Original subtitles

Two ambitious women, one shot outside an apartment building.

They both had overcome a lot to try to be successful.

She was very loving.

Whatever you would need, she was more than happy to give it to you.

Witness accounts describe an escalating drama, but reports of what happened

depend on who's telling the story.

There was a brief.

Some disagreement.

A group of girls had jumped one female.

She pulled what seemed to be like a small handgun and shot it.

She had no criminal record the first time her name had came up in any

The aggression, the beatdown, if that would make anybody afraid.

I was thinking to myself, this could be what triggered everything.

She showed.

heard the small knife and said that she would use it to protect herself.

And she claimed she had the gun for protection.

You had supporters for both. I think it created a divide in the city, but she

didn't deserve to die that way.

June 26, 2011.

It's a quiet Sunday afternoon in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, when a series of urgent

calls come in to the Jefferson County 911 Center.

911. The call

was coming in saying that they had a shooter. They heard gunfire.

People was running.

It was a bunch of chaos.

And they knew that one person had been shot.

First

responders

are dispatched to a location on the west side of town.

When responding to those type calls, it's always in the back of your mind. Is

the shooter still there?

The first officer on the scene sees an older man administering CPR to the

apparent victim.

The man says he is a reverend at the church across the street.

He saw the confrontation and heard the shots.

Shots really got his attention.

Looked over and he basically sees another woman with a gun and he sees a

lying on the ground.

So he goes over to render aid.

When I arrived, the scene was secure.

EMT was giving attention to the young lady that was down.

You could see the blood coming out of the shoulder area.

She was not conscious. She was not talking.

They was rendering aid and getting ready to load her up into the ambulance.

As the victim is rushed to the hospital, police question bystanders to find out

who she is.

We identified her through witnesses that had given her name as Vanessa Bearden.

They were able to determine that she didn't live there, so part of their

inquiry was to determine why she was there.

The average citizen in Pine Bluff is not likely to be a victim of some random

act of violence.

We don't have home invasions with killing drive -by. And when we do, it's

personal beef.

It's not random.

Vanessa Bearden had no criminal record, no run -ins with the law.

So you want to know who, what, why, and how. Just how all of this materialized.

Born May 15, 1990, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Vanessa Bearden has deep ties

to the community.

Growing up, Vanessa, she had a lot of love. She was surrounded by all her

cousins and all her family.

They're a big family, and they're a Pine Bluff family. They are known for their

church affiliations, singing group, the Bearden Singers.

We were country kids.

So we like to ride four -wheelers. We're outside picking eggs, getting the eggs

from the chickens, just running around.

Everybody knew Vanessa, and she just had a really big personality.

Vanessa was very loving.

Whatever you would need, if you would ask Vanessa, Vanessa was more than happy

to help you with it or give it to you.

She sought justice. She wanted to make sure that everybody was treated the

way, treated fairly.

In 2008, around the time Vanessa turned 18, the Bearden family faced a major

challenge.

Vanessa's father had been sick for a little bit, but when he passed away, it

still a very big shock to our family, especially to Vanessa. It was part of

support system that was no longer there, that was gone.

I think it caused her to kind of reevaluate a little, take some things

seriously. She did grow. She became more mature.

Vanessa did step up with helping me as well.

So she would keep my children while I worked.

That was about the same time where she met the father of her children

and began a relationship with him.

And she had two kids.

Vanessa's mom is a nurse.

A lot of our family, they are nurses.

And she liked to care for people.

So Vanessa wanted to go on to become a nurse.

I think it probably made her a little bit sad her dad wasn't there to see

that happen.

Vanessa was the best mom ever.

Their hair, shoes, everything was planned, everything was intentional,

she loved those babies, and that was the way she showed her love.

As happy as 19 -year -old Vanessa was to be a mother, the hardships continued

when her relationship with the father of her children ended.

She did try to make that relationship work, but when she realized that it was

not salvageable, that's when she kind of decided to explore other options

outside of him.

Within the same year, her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Vanessa took that very hard because her mom is her idol.

She was modeling her life, her adult life, after her mother's life.

Her mother's battle inspired Vanessa to complete her training to become a

certified nursing assistant as she raised her nearly two -year -old

six -month -old son.

She was just starting her job so that she could continue taking care of her

family. And, you know, she had a lot of positive things working out for her

right then.

But just as 21 -year -old Vanessa's hard work is paying off...

A tragic shooting has left her gravely wounded, and Pine Bluff police are

to determine what happened.

They were able to piece together the approximate area in which the shooting

place, and that was based on them locating a spent 9mm cartridge.

