted to speak with the jury and to tell her side of the story.

There were no cameras in the courtroom, but microphones were allowed.

Bob is the love of my life. I couldn't have imagined losing him. And I didn't want to lose him. I didn't want to be without him.

And besides, she testified she didn't need to kill her husband.

There's these allegations that you should read some sort of financial reasons or something. What do you say about that? No, sir, absolutely not. I had my own money. I had my own funds to this day would have been better off about we. Oh, absolutely. Martha.

And did not benefit from the death of Bob McClarty. She would have received benefits through the government for his military service, whether he had remained alive or whether he had passed.

Chuck was the villain, said Attorney Rogers. Chuck played Martha and like a fiddle Mrs.. He was snowed by Mr. Cosmologies, cons and manipulations, just as the government had been on numerous occasions in the past. Mrs. MacLaine's, he was another victim of Mr. Cass Marsic.

He had never, ever indicated to me in any way that he had lied about what he had done in the military, about what he had received. I thought that he had reasonable lying, Chuck said.

Attorney Rogers would say anything to avoid the blame. What did what did Chuck not lie about?

He's a habitual liar, and that's proven and documented. I was in a position to attack his credibility and that wasn't very hard.

It was Chuck who forged Bob's will, said Martha. And and she went along with it because the content of the will was what Bob wanted. That was initially Chuck's idea. That was totally unheeded. We acknowledge today coming along with that idea going on with her, she had no idea, she said, that Chuck was planning to take those awful pictures.

And when questioned about the flashy government job, she told Bob's sister Cathy about in Washington, D.C., Martha and simply scoffed, said it was a joke.

I mean, it was just a hoax. That's all in the world at large. Was the character more or less get out and stop bugging me?

Attorney Rogers took Martha and back to the day Bob died, a normal day. She said you had to work that day. Yes.

So I went to work that day and she didn't have a clue that anything was wrong. She testified until she arrived home.

After six p.m., a young detective came out and took hold of her hands and he said, this is going to be the most difficult thing that you ever hear. And he said your husband has passed away conspiracy with Chuck.

Of course not.

She said, did you and Chuck ever have a conversation about getting rid of your husband? No. No, we did not. I don't know where he has come up with this first time she heard.

About a murder conspiracy, she said, was after she told Chuck she wanted to divorce him in 2012.

I didn't know about it until much later on when this wild concocted story of my having murdered my husband was told for the first time and it was told by his. Did you kill your husband? No, sir, I did not. I did not kill Bob McClaughry. I did not have anything to do with killing Bob and Clancy. I cannot tell you anything more than what I know that he died of a drug overdose and that was Martha and story.

Every word of it was true.

She swore if Martha Ann believes that her husband, Bob McClatchey, was murdered, she would say that it was Chuckas Morrison. He was there with Bob McClatchey when he died. By admission, he was the one that took photographs of Mr. McClarty and manipulated the scene of the death where there was a crime scene or not.

But the battle of the con artists was just getting started and the prosecutors believe they had a strong case.

What was the most important piece of evidence, in your view?

The most important piece of evidence, of course, was the Grandage confession taken from Chuck Cash Marjeh at what a dark and devious story of murder Chuck was about to tell.

Keep it simple, make it look as natural as possible. Powerful testimony from the star witness and from a reluctant son, she looked at me as if she wished I was dead.

The climax was at hand. The year's fraud, the money and position and goodwill stolen from honest veterans were only background now. Martha and Clancy, charged with premeditated first degree murder, face the death penalty.

A lot of work went into this case, 12000 pages of documents.

Assistant district attorneys Cindy Scheibl and Mac McCoy took on the hugely difficult task of boiling down a story every bit as convoluted as it was devious and to be able to tell it in such a simple story.

So 12 people off the street understand it.

That's really complicated to do. That's the hard thing. They would prosecute what was clearly a complex case using a well tested strategy, the old kiss method, kiss, kiss, keep it simple, stupid.

They presented the evidence of Bob Clancy's Forge Will and the wedding dates, but not choux photos, which collapsed the case in 2006. Instead, they showed the jury police photos. Well, Shawn described the photos he found all as he faced his own mother.

She looked at me as if she wished I was dead. She looked at me with the most hate I've ever seen from anyone.

When Bob's sister Kathy testified, I wanted to jump over the bench and choke her, but I thought, well, that won't get me anyplace. But she just sat there. She showed no emotion, just cold, cold hearted person.

At last, Martha Anne's fate rested in the hands of the state's star witness, her lying husband, Chuck, now on the stand. Chuck began at the beginning when he met Bob at that PTSD clinic in 2006.

Did he ever express any suicidal thoughts to you? No. Then Bob introduced him to Martha and said Chuck. And they began an affair and she began scheming to do away with Bob.

