Original subtitles

A lot of stuff can be hush-hush sometimes in a small town.

They don't talk about it much.

I've never heard of a murder-for-hire case, especially out of Clay County, Kentucky.

Drag racing, it's a subculture.

Chicken fighting is well known.

This was very targeted.

It was somebody with a medetta.

He was very short.

He had no teeth.

Not attractive at all.

The witch doctor, that was the name that he went by.

He was not a good person.

He was the pill doctor.

He was a dope dealer.

He was a rooster fighter.

When it was revealed that it was a hitman, we all wanted to know one thing.

I'm Kim Bixler, and my son's name is Trevor Dykes.

He was very outgoing.

He loved racing, working on cars.

My family was all girls except for Trevor.

My name is Charlotte, and I am Trevor's aunt.

My name is Patty, and I'm Trevor's aunt.

My name is Patty, and I'm Trevor's aunt.

My name is Annie Davidson.

I'm Trevor's aunt.

I'm the oldest.

I am the youngest aunt.

When Trevor was born, we were all so excited just to have the little boy.

With me, I wanted a boy, like, to be the protector of my daughters, and Trevor was that.

Just somebody to watch over him, I guess, more.

When Trevor was a child, we were all so excited just to have the little boy.

With me, I wanted a boy, like, to be the protector of my daughters, and Trevor was that.

Just somebody to watch over him, I guess, more.

When Trevor was a child, his favorite thing to do was to work on things.

You have to be careful what kind of tool you give him.

Trevor would take apart my lawnmower.

Four-wheeler.

Chainsaw.

Dirt bike.

Windeaters.

Cars.

Toys.

He would take things apart and put it back together and have stuff left over, but it still

runs.

Exactly.

He'd love anything with wheels on it.

He started out racing four-wheelers, and Chuck was all about that.

I've done it all my life.

My dad done it, and my uncles done it, and I guess he just run the family.

He always liked going fast.

He loved four-wheeling, and he got me into it.

I would go race with him.

I loved it.

Mud holes galore.

He loved the racing.

We were up there every weekend, and he would win first place.

He had a room full of trophies where he had won those races.

Then he went from the four-wheelers to the Mustangs.

This car, that's Trevor's old car.

And it was all different colors, because he banged it up and wrecked it a few times, and

putting these different motors and everything else in it.

Trevor was always the one that would help.

I know a lot of people say he would give you the shirt off his back.

He wouldn't give you more than that shirt off his back.

He'd give you his underwear.

I mean, to be honest about it, he would.

16 years old is when he started dating.

For me, of course, you know, I'm the aunt.

I didn't like it.

He dated some good girls and, you know, had some good relationships.

And I ain't gonna lie, we always said he made bad choices in women.

I don't want none of them to hear me say that, but we always said that to him.

I would tell him that.

First it was Miranda, and then it was Brittany.

And she ended up pregnant with Skyli.

I was shocked, because in my mind, you know, that's still my baby.

And how can my baby be having a baby?

And then that didn't work out.

And then he met Ashley Lawson.

Oh, she was a pretty girl.

I mean, she's blonde hair, small frame, very talkative.

She ended up getting pregnant and having Trendon.

My reaction when I found out that, you know, that she was pregnant,

my question was to him, you know, are you going to marry her?

And he's, no, he's, you know, he didn't want to get married.

I think commitment scared him.

Maybe that's what it was, that they broke up.

So Trevor had two kids from two different girlfriends, Trendon and Skyli.

They didn't live with them.

He had visitation rights with Skyli and Trendon.

And then he started dating Ashley Collis.

OK, there were two Ashleys, Ashley Lawson and then Ashley Collis.

In 2015, Trevor seemed happy.

I remember he had got Ashley Collis an engagement ring.

And he was pregnant with what would have been my third grandchild.

And that's when all this was starting to happen.

Trevor Dykes was my brother.

We had the same dad.

We just had different moms.

We didn't grow up in the same house, but we were pretty much always together.

In 2015, he had a good job.

He had a home.

He had a fiancé.

But that morning, I was getting up.

And my husband, we had a scanner because he was on the fire department.