We also retrieved the knife that was on Vanessa Bearden's person.

The reverend had taken it and given it to us.

There wasn't any blood on it. I was wondering to myself, did she bring this

knife to this thing with the intention of using it?

And it went bad?

As they begin to talk to people, they start getting into more specific

questions.

According to some, It might have been related to a fight that took place 45

minutes earlier at a different apartment complex a few blocks away.

There was a group of college -age girls that jumped one female.

And then you had a crowd of onlookers watching the fight.

They say Vanessa Bearden was one of the girls in that group and one of several

people who recorded the fight.

I was thinking to myself,

Okay, she was involved in this fight. This could be what triggered everything.

You want to know who, what, why, and how.

So I want to know, did they know each other?

What was the cause of the shooting?

Was this a planned attack, or was she just in the wrong place at the wrong

Coming up, an eyewitness shares her version of the story.

She wrote her money down and told us, you bitches come see me.

And the suspect tells her own.

She had been jumped and she was just trying to protect herself when it was

girls.

Detectives in Pine Bluff, Arkansas are investigating the shooting of 21 -year

-old Vanessa Bearden.

And news of the tragedy has started to spread through the community.

Another cousin called me and he asked me, did I hear anything about

Vanessa being shot?

And I told him no.

So we all went to the hospital. We all met at the hospital.

I remember sitting in the family room and the

clergyman coming to pray with us.

She's the baby cousin, and it's just not how it's supposed to go.

Investigators have just learned about a fight between a group of women about 45

minutes before the shooting at another complex nearby.

A young woman named Colby steps forward and tells them she knows who shot

Vanessa.

She identified herself and that Vanessa was a friend of hers.

She said they witnessed the fight and what took in it.

Colby agrees to come to the police station and give a formal statement.

Could you tell me what happened today?

Before that incident happened, Vanessa Bearden was involved in an incident

with Olivia Moody.

Colby says Olivia isn't someone she and Vanessa knew well.

But she was involved in an argument with their friend named Alicia, who lived

nearby.

She said that early in the day she was hanging out with Vanessa, and they

noticed another friend of theirs, Alicia Jeffries, was involved in a fight with

another young lady.

There was a brief, some disagreement between Alicia and Olivia.

There were witnesses who tried to break up the fight.

But it had almost that gang element of multiple girls jumping on one.

I have been knowing Olivia for probably four months, but I haven't known her

well as friends.

I've always known her to stay in touch with people, say something smart just to

see if someone would come bother her.

And today she got to fight one girl, and Vanessa jumped in that fight.

So Vanessa jumped in the fight.

I'm against Olivia.

Yes, which doesn't make sense to me because they don't even know each other.

A young man that they called Casey, he pulled Olivia from the fight.

That fight was broken up by a black male, and the black male dropped Olivia

in the sunset.

As he's removing Olivia, she is screaming affinities. She is screaming

at the group.

After the incident, Colby says Alicia went home, and she and Vanessa continued

on with their day.

According to Colby, about 45 minutes after the fight, her and Vanessa was

hanging out actually at the apartment complex where Olivia Moody lived.

They were sitting on a fence post in front of the building, and they noticed

white towel riding through, and Olivia Moody was actually in that towel.

They came past us as me, Vanessa, and a group of other girls and males were

standing along a ledge.

And Olivia wrote her one down and told us, you bitches come see me.

Colby says they shrugged it off, but a little while later, Olivia sent them

another message directed specifically at Vanessa.

A young, young boy, probably eight or nine, he came through the hallway of one

apartment complex and said that Olivia said she wanted the girl in the red

shorts.

Vanessa was the only one in red shorts.

I stated to Vanessa, don't go, because I knew she had a gun.

How did you know she had a gun?

I was just...

saying because the type of person she seems to be, she wouldn't just call you

out of a fight.

So Vanessa reached to her side and tapped on her side and showed me a knife

said she's not playing with her.

Colby said that she showed her the small knife that she had and said that she

would use it to protect herself if she needed to.

Colby says Vanessa went to find Olivia and the rest of the group followed her.

Vanessa started to go through the same apartment building hall that the boy

out of.

She got within four or five feet of the apartment, and I saw Olivia

reach out from behind her pants and pull what seemed to be like a small

handgun. It was silver.

And she pointed up her gun and shot.

When I saw that, I ran.

And when I ran, I didn't know Vanessa had been hit until I heard her yell,

COVID, I'm hit.

I turned around, and I started running back.

I saw a man, an older man, bent over, giving Vanessa CPR.