She had mentioned on several occasions that she'd like to get rid of him and he went away so that we could be together.

She made all the decisions that Chuck Investigator and Ellen Kammer agreed.

I think the investigation clearly showed that she was the mastermind and who was in charge of his medication.

Martha turns out before he died that Martha and was put in charge of all of his meds, that Bob was not to have any access to his own medications whatsoever.

Four days before Bob died, said Chuck Martha, and ground up the pills into something she called magic dust.

She had fixed his favorite meal for it and then afterwards remarked that she had used magic dust on it.

The doses got bigger and Bob more disoriented. It was Martha Anne's idea, said to rush Bob to the VA hospital, suffering apparent overdoses to reinforce the impression that Bob was suicidal.

And then, two days after his last trip to the VA hospital, I was pretty sure that she was going to give him a lethal dose of the drugs because she was so specific about me being there at a certain period of the day.

On that day, she told him specifically, I'm going to I'm going to load him up with some magic dust, you know, before I leave for work. She said, you come over and find him. He should be dead by then. I'll be at work.

I'll have an alibi that if I find him dead, just make it simple, keep it simple, make it look as natural as possible, make it look like suicide.

Then Chuck confessed. He staged the scene. I took some photos.

There was also a bottle of pills that I've put in his hand and also those photos intended as leverage to try to squeeze more money out of the V.A. and the gun Chuck claimed it was to honor the wishes of a former detective to die with a gun in his hand.

You thought that was an honorable thing to do for Bob while you were killing homeless, sleeping with his wife wasn't killing your children while you were letting me kill him, sleeping with his wife? Yes, I think they were evil, but I think the root of their evil was their greed.

There it was Martha and poisoned Bob and Chuck was her willing servant match made in hell, quite frankly. The motive, Chuck and Martha and wanted to be together and they wanted money. How much money altogether to a million dollars? Just a million dollars.

The prosecution rested with a scathing indictment of Martha. And now have your husband die.

Losing his mind is hard to come. A handheld, some people can be that evil, but how would the jury judge Martha and the jury was out for quite a while, wouldn't it?

Yes, it scared us badly. Sean and Debbie and Kathy were all in court, nervous hearts racing. And then it came.

We, the jury, find the defendant. Right. And the Clancy, a.k.a. Martha Encephalopathic, not guilty of the offense of first degree murder, not guilty.

A wave of disappointment washed through the room.

I wish she would have gotten the death penalty, both her and Chuck, but the jury wasn't finished.

We, the jury, Martha, and was found guilty of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

It wasn't really a happy family. I'm glad justice was served, but I still thought, why did you have to kill them?

Do you think they got it right that she was the one primarily responsible? Yes, she was a real conniver. Yeah. Yeah.

Chuck had already made his deal. He'd already pleaded guilty to murder, conspiracy. Got 25 years in prison. Discharge sentence makes sense to you.

He was necessary to be able to prove the case against her. So when you look at that, it makes sense.

In June 2016, when it was Martha Ann's turn to receive her sentence, she clung to a walker faking disability.

Again, that's what the prosecutors believed. And then the judge tore into her. And the slow poisoning and slipping of life from an individual is exceptionally heinous.

He gave her the max 50 years. And although that was halved on appeal, Martha and may serve the rest of her life in prison, I'm a firm believer that karma will get you.

And I think it's got her ex best friend Debbie was relieved.

Absolutely the epitome of evil. She was the meanest, cruelest, and she didn't get away with it.

And for the detective who believed nearly ten years earlier that Chuck was guilty, it was vindication. The fact of the matter is, if you had not looked at that camera, if you had not opened up those photographs, we wouldn't be sitting here talking to them now.

And justice will never get served for the entire family. So it came out all right after all. It did took a while, but I did. Yes, it did. No small thanks to Martha and son Sean. No child should ever have to testify against their parent. That was the hardest thing you ever did as an artist. And he hasn't been the same since finding out about his mom's monstrous crimes.

I think he had a lot of trouble wrapping his head around it and believing that she was capable of this. Bob was a man of right. And there was no way that he was going to go down like that and be silenced that way.

But there was one more piece of unfinished business. Sean, remember, was adopted. I had always been told that I would never find out where I was actually from or who my birth parents would be.

So here's even after a Florida court denied him access to his adoption records, he was determined to find his birth parents.

He ended up getting in touch with ancestry, DNA and what do you know, we basically hit the bull's eye immediately. Wow, it's just crazy.

They found his birth father living in Maine. That feels amazing. Overwhelming.

Not long after first speaking with his birth father, Sean traveled to meet him and they now chat regularly on the phone and as they plan to see each other more often. John is discovering a whole new life, a whole new future.