cause some sort of trouble. >> and when investigators looked at the evidence and heard bonnie's version of events, they came to the same conclusion. nicola hood was the district attorney of san antonio. >> objectively, we do not support this behavior. >> frances was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for chasing after bonnie. and for the death of her husband, bill hall jr., she was charged with murder. >> we felt that there was a no tempt an aggravated assault, and in that process a life was lost, which counts as felony murder. >> but frances says the real aggressor was bonnie. and she said she had proof. >> coming up -- frances says bill told her that bonnie she was obsessed with him, but that he wanted out. >> he goes, i can't get rid of this person. >> when dateline continues. when dateline continues
>> she was attacking me, and i will defend myself. >> one week after the text message feud came the car chase that left bill hall dead. nearly three years after that, frances hall went on trial for murder. prosecutor stephanie pilsen and scott simpson laid out the case for the jury. >> we understand why she was angry, but that's not justification to go attempt to run down your husband's mistress and kill him in the process. >> the star witness for the prosecution, bonnie, bonnie contreras. >> i was getting hit from behind. >> bonnie told the jury as she watched with horror when she believed frances deliberately knocked bill off the road. >> i saw her hit bill with a truck. i saw him fly off the handlebars. >> bonnie said she later discovered frances's daughter nikki hall -- a message that seemed to speak to frances's intent that
weekends, if he was off, he would go dig ditches. we made ends meet. >> but his true passion was big rigs. so one day he up and quit school, started his own business. bill hall jr. trucking. >> that's what his family did for a living. it's in their blood. >> bill got his first truck and went to work delivering topsoil, while frances hit the phones to drum up new business. >> he was a dreamer and he always said, i'm going to go big yeah. it's a hispanic term that says lady. >> after a few years, bill and frances turned that one trucked into a fleet of 130. at its height, their empire was valued at more than $50 million. all his dreaming paid off. >> and hard work. he put his life, his heart and soul into it. bill was bill hall jr. trucking. >> but for a bill, it wasn't all work and no play. >> he was a daredevil.
he loved racing in his later years, he loved hunting. he was a man's man. >> and also a bit of a ladies man, according to bill's cousin, hank. >> beautiful women, you work hard, you play hard, and you do things that you're not supposed to be doing. he was a great man but he was not the perfect man. >> builds imperfections became painfully clear nearly 32 years into their marriage when frances said she got a call from a mysterious woman. it was september 13th, 2013. friday the 13th. >> she goes, you don't know me but i'm having an affair with your husband. >> wow. >> i was in shock. >> heartbroken, furious. frances such she confronted bill and asked, was a true? >> by that time he was crying. and telling me that he's sorry, that it's true. i was devastated. >> this is three decades of marriage. >> and i finally asked him, how
i left with bill. >> it was only then, frances says, that it all came together in her mind. the thump, the broken window, somehow, bills bike and her escalate must've collided. i think some people might find it hard to believe that you wouldn't realize that you had hit a motorbike. >> i didn't feel anything. i heard a thump, i thought it was a piece of granite. >> police detained her for questioning ball bill's family took up a vigil at the hospital. bill's cousin was hopeful he'd pull through. >> we've been through so many wrecks on bikes, i thought, he'd be all right. he's had worse accidents than that. so -- >> bill wouldn't be all right, not this time. >> when they told us that he had passed away, it was just complete shock. >> i kind of screamed out, i couldn't believe it. i didn't believe it. >> frances was still in the back of the patrol car when she got the news. >> i noticed three people come
three generations of truckers with deep roots in the city. it was here that bill hall met the love of his life at the tender age of 16. her name was frances. what happened the first time you laid eyes on bill? >> i just fell in love with him. i knew he was the man i was going to marry. >> at 16? >> at 16. >> they married right out of high school. a year later, daughter nikki was born. where your parents and love? >> oh, yes. we definitely saw love growing up in the house. >> that's my baby! >> what was your relationship like with your dad? >> not your typical father daughter relationship. like a best friend almost. i could tell that anything. >> for years after nikki came justin. did he really want to son? >> oh my god. when they pulled the baby out of me, they said, mr. hall, you have a son. the man cried. >> he worked hard to give his family a better life. >> bill used to clean airplanes, he went to college and on the
defendant was immediately provoked to a degree of anger that would make an ordinary person incapable of cool reflection. the defense told the jury sudden passion gripped francis when she spotted bill and bonnie on the road. >> she's seen a woman who's tried to run her life for the past month. >> the stakes were enormous. a finding of sudden passion could drastically reduce frances's sentence, from possible life in prison to a maximum of 20 years. and a minimum of just to. relatives of francis, and bill hall, begged the jury to be lenient. >> if there's any way that you can find in your heart to give her a lighter sentence, i'm begging you. >> and then, for the first time, the jury heard from frances hall directly. >> you don't understand, i love this man heart and soul. i gave him my life. i would never hurt him, never.
and i looked in my rearview mirror and it was frances. >> bill's wife. they'd spoken by phone, but never met. bonnie said she never saw frances on the road before she felt the jolt. never taunted her with her middle finger, as frances claimed. now, bonnie said frances wasn't just chasing her, she was actually repeatedly ramming her cadillac escalate into the back of the range rover. >> i started screaming because she wouldn't stop hitting me. she kept ramming her vehicle into me. >> she said frances's story, that bonnie kept slamming on the brakes, was nonsense. >> you are accused of breaking, breaking. >> no, i was trying to get away from that woman. so i started speeding up. and she kept ramming me from behind. and she threw me on to uncommon chapek. >> bonnie such was hit so hard, her purse fell off the back seat. >> my stuff flew to the floor. >> and here, another significant difference from
Now 59 and out of prison for killing her husband Bill Hall Jr. in 2013, Hall is accused of falsifying payroll information to get lower premiums for the San Antonio gravel hauling business the couple built together.