Okay. But did Vanessa have the knife out at the time she was shot?

No, sir. The knife was never drawn.

In my opinion, Colby was believable.

I believe the way she painted the picture and how everything went down.

The young man that Olivia Moody sent through that breezeway to try to make

contact with those three young ladies was never identified, not able to

determine who it was.

Once law enforcement spoke with Colby, they had additional investigative steps.

Wanted to see if they could find additional witnesses that could support

story that Colby just told them. And they want to find Olivia Moody.

Before investigators can follow up with anyone else, they receive devastating

news about Vanessa.

She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

After hearing that she had to come to the womb, this changed the whole dynamic

of the crime scene.

So now we don't just have a first -degree battery.

Now we have a homicide.

of the fatal shooting of 21 -year -old Vanessa Bearden has shaken the community

of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Family members gather at the hospital in mourning.

When I found out she died, it hurt me. It hurt me deeply.

And I hurt for my aunt, and I hurt for my cousin, because she played an

part in their life.

I was shocked.

when it happened because she's the baby cousin, I knew how much we were losing.

And to us, she was not just another

girl that got shot.

When we went back to see her, they asked us not to touch her because

it was a crime scene.

And I think that had to be the hardest part for her mom and her sister.

As Vanessa's loved ones try to make sense of the loss, detectives are

up on a suspect in the shooting, 20 -year -old Olivia Moody.

We come into the knowledge that she lives in Sunset Village, so we were able

track her down there.

We found no weapon at the scene, so...

We wasn't ruling out the fact that she may still be armed.

We knock on the door and she answers.

They obtained consent from Olivia to search her apartment.

During the course of that search, they were not able to locate or did not

the firearm that Olivia used to shoot Vanessa Beard.

We take Olivia back to the detective office, back to the station where she's

Mirandized, and we talk to her father from there.

Her demeanor was, I would say, calm, nonchalant.

She admitted to the shooting, but she's saying that it was self -defense.

Olivia confirms what Vanessa's friend Colby told police.

that she was involved in an argument earlier that day with Alicia Jeffrey.

We find out this revolved around the fact that Alicia was now dating a young

that Olivia Moody used to date.

And apparently that caused some friction between Olivia Moody and Alicia.

They had come in contact as Olivia Moody was walking down the street.

Olivia stated that Alicia and some of her friends, me and Vanessa Bearden,

they colluded together to jump her and beat her until she

was able to get out of their grasp.

We took photographs of Olivia's face, of her hands.

She did sustain some evidence of physical injury.

Abrasions, cuts.

Olivia says it might have been worse if her friend Casey hadn't stepped in to

save her.

Brian Gaddy was a friend of Olivia's. They called him Casey.

He was the guy that got her out of the fight. He was trying to break the fight

up and get her out of harm's way.

After leaving the apartment,

Olivia says she obtained a gun in case she had any more run -ins with the

Olivia claimed she had this gun for protection, and she was headed back to

apartment. And on the way there, she sees a group of girls sitting on a fence

post by her apartment.

Although Alicia had already left the apartment complex, that group did

Vanessa and Colby.

Near them was a group of young men, and Olivia says one of them approached her,

a man known as G -Rel.

G -Rel had some prior minimal association with Olivia Moody. In other

they knew each other, but they weren't friends.

Olivia says G -Rel asked her about the fight.

And as they talked, she decided it might be worth trying to de -escalate the

tension through some of her friends.

She decided, according to her, to go talk to Vanessa and Colby to see if she

could. I believe the phrase she used was squash the situation.

Olivia admits she brought a gun with her just in case.

Olivia says she had been jumped, she'd been harassed, and she'd been bullied.

She was just trying to protect herself from this group of girls.

As Vanessa and Colby got closer, Olivia claimed she heard Colby say, get her.

So she pulled out the gun, according to Olivia, to scare him.

She admits that she shot the gun in the direction of Vanessa Bearden.

But Olivia claimed that she was trying to shoot a warning shot.

When she realized she'd actually shot Vanessa, she was in shock.

She just stood there near the body, and someone took the gun from her.

She didn't notice who took it.

Then she went to her apartment, closed the door, and waited for the

After hearing Olivia's version, I didn't buy the warning shot based

on witnesses' statement that it was pointed at Vanessa.

After her interview, the decision is made to arrest Olivia.

Ms. Moody was initially charged with capital murder.

As I was filling out paperwork and the ticket to let Ms. Moody know she was

being charged with capital murder, she made the statement, no, actually it was

second -degree murder.

It caught me by surprise because I'd never heard anyone make a statement like

that.