And the call come through on the scanner.

And it said somebody had been shot.

He kept my brother's address.

I just hit the floor and started screaming.

I ran in the bedroom and actually scared my daughter trying to get her up.

I was 12 years old.

And my mom came into my bedroom in a panic.

Wake up, wake up.

Your Uncle Trevor has been shot.

I remember holding onto her back and holding her hand as we walked down there.

Saying, homie, it's going to be okay.

He's probably just been shot in the foot.

I got a phone call.

They said somebody had been shot.

And they was up at Trevor's house.

And I remember just dropping to the floor, not really knowing what had happened.

If he was alive or if he was dead.

And just the whole time kind of praying and just hoping for the best outcome.

We just decided to head towards Trevor's house.

I will never forget when I pulled on top of that hill when I got out of the car.

I just jumped out of the car in the road and ran as far as I could to get to it.

It's two of the EMPs that just grabbed me in a burning.

And they're like, you can't go in there.

He's gone.

I'm just starting screaming for him.

They've killed Trevor.

I remember saying an ambulance door was open.

And I went to the door.

And then Ashley Collis was in the ambulance.

I remember telling her, take care of yourself and that baby.

I remember she had blood on the bottoms that were faint.

It was the only sibling I had.

A lot of things that, you know, me and him counted on for each other.

I was afraid for my dad.

There was a different kind of bond there.

They took his only son.

They took his best friend.

I mean, that's the hardest thing I went through in my life.

And, you know, I even thought about killing myself.

I said, if I killed myself, I ain't gonna go to heaven and see him.

I'd have to put my sunglasses on when people wouldn't see me crying.

Looking up at the sky, man.

But wanting to see him.

Banging to see him.

But I never did see him.

My name is Sky Lee, and I'm Trevor's daughter.

Even at such a young age,

I still remember how I felt when I lost my dad.

There's not many memories that I can even think of at that age.

But losing my dad was one of the ones that I could remember.

I wasn't even told.

It's just so life-changing.

To lose somebody so close.

It's...

It's a pain that never goes away.

Even...

Even at six years old.

I was the reporter assigned to this story.

This was the only murder-for-hire plot I believe I ever worked in my time.

But I wasn't aware of this at the time I was working this case.

I'm a retired sheriff of Franklin County, Kentucky.

And I've studied this case and know it quite extensively.

It was around 8 a.m. as Ashley Collis called 911.

And stated that her fiancé was shot multiple times.

But according to Ashley, the gun jammed and the gunman fled the area.

When the sheriff's office got there, they found Mr. Dykes shot three times deceased.

It looked like he was drugged back into the kitchen a little bit.

There were three rounds fired from a .45 caliber handgun.

The first shot hit his head.

The second shot hit his chest.

And another shot hit his arm as he was going down.

It seemed like the gun was probably five to ten foot away from where the door was when he came out.

So, close enough to make it personal, this was very targeted.

Was somebody with a vendetta?

Was it because somebody was having an affair?

Was it to get somebody out of the way?

Who was his ex-wife or girlfriend?

How many children?

How many exes?

Did his fiancé have anything to do with it?

Did she have a change of heart?

When you have a victim who is dead and another person who we know was there that survived,

basic police work tells you we've got to find out this person's story.

The first people that they look at are the people that's closest to you.

So, of course, Ashley Collis.

She lived with him.

She was the one closest to him.

And, you know, I guess people don't always know people's relationships behind doors.

Ashley Collis described the mail and that was it.

Obviously, that throws flags up because she was there and all she saw was a blur of somebody.

So, she wasn't very detail-oriented.

I always kept it in the back of my head why they didn't kill her too or shoot her because she was there.

And if she's seen him, I mean, she's a witness.

So, why not her too?

We had a cousin, Drew, and him and Trevor were like brothers.

Growing up, they were brothers.

But on the day of the murder, Ashley Collis went and moved in with her cousin and they ended up being a couple.

And ended up seeing each other.

Now, my sister, Kim, sort of suspected maybe Ashley were fooling around before Trevor was even murdered.

She says, like, something, something's not right.

Trevor was my fiancee.

