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Private Notes
For Jamie Barnett, the loss of her daughter Ashley has been a nightmare. "On October 14th, 2005, Ashley sailed out of Los Angeles to celebrate her upcoming 25th birthday and one day into that cruise, she was dead," she says.
Correspondent Bill Lagattuta reports on the mysterious circumstances surrounding Ashley's death and a mother's quest to find answers.
What do you do if you find out your best friends got away with murder? That's the question a young man faced in 2002, when a friend confided in him that the death of an elderly woman, ruled an accident, was actually a case of murder.
As correspondent Susan Spencer reports, he had to make a tough choice: keep his silence or betray his friends by contacting the police.
Lita McClinton was a beautiful young woman who caught the eye of a successful businessman. She soon would marry Jim Sullivan and lived an affluent lifestyle, but the marriage was less than perfect and fell apart nine years later.
On the same day a judge was supposed to rule whether Lita could try to make a claim against her husband's multimillion-dollar fortune, she was gunned down in her own home by someone delivering a box of roses.
As correspondent Susan Spencer reports, this tale of love, betrayal, wealth and, eventually, murder would lead to an international search for justice.
Sandee Rozzo was an outgoing young woman, with dreams of becoming a model and making it big in the movie business. After a troubled romance, Sandee was murdered - shot multiple times just moments after she pulled her car into the garage.
As Maureen Maher reports, police eyed suspects and faced one crucial question: would someone kill for love?
Authorities try to determine whether a jealous husband killed a country music star.
There was never a question who committed the murder of Elli Perkins on March 13, 2003. As correspondent Peter Van Sant reports, within hours, police had a confession. His jeans drenched in blood, 28-year-old Jeremy Perkins had just stabbed his mother 77 times.
During the early morning hours of Nov. 15, 2004, Peter and Joan Porco were brutally attacked by an axe-wielding intruder in their bedroom. Peter Porco was murdered, his wife left for dead.
Miraculously, she was clinging on to life when investigators and medics arrived at the crime scene hours later. Suffering from severe injuries, police say Joan Porco indicated to them who the killer was with a nod.
But as Peter Van Sant reports, she says she has no memory of that. And she says she never would have implicated the person who faced trial for the murder of her husband.
Over 20 years ago, police in southern California were investigating the homicide of a Jane Doe, when a tantalizing clue - and another murder - would unmask a serial killer.
Fast forward to 2006 and a star of the hit CBS show "CSI: Miami" finds herself working on an episode that draws from her true-life story, of how she came face to face with that very same serial killer.
Bill Lagattuta reports.
Forty-six-year-old Andrew Kissel hoped to make his name in real estate in Greenwich, Conn., but instead, as correspondent Erin Moriarty reports, he earned the dubious distinction as the town's first murder victim in 2006.
The Christmas 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey has riveted America for nearly a decade. This past summer, the arrest of John Mark Karr briefly made it appear as though the mystery had been solved. But that was not the case.
Correspondent Erin Moriarty takes a new look at this true crime mystery and talks to JonBenet's father John, who breaks his silence for the first time since his wife Patsy died in June and Karr was arrested several weeks later.
On the evening of Sept. 28, 2000, former Indiana state trooper David Camm came home to find his 35-year-old wife Kim and his five-year-old daughter Jill murdered, both shot execution-style in the head; his seven-year old-son Brad died after being shot in the chest.
Just three days later, Camm, 36, was arrested and charged with the murders. Camm has adamantly denied any involvement in the murders.
Correspondent Richard Schlesinger has spent years investigating the case, one with bizarre evidence and many unusual twists that would lead to an ending that no one expected.
Janet March seemed to have it all - two beautiful children, a successful attorney husband, a dream house she designed herself and an aspiring art career. But appearances can be deceiving and on Aug. 29th, 1996, she was reported missing.
What would follow was an international investigation that would last almost ten years. As Bill Lagattuta reports, the case ended up with two members of a cold case squad who would try to uncover the mystery of what exactly happened to Janet March and who was involved in her disappearance.
After nearly nine years since the disappearance of Janet, her husband Perry March returned to Nashville, Tenn., to face murder charges. As he walked into the courthouse, there was no telling what was going through his mind.
In the summer of 2006, in what is known as low country South Carolina just north of Charleston, for a change it wasn't the heat everyone was talking about - it was the havoc one man wreaked on this small coastal community.
As correspondent Troy Roberts reports, Stephen Stanko faced a six-count indictment, including murder and kidnapping. It was the county's first death penalty case in nearly a decade and Stanko stood accused of committing some of the most heinous and brutal crimes in Georgetown in recent memory.
For 17-year-old Taylor Behl of Vienna, Va., happiness was sipping cappuccino and listening to live music at her favorite neighborhood coffee shop. But on Labor Day 2005, having spent the long weekend at home, all Taylor wanted was to get back to her freshman year of college.
Virginia Commonwealth University -- known as VCU -- was only two hours away in Richmond, but it was too far away for Taylor's mother, Janet Pelasara. "I was having migraine headaches, panic attacks just knowing that she wasn't going to be around," Janet remembers.
Taylor is Janet's only child, and the two were inseparable.
In 1980, a young couple was murdered as they were heading to a birthday party. As correspondent Troy Roberts reports, it would take many years, a journalist's persistence and a clue found on a birthday present that would bring the homicide investigation to the next level.
April Barber had the kind of wedding most girls only dream about: a beach in the Bahamas, at sunset, a beautiful dress and a handsome groom, Justin Barber.
But April's aunt, Patty Parrish, says April was hardly a traditional bride. "She was more of a country girl at heart," Patty remembers. "She had a gorgeous white dress that I remember cramming into her suitcase, and here we are trying to get the wrinkles out of it the day of the wedding."
