Page 11 - Assistant Da News Today

Been on where i heard jury members snicker. >> reporter: but the crawleys, who were in court when those tapes were played, were not laughing. they say theyd heard many of those calls firsthand and believed they were the real thing. the jury had heard jermeir testify. he has a deep voice. and the person on the tapes doesnt have a deep voice. >> doesnt have, exactly. he disguised his voice. >> reporter: you think he can disguise his voice that well? >> yeah. >> apparently, he can. >> well, he did ...

That shannon crawley and her family insisted were jermeir stroud copping to the crime and trying to cover it up. >> i got away with it once. ill get away with it again. just keep your [ bleep ] mouth shut. >> this is wrong. i didnt do anything. >> you know ill find you. >> reporter: police were not present when shannon recorded the calls, but they were able to trace where they originated from, a payphone, so there was no way to confirm jermeir had made them. assistant d.a. david saacks listened ...

Situation across the street. can you please watch the kids." >> reporter: murder investigations are of course based on more than just witness statements. the csi team rushed over to todd and rachels house and assistant d.a., lisette suder, joined them as they searched and documented the interior of a house that was strangely chaotic. >> reporter: what did it look like? >> the house is well-manicured. minus the fact that theres this yellow crime scene tape up. and then you walk through that and y...

He said she did it. she was saying he did it. shannon had been charged with murdering smith and thats when she shared a new version of events claiming he was the real killer. authorities were intrigued but skeptical. shannon captured a series of recordings that she was sure proved her innocence. what would investigators make of this tale of the tape? it is rare for women to murder. more often they convince their men to do it for them, a kind of homicidal honey-do list. that was exactly what in...

>> well, we learned that they had conducted surveillance at ashleas apartment weeks before that. they had a picture of her apartment. her actual door to her apartment, and they had pictures of her vehicle, the white dodge ram pickup. >> reporter: in early december, 2014, carter cervantez and david mallory were arrested and charged with the murder of ashlea harris. cold comfort for ashleas sister. >> its just such a loss and its so pointless. i just dont understand how people could do that. >> re...

>> and i just started just pacing around the house just saying, "god, i just killed their mother." >> reporter: by-and-by, ariel and eva woke up. todd kept them out of the room where their mom lay dead. then, he said, he cleaned up the house as well as he could. and at 10:26 a.m., seven hours after rachel died, he phoned a lawyer friend and asked him to inform the authorities. >> tell me exactly what you heard from your neighbor. >> what im willing to tell you is that im an attorney. i received ...

Now three years later two families filed into the durham county courthouse. one family hoping for a conviction, the other an acquittal. reporter john mccann covered the trial for "the durham herald-sun." >> the tone was definitely, you know, somber. shannons family here. you got denitas people on the other side. tense is a good word for it. >> reporter: especially tense for denitas mother, sharon, who for the first time made eye contact with the woman accused of murdering her daughter. >> shanno...

>> reporter: and that wasnt the only thing the witness noticed, says assistant d.a. david saacks. >> he remembers a patch or some kind of something, you know, on the shirt. >> reporter: a patch like on the uniform shannon wore as a 911 dispatcher. and there was more. investigators discovered shannon clocked in at about 10:00 a.m., some two hours after denita smith had been murdered. more than enough time for the 55-mile drive from durham to her job at the 911 center in greensboro. so police obta...

Yeah, yeah, he called down there. >> the nurse changed her story. >> everything changed. everything changed. >> reporter: this is what? one big conspiracy? >> i hate to make it sound like that. >> it sounds like it. it sounds like it. >> reporter: assistant d.a. david saacks says the rape was properly investigated and seemed to be nothing more than a hoax. which also, for him, finally answered that lingering question of who was stalking whom. >> everything was pointing to her and the only thing ...

This wasnt just another interview. shannon was prepared to share all new information with the potential to change the whole focus of the case. assistant d.a. david saacks. >> she just wanted to give her side. and we certainly wanted -- allowed her to do that. >> reporter: and her idea, or her attorneys idea was and then youll drop the charges after youve heard this? >> i think that certainly was her idea. so if they dont say anything were going to keep going on the path were already on, which is...