I was 17 when we first met.

And it was around, I guess, 19 when I started dating him.

We usually just, like, cruised around town.

On the weekends, we raced a lot.

And he's a very good gentleman.

Like, you know, you don't find that a lot around here.

So...

A year and a half in, me and him was just talking literally about life things.

And he was like, okay, so I was going to do this big whole thing for you.

But he said, I'm too nervous and I'm just gonna ask you, like, will you marry me?

I looked at him and I was like, yes.

Like, he literally made me the happiest person.

That was in June.

And then two weeks into July, I just had this weird feeling.

And I was like, am I pregnant?

Me and him went to go get the pregnancy test.

And I went in there and it was positive.

So I was screaming in the house.

And he heard me from the garage.

The garage was pretty far away.

It was just, like, so much excitement.

But it might have been two weeks prior to July 27th.

Me and Trevor had, like, a really weird feeling that, like, someone was following us.

We kind of just, like, brushed it off.

On July 27th, 2015, me and Trevor woke up late for work.

And I jumped in the shower real quick, because he usually went in early before I did.

But we was both running late.

And, um...

I wanted to...

I'm so sorry.

God, I'm so sorry.

I don't really talk about this much, or to, like...

There's just very few selected people that, you know, I've even talked to this about.

So...

Like, in details.

It's just really hard.

Gosh, okay.

Um...

He waited on me to get out of the shower, to leave for work.

And, um...

We was walking to the door.

And, you know, he hugged me, told me he loved me.

And, you know, we see each other after work.

When he opened the door,

he kind of, like, pushed me back.

Like, into the corner.

And I could see this guy standing there at the time.

And, um...

I feel like I kind of, like, blacked out.

Because all I could hear is, like, the gunshots.

But at the time, I didn't know it was gunshots.

Like, I didn't know what was happening.

And I ran and got the phone.

And went into the bathroom.

To call 911.

But the way Trevor was laying,

his foot was kind of, like, at the door.

And, um...

I knew, like, I had to get him back inside.

Yeah, I got his, uh...

I picked up his leg.

And, like, put it in the door so I could close it.

Because I didn't know, like, what else was gonna happen.

So, I just...

Oh, God.

Ashley Collis was the only witness to the crime,

other than the shooter.

So, you circle back, hey, did anything else?

What about this?

What about that?

Is there anything that you can think of

that might help us move this case forward?

The police, they told me to come down there

and describe everything that happened.

I knew it was a guy, but at the time,

it was just kind of like a black mask over his face.

And I, like, saw from his nose up.

Trevor's mom, she got to the point where she was like,

she's like, I don't believe you.

It just hurt really bad for her not to believe me.

Like, I literally laid there with her son in my arms, you know?

So, it's just hard when everybody's coming at you

with, like, assumptions and just...

Boom.

There's one last thing I need to ask you.

It was just this rumor about some kind of affair going on.

Oh, God.

Okay.

So, um...

When I left our house in the ambulance,

I feel like this one person in particular

I got really close to after everything happened.

Never nothing before.

So, that just really hurts my feelings.

I'm sorry.

I honestly hate that that happened the way it did.

But, when you feel alone and, like, you don't have nobody,

and you get attached to somebody

that's took care of you the whole time that that happened,

you start growing feelings for them, so...

Later in the morning, when the sheriff's office were trying to find the shooter,

they smelled something burning behind the residence.

They came upon a burn pile, which had some clothing in it.

Gloves, I believe a mask.

So, obviously, that's a clue.

The shooter, when he fled the scene, stopped up on the side of the hill

and burned some of his clothing

because he was worried about the gunshot residue.

And it was in the direction of where Ashley Collison stated

that the suspect had fled.

So, she actually told the truth.

Early on in this investigation,

the sheriff's office didn't have a lot of answers.

They were exploring a number of leads to see what was going on.

It turned out that Trevor had had some sort of dispute with drag racing.

Trevor and I, we did a lot of street racing.

Trevor, he would take home the W most of the time,

being actual competitive, trying to win.

You know, they get a little mad about that.

There was a few fists thrown,

and I actually got sucker punched by a guy that came through the crowd.