While Olivia's comment reveals unexpected knowledge of the legal

It has no effect on the outcome.

When there is a criminal charge, an arrest charge is called.

That's made by the police.

But the police aren't authorized to file an official criminal charge, an

indictment. And in court, she was charged with murder one.

At this point, you want to find more witnesses to either...

debunk or solidify her statement.

We was trying to collaborate the story that Olivia told us about G -Rail being

at the scene, but we was unable to locate him.

I was beginning to wonder if there was a G -Rail.

Coming up, investigators question their assumptions about Olivia.

She does not...

fit the profile of a cold -blooded killer.

And the residents of Pine Bluff begin to take sides.

The community stood by Olivia, believed in her.

It kind of felt like being victimized all over again.

Just a few hours after the death of Vanessa Bearden, the young woman who

her, Olivia Moody, is in police custody.

Investigators suspect her claim of self -defense is a smokescreen for her true

motive.

I think to a large degree that Olivia Moody had been embarrassed and

she had been punked down and that she was going to take action.

to make sure that everybody in that area knew she was not to be messed with.

Colby had told us that the fight earlier during the day was between

Alicia Jeffries and Olivia Moody.

So now we need to talk to Alicia to find out what the fight was about.

When detectives speak with Alicia, She confirms she and Olivia are at odds over

a guy, but she does not agree to a formal interview.

To learn more about their issues, detectives dig into their social media.

They did not like each other.

They had a pretty significant Facebook war in which they both said very

things about the other person.

And that all...

surrounded by what was then Olivia Moody's ex -boyfriend and Alicia's

boyfriend.

Alicia started taunting and harassing Olivia and

tensions became high and it escalated into the fight.

A background check on Olivia Moody underscores the tragedy of the shooting.

Olivia Moody, she was born in Chicago, Illinois, came up poor.

Her mother was addicted to drugs.

Olivia's mother let her family members raise her children as she worked on her

recovery.

Olivia's mother is my sister, and in the beginning, me and my mom, we

were taking care of my sister's five kids, and Olivia was one of them.

Eventually, my mom... Lost her eyesight.

So I ended up getting all the kids through DCSF and my mom.

And it wasn't easy, but we made it. You know, we made it.

Despite the hardships of her early childhood, Olivia managed to rise above

circumstances.

Olivia was very bright. She was an honor roll student in elementary school. She

was always studious, and she was very giving.

She was basically just a good kid. She didn't get in trouble.

She went to school every day. She made good grades.

She ended up coming to Pine Bluff, attending University of Arkansas at Pine

Bluff, and majoring in criminal justice.

She would have been the first person in my immediate family that would have

graduated with a college degree. So, yeah, we was all proud of Olivia.

At the time, she was actually a clerk for a local circuit judge.

Knowing Olivia's background, she does not fit the profile of a cold -blooded

killer.

Detectives consider the possibility that Olivia has been telling them the truth

about being harassed.

But they need to determine why Vanessa was the one who ended up dead.

Searching for clarity, they revisit the witness statements and discover a

pivotal piece of evidence.

Vanessa and Olivia didn't have any type of relationship. They didn't even know

each other prior to that day.

Vanessa did, however, video that altercation with her cell phone.

The video of the fight shows all the people that was around watching it, and

shows Olivia getting jumped on.

She's pretty much helpless, and it's hard to fight against that many

I believe that Vanessa was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Vanessa wasn't the one that Olivia was into it with. She just happened to be

there.

But I think seeing those girls that had jumped on her, I think it triggered

something in Olivia.

But I feel like there was other avenues that Olivia could have taken before

taking Madison to her own hands.

Although Olivia Moody has been charged with the first -degree murder of Vanessa

Bearden, investigators now question whether the evidence supports her claim

self -defense.

They hope the results of an autopsy will provide some definitive answers.

Vanessa's autopsy revealed that she was struck in her back left shoulder and it

actually exited through the front out of her right shoulder.

She was shot in the back.

There was not a close -range gunfire, somewhere between 6 to 10 feet maybe.

I'm thinking, it's not self -defense if you hit in the back and you're also

sleeping.

If Vanessa had to pull the knife on her or try to cut her or stab her,

then you would have had an argument for self -defense.

It's important to note that there's no evidence that Vanessa Bearden ever

brandished the knife, much less threatened Olivia Mooney with the knife.

As the story of Vanessa's murder and Olivia's arrest spreads through the

community, not everyone agrees about Olivia's guilt.

I think it created a divide in the city.

You know, you had supporters for both, and you had a lot of anti -bullying

sentiments that was brought about for Olivia and had people that felt like

Vanessa didn't deserve to die that way.