If anyone deserved such a happy day, it was April; so many of the days before it had been difficult and sad.
"Her mother had passed away when April was 17. She died from cancer and that was very difficult," Justin explains.
As 48 Hours correspondent Harold Dow reports, her mother's death made April grow up fast. Her father fell apart and later got into trouble over drugs. So April briefly took over the mothering of her younger brother Kendon, who was only one, and her sister, Julie, who was nine.
In Dec. 2004, Jennifer Corbin's young sons found their mother dead with a gunshot wound. When a tipster later told police that Corbin's death might be connected to an apparent suicide 14 years earlier, investigators quickly re-opened the cases.
Correspondent Peter Van Sant reports
Jarrod Davidson was gunned down outside of his Santa Barbara apartment in July 2004, after someone had left what he thought was a gift - a potted plant - at his front door.
As 48 Hours correspondent Maureen Maher reports, Jarrod, 27, was going through a nasty custody battle at the time of his murder.
In an update to the story from March 4, 2006, titled "The Highest Stakes", as correspondent Erin Moriarty reports, the investigation shifted dramatically when casino surveillance video surfaced, showing Christie leaving the casino with a mystery man.
Wilson is dramatically captured on tape leaving the casino and walking into the parking lot with a 54-year-old man named Mario Garcia. She walks out of the frame with Garcia leaving her exact whereabouts in those last few critical moments a mystery. The cameras do show Garcia driving off, apparently alone, moments later.
Garcia speaks to 48 HOURS' Moriarty in a network exclusive about his violent past and his interactions with Christie Wilson that night. Is he innocent or is he hiding something deadly? And what will he say to Moriarty under intense questioning?
On June 12, 2006, the people of Reno, Nev., were glued to their televisions following the brazen shooting of Family Court Judge Chuck Weller.
"My thoughts immediately turned towards Charla and her whereabouts," remembers Ann Mudd, who along with Christine Libert, desperately tried to reach their friend Charla Mack.
The two women were convinced Charla was in danger; their fears were confirmed when they later heard on the news their friend had been murdered.
When several family members didn't show up for a birthday party in December, 1997, Phil and Nicoletta Dosso drove to their business to see where everyone was.
As correspondent Harold Dow reports, what they found inside was beyond their comprehension: three of the family members and their long-time friend and partner were all shot execution style. With no forensic evidence, the case would be hard to crack and authorities recruited one very tenacious cop to tackle the case.
Would he be able to track down the killer?
During the winter of 2002, the quiet Cape Cod community of Truro was rocked, when a former New York City fashion writer was found murdered inside her home. As correspondent Susan Spencer reports, almost everyone in the town became a suspect, when police decided to take a look at the entire male population.
Who killed Christa Worthington?
In River Oaks, Texas, in 1982, the only thing more shocking than Retha Stratton's murder was the fact that Wesley Wayne Miller did it. "He's not the kind of person that if you see him walking down the street, you're gonna cross to the other side of the road for your safety," explains prosecutor Joey Robertson.
But as correspondent Susan Spencer reports, Robertson will try to convince a jury at a hearing that if he's simply freed, Miller will kill again. It's a fear that has driven Retha's sister Rona and her best friend Lisa Gabbert to fight for two decades to keep Miller locked up.
It was the night of Dec. 10th, 1996 when Megan Lee watched firemen struggle to gain control of the inferno at the home of her boyfriend David Coffin.
"His best friend came on the scene and I had to tell him that David was dead," she remembers.
"You see flames shooting out of the roof of your best friend's house. The feelings are horrible," Craig Foster remembers. Like Megan, he was also in disbelief.
As correspondent Maureen Maher reports, their grief and fear only deepened when fire officials revealed that David had died before the fire even started.
The first report on an October day in 1997 was that a woman had been killed in a drive-by shooting. As correspondent Troy Roberts reports, the bullet that struck then 31-year-old Heather Grossman ripped a fist-sized hole in her neck, severing her spinal cord.
Heather and her husband John had been married for just four months. The bullet that struck John, then 47, only grazed him, but Heather's life was forever changed.
Racing legend Mickey Thompson made headlines in 1960, when he set the land speed record of 406 miles per hour in the salt flats of the Utah desert.
In 1988, he made headlines again for how he died: Mickey and his wife Trudy were murdered execution-style outside their California home.
There was no gun, no DNA, no hard evidence at all. But there was Mickey Thompson's younger sister Collene, who vowed to find justice. After 20 years, has a killer finally met his match?
Correspondent Bill Lagattuta reports.
Kathy Augustine was a rising star in the Nevada Republican party, known for both her ambition and controversial tactics, when she mysteriously died in 2006.
Correspondent Troy Roberts reports on the investigation into Augustine's sudden death.
In the days after Kathy's death, her husband Chaz Higgs says he was so despondent, he locked himself in the bedroom of their Las Vegas home and slashed his wrists. "I actually did it over and over, because I wanted to make sure," he tells 48 Hours. "I laid down and said, 'Good, now I can be with my wife.' And that was the last thing I remember."
The 2005 murder of Catherine Woods, an aspiring Broadway dancer whose throat was slashed in her New York apartment, is investigated. Erin Moriarty is the correspondent.
"We're in the midst of rejuvenating Atlantic City," says local radio host and Atlantic City legend Pink Kravitz. "The casinos this past year generated $5 billion.This industry has created over 40,000 jobs for people right here in Atlantic City. Come see for yourself."
But a few short miles from the Atlantic City's glittering casinos sits a strip of low-rent motels. Behind them, a lonely path runs along a drainage ditch.
As correspondent Harold Dow reports, police in the Atlantic City suburb of Egg Harbor Township were alerted on Nov. 20, 2006, to a grisly discovery: spaced out along the drainage ditch were four dead women.