Another guy grabbed me by the neck from behind and put me on the ground.

And next thing you know, Trevor pretty sure pulled the pistol and shot it into the ground.

And then he left, and someone else ended up with the pistol.

I'm gonna say, yeah, he probably did have a few enemies.

I feel like the beginning of July,

he just had this weird feeling, I guess, that something was gonna happen.

But I feel like it wasn't with racing.

Ashley Lawson, she caused Trevor a lot of problems

every time he would get in a relationship.

I am the mother of Trevor's oldest child, Skyli.

But once I found out I was pregnant,

there was another girl, Ashley Lawson.

Me and Ashley Lawson went to school together.

We played basketball against one another our whole lives.

One day in the middle of the night, I get some texts and calls that he's with Ashley.

And from that day on, he was with Ashley.

And I was definitely mad and upset when she got pregnant with Trendon.

And I cut ties completely.

You know, I know how she was, how her family was.

Ashley Lawson's family did not have the best reputation in the community.

They weren't known as fine, upstanding citizens.

I heard stories about Ashley Lawson's family.

You just kind of heard that family wasn't a family that you wanted to mess with.

With Ashley and Lawson and Trevor,

you would see them like get-togethers and stuff a little bit,

but they would argue and fuss with each other.

Anything and everything she could argue with him about.

If he told the sky was blue, she would argue with him that it wasn't.

I know she had actually shot herself at some point after her relationship had ended.

It says in the report, it was a self-inflicted, an accidental discharge.

My first thoughts are, was it really accidental or did she perhaps do this intentionally?

Accidental discharges aren't unheard of and bad things can happen, absolutely.

But during the time she was in the hospital, we found out that she had drugs in her system.

And Trevor, when he found that out, you know,

he was not going to let Trendon be brought up in that kind of environment.

So he went and filed for custody.

The next custody hearing would have been pretty close to when he was killed.

At that time, Ashley Collis posted that they was engaged.

She was pregnant and Trevor was fixing to get custody of Trendon.

That's what broke the camel's back.

That morning, Trevor was shot.

At that time, I knew it was a guy.

I didn't know who it was.

But I do feel like, you know, it was Ashley Lawson behind it.

What about her dad and some of the other family members?

Would they go as far to kill somebody?

Over the course of this investigation, it came out that there was a history of run-ins with the law and her family, including her father.

James Lawson, please.

James Lawson, please.

I had an incident take place back in 1999.

James Lawson, which is Ashley Lawson's dad, had actually shot somebody.

I was originally charged with first-degree murder.

When Trevor was murdered, we all knew who it was.

This historical knowledge is very important because dad could have very easily been our suspect.

But we were able to find out as part of the investigation that Ashley Lawson's dad, James Lawson, at the time, was in prison for breaking parole and eliminate him as a potential suspect.

Obviously, Ashley Lawson, she's going to be somebody that I would want to talk to.

Can you tell me about a few times that you all had arguments?

I had some treatment every culture here.

Ashley, she kind of said, you know, just kind of downplayed that relationship.

As everybody knows, co-parenting, you're going to talk, you're going to communicate.

Did Trevor ever want full custody of Tran?

Yeah.

When's the next court date for him?

On the 12th.

So that's 16 days from now.

Detectives pressed her for hours and hours because if he was eliminated, she was going to get full custody of him.

But police did determine that Ashley Lawson did have this alibi.

She was with her new boyfriend at the time of this shooting.

Detectives did a search warrant to her cell phone provider, and honestly, they were able to verify that she was at the cabin that night before and that morning.

And it was finally something that they can confirm that she actually told the truth.

I didn't believe Ashley Lawson's alibi for a second, and I still don't.

I think Ashley Lawson has a problem with controlling people, and she lost control of Trevor.

And I think she realized that she would never have him back when she found out that he was engaged to Ashley Colas.

They had a home. They had bought cars.

You know, they were doing really well, and she'd rather him be dead than not to have him.

The detectives kept circling back to Ashley Lawson.

And then, all of a sudden, her fiancé, Thomas Miracle, comes to the sheriff's office.