Olivia got to be the person that they looked at and said, oh, well, just

she went to college, it couldn't have been Olivia that did it.

Vanessa had to have done something in order for Olivia to react like that.

And it kind of felt like being victimized all over again.

Olivia returns to college while investigators continue to build their

against her.

Then, three months after Vanessa Bearden's death, a new witness emerges.

An individual by the name of Gurel Allen or Gerald Allen goes by the street name

G -Rail.

Olivia claimed this man witnessed the shooting firsthand, but police had never

been able to find him.

G -Rail, the one we was looking for, he surfaced.

He's locked up in jail on drug charges.

While he's incarcerated awaiting trial, he writes a letter to...

the prosecutor's office indicating that he has information.

That letter's turned over to the Pinewood Police Department investigators

they go interview Gurrell Allen.

Gurrell was a material witness for the government.

This case was heavily dependent on eyewitness testimony as to what

Gurrell said that he sees Olivia shortly after the fight.

Olivia entices G -Rail to try to talk to those three girls and get them to come

have some type of interaction with her.

Later on, GSA sees Olivia fire the shot from about six to ten feet away,

striking Vanessa.

He also mentioned that Vanessa never made any type of threatening moves

Olivia.

G -Rail did confirm that Olivia Moody shot Vanessa Bearden in the back, not

in the back, but as Vanessa Bearden was running away from Olivia Moody.

However, he seems just as conflicted about the shooting as the community at

large.

G. Will still believes that despite all that information, despite how everything

played out, that Olivia still acted in self -defense.

He maintained that, but he was incorrect.

For prosecutors, the statement makes one thing abundantly clear.

I have never believed that... Olivia Moody was an inherently bad person. I

believe Olivia Moody did an inherently bad thing.

I honestly believe she got the gun for protection, but I think just seeing them

at her place where she was at triggered something in her.

I think she tried to bait them into that situation.

I don't believe she fired a warning shot.

I think she just pointed and fired.

But they know the outcome of any trial, especially one this controversial, is

uncertain.

Going into trial, I had my concerns about the public opinion because you

know how that would affect the jury.

Nearly one year after Vanessa Bearden's death, the young woman who shot her,

Olivia Moody, goes on trial for murder.

The trial began May 16, 2012, and the courtroom is packed.

There's a lot of supporters there for Olivia.

There's some supporters there for Vanessa.

Our defense was self -defense.

The aggression, the beatdown, that that would make anybody afraid.

She was protecting herself against further beatdown.

The general argument by the

prosecution is that it can't be self -defense if the victim is fleeing and is

no longer a threat to you.

You have to prove state of mind.

In order to save you fearfully of your life, the only way we could establish

that was to put her on the stand.

But any time you put a criminal defendant on the stand, it is just high

Before Olivia takes the stand, prosecutors attempt to negotiate a plea

reducing the charges from first -degree murder to manslaughter.

But Olivia refuses the deal.

She would have gotten four years probation, reduced to manslaughter with

right of expungement of record.

Had that happened, she would have been placed in the car that day with her

family going back to Chicago.

Olivia Moody took the stand. She was faced with tough questions that she did

have an answer for.

Why she got a gun, why she went to them.

And then the defense was done presenting their evidence.

And we gave closing statements.

But the jury deliberated and came back with a verdict of guilty on

one count of second -degree murder.

I believe it was very clear to the jury that this was not a case of self

-defense.

Not at all. This was an extreme manifestation.

or indifference to the value of human life, which is what second -degree

is.

The verdict was very hard.

It was very hard.

Olivia was very strong. She didn't cry, you know. She was trying to comfort us,

matter of fact.

The guilty verdict felt like not what we believed she deserved, but...

There was some kind of justice.

She received 30 years and was eligible for parole and seven and a half years

with good behavior.

I felt like justice was served, but in the end, she had two families destroyed.

Vanessa and Olivia, they both come from rough backgrounds.

They both had overcome a lot to try to be successful.

They both had bright futures ahead of them. And this situation just

changed the projector of both futures.

We talk about Vanessa pretty often.

Remembering the good things, laughing about the things that were funny.

and telling the stories, making sure that her children are brought up in an

environment of love.

Vanessa was a person that never got to live up to her potential.

A lot of times when I have seen interviews or even while I was in court,

always referred to as that girl. But she's Vanessa to us.

She's a mom.

She's a sister.

She's a daughter. She belongs to somebody.

She's still here with us. She's still a person. We still believe that

Vanessa should have been able to live her life peacefully.