He voluntarily comes in, and as he is talking to them, but it's very, very rare when this happens.

He was trying to say, look, here I am. I got nothing to hide.

He was at home and had an alibi with Ashley.

I think he was trying to go on the offensive to do damage control at that point.

So, detectives, now they need to look at Thomas Miracle.

The first time I met Thomas Miracle, I mean, he's an old man. He had no teeth.

Not attractive at all.

Ashley Lawson's boyfriend, I heard, he loved chicken fights.

He had a nickname named The Witch Doctor.

The Witch Doctor, that was the name that he went by.

That was his chicken fighting name.

Chicken fighting is well known, you know, in these rural areas.

They use spurs on these chickens, put them in a little ring together.

And fight.

They would peck to his last breath, reach over and peck the other chickens.

They bet, they gamble.

It is a blood sport.

It's illegal, certainly.

Thomas Miracle done that, yeah.

That's where he met Ashley at, because Ashley got where she was handling these chickens.

You had to have somebody to handle your chickens to fight them.

Why is she with somebody like that?

So, detectives pulled Thomas Miracle's phone records, which did, in fact, did not show him at the cabin.

It actually showed him up by Trevor Dyke's house, which throws off a whole array of flags like, holy cow, okay, here we go.

And also showed receiving texts from an unknown number and calls at odd hours of the night.

He got a 3 a.m. phone call.

He also had a 639, a 642, a 646, and a 733, all the way up to the murder.

Yeah, that's a lot.

And it is weird activity, all from an unknown number.

That had been texting him and calling him.

So, obviously, I would want to see who that is and what that was about.

So, Thomas Miracle ended up calling a phone register to a woman who worked at a hospital locally.

The question was, why was Thomas Miracle calling her?

So, she tells detectives, this is not my phone.

My husband uses this phone.

Roscoe Henson.

Roscoe Henson was a low-level drug dealer.

Actually, Roscoe Henson used to live with my neighbors.

He was very short.

He had a beard and a mustache.

I think Trevor even knew him, maybe talked to him before.

They weren't, like, friends or anything like that.

You know, that's typical of a small town, too.

Everybody knows everybody.

So, investigators interviewed Roscoe Henson.

They brought him in.

And, to their surprise, he admitted to everything.

He said he had approached Thomas Miracle to try to help him with his roosters.

And Thomas said, man, I got enough people doing that.

I don't need you.

They said, I do have a problem.

And then told him that his girlfriend, or Beyonce, had a problem about Trevor Dykes.

And he wanted him scared.

And it went from wanting him scared that Ashley Lawson is just, you know, she just wants him gone.

She wants to get rid of him.

The price promised was $5,000 to carry out this hit.

So, they come up with a plan.

The original plan was for Roscoe Henson not to just kill Trevor Dykes, but also to kill Ashley Collis.

And then set the house on fire.

Roscoe Henson changed his mind.

He actually thought there was a child there, which there wasn't.

And he didn't want to do that.

So, he had implements to set the house on fire, which he then used to instead destroy evidence of the gloves and items that he used during the shooting.

When they arrested him, I got a call to the, they're getting ready to bring Ashley in.

I went to the jail.

And I remember when they got her out of that car, I looked at her and the door was closing.

And I told her, I said, I hope you rot in hell for what you've done.

She was on house arrest.

And I mean, we couldn't wrap our heads around how she could be at the house sitting when she was involved in this.

I mean, she got pregnant again, had another kid with another man while she's on house arrest.

It took seven years for the hearing to start.

I begged them to move it.

I begged them to have it moved out of Clay County.

Because I was scared because she's going to get away.

Absolutely did not take all three of them.

What we've got here, we've got to rush to judgment.

So that they could go after that girl right over there.

And it makes a good story for your lifetime moving.

There was plenty of other moments.

Thomas Merrill was not a good person.

He was the pill doctor.

He was a dope dealer.

He was a rooster fighter.

All of those things.

They were saying that Miracle took it upon himself to have Trevor killed.

I was very surprised that Ashley Lawson took the stand on her own.

Can you state your full name for the record?

Ashley McCoy Lawson.

I mean, she literally got on stand and smiled.

She had a cross on.

She was trying to play.

There's no way that I could have done this.

Can you describe to us what the relationship with Chicken Man or which doctor was?

There really was no relationship.

He helped me with providing my medicine.

I was addicted to drugs at the time.

She told them that Thomas Dan Miracle was her fiance.

But in the trial, she was saying they didn't have a relationship.

Roscoe Henson.

Did you know him?

No.

Had you ever talking to Roscoe Henson?

No.

Did you encourage any of this behavior?

I didn't know.

Did you have any knowledge of it at all?

I did not.

Thank you, Ms. Lawson.

You can step down, man.

You know, the thing is, Thomas Miracle didn't have a whole lot of motive other than to please her.

But throughout this five-day trial, they heard a lot of testimony, including Roscoe Henson.

First, tell us your name, please.

And Thomas Miracle.

Thomas Dan Miracle.

Roscoe Henson.

Both testified against Ashley Lawson in her trial.

Now, at some point in time, were you approached or met up with a gentleman named Roscoe Henson?

Yes, sir.

I said, well, I actually got a problem she didn't even take care of.

She's having custody problems with her youngest daddy.

He said, well, I'll take care of her.

I'll kill him very much better.

I said, well, I don't know.

I'll have to talk to her about it.

I actually came out on the porch and she said something about kids.

Trevor's trying to take her kids.

Said she'd have him killed or kill him before he done it.

And what did you then do with it?

I went to the right.

That that was what he thought would you do?

Yes, sir.

What did she say?

Tell him to do it.

Tell him to do it?

Yeah.

I did.

It means kill Mr. Dyer.

Yeah.

She said, that's what I want to do.

She wanted that done?

Yes, sir.

Throughout this five-day trial, the defense attorney tried to cast doubt.

Here's where you're trying to twist me up.

I'm not trying to twist you up.

I mean, if they could get one juror to believe that she was innocent and she was this sweet,

nice girl, then that's all they knew and she'd walk free.

We were waiting on a verdict.

I think it was like 1230 in the night time we was in that courthouse.

The jury would go ahead and back to the jury room.

One or two of the jurors was having problems.

They just couldn't come to a decision.

We thought there was a juror.

She's probably kin to them and she knows them and they're not going to convince them.

And she's going to get off.

She's going to get off and not guilty.

In the end, I'll never forget Kim Collins.

The jury is getting ready to go out.

Ladies and gentlemen, jury, several hours ago you reported that you were deadlocked.

Have you now been able to reach the verdict?

Yes, ma'am.

If we, the jury, do agree and find the defendant, Ashley Lawson, guilty of criminal complaints

to commit murder.

The outburst in that courtroom at that night.

It was for Trevor just to know that we got justice for him.

For the two men, I think this story boils down to one thing and that's desperation.

Thomas Miracle, who was desperate to win the affections of Ashley Lawson.

Roscoe Henson, who was at such a low point that $5,000 to kill someone seemed like a fair trade.

The next day, ladies and gentlemen, please be seated.

We got her sentence.

Would the jury do agree and fix the defendant's punishment at 20 years?

Signed by the foreperson.

We were not happy that she got less time than any one of them.

I will never understand.

To me, that's not justice.

It was like we all died that day.

Yes.

I was awarded so permanent custody to my grandson.

Now he don't have his dad.

He don't have his mom.

How can you say you love a child when you can have his dad killed?

And you're putting that child through all that hurt.

That's not love.

I think about what it would be like all the time to have him around.

Never really got the chance to have a father bigger.

I feel like ever since then, my life has literally crumbled.

And I don't have the best luck ever.

We was expecting, and I didn't lose the baby until his funeral, so that was really hard.

She just took someone that I really loved and thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

And just crumbled my life into her hand.

If anything, like, she should have got the next time.

Like, I know who pulled the trigger, but she should have got that.

She's the one who made that happen.

Who was behind this series of attacks of a neighborhood icon?

He was punched multiple times.

And he had a hood on?

Yes, and a mask.

The less people know, the better it is.

The less people got killed.