Original subtitles

[ wind howling ]

[ telephone ringing ]

Gale: I was the enemy all of a sudden.

He's very nervous that we're getting closer and closer.

♪

♪

It's eerie to hear him.

I was absolutely terrified.

I did not know whether I was gonna be alive.

[ birds cawing ]

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

♪

Gale: I've never had another case like this.

This has been with me almost constantly

Since December of 1993.

♪

Catherine miller is a well-respected lady,

Completely defenseless.

She was shot twice in the head.

It takes an extremely cold-hearted individual

To put a gunshot wound into the head of a 77-year-old.

It's -- it's evil.

♪

Things were thrown off tables. Dresser drawers had been pulled.

It was in general disarray.

Which could make one believe that a robbery had occurred.

♪

Catherine miller -- she was a very sweet woman.

Loved her grandson jason, loved her daughter kay.

♪

Female reporter: Catherine miller's life ended violently.

Sometime within the past 24 hours,

Someone went inside of her home and murdered her.

Her body was found this morning by her daughter

And someone she worked with.

[ exhales ] mm.

I hadn't seen that.

That hurts.

[ sniffles ]

'cause my grandmother's house,

There wasn't supposed to be a body bag

Coming out of that house.

♪

When I was real young,

To put me to bed, to put me to sleep...

She had the driest, softest, warmest hands.

Used to rub my back.

That helped me fall asleep.

♪

[ sighs ]

It was my mother.

And you cannot put into words

The pain and the hurt of a loss like that.

♪

[ voice breaking ] I miss my mother every day,

And I'm gonna cry.

[ sniffles ] which is a good thing.

♪

That December was probably

The coldest and most harrowing and saddest December

You could ever go through.

So many things happened so fast.

Narrator: Six days before her mother's death,

Something mysterious happened to kay's boyfriend.

Thank you so much for such a fun night.

I'm glad you had a good time. I did, too.

Viktor gunnarsson was someone new in my life,

And instantly, I just was really attracted to him.

If there was anyone right for me,

It was probably going to be viktor.

It progressed pretty quickly -- maybe five or six weeks.

Well, speaking of christmas,

Do you still want to go get the christmas tree tomorrow?

Yeah, let's do it.

Okay. That'd be great.

We had made plans

That he would go with my son jason and I

To pick out a christmas tree.

Do want to just call me in the morning?

-Yeah. -Okay.

[ smooches ] mm. [ chuckles ]

Okay. Get home safe.

♪

It was perfect dating, you know, and just being together.

♪

But I never heard from viktor.

I call and say, "where are you?"

You know, "it'd be nice to hear from you."

And I just got this feeling that something wasn't right.

♪

He just disappeared off the face of the earth.

It had been four or five days,

And I still was thinking I would hear from from viktor.

And then my mother had been killed.

♪

Gale: We were there all day processing the scene.

♪

The valuable items were still there in the house --

A fairly expensive watch, some rings.

And anyone who wanted to steal

Would have taken much of what we saw.

Something just doesn't feel right about this.

So it was immediately apparent to me and others

That that was just a staged cover-up

To try to throw us off.

It wasn't a robbery.

There were no signs of forced entry.

So that's a sign that she knew whoever did this to her.

But why would she be a victim of a homicide?

It made no sense at all.

Well, if the victim knew the killer,

Chances are the daughter does too.

♪

Kay, I need to tell you something.

I think your mother let her killer in.

Even though it's not pleasant, sometimes,

For the family members,

You have to eliminate potential suspects

As part of focusing in on who actually did it.

Who...

Who could've...

What about gunnarsson?

Viktor?

You haven't heard from him in a week.

Is there any reason he would have done this?

I haven't seen him in a while, but viktor could not do this.

Nothing else unusual has been going on?

There's the letters.

What letters?

During the course of the interviews,

We learned kay weden, prior to her mother's death,

Received a series of letters

Written and sent to her residence.

Been getting these letters.

I just...

I was just hoping that they were a prank.

They were threatening in nature.

Eerie and scary.

You don't know who sent these?

My son jason and I were getting letters sent through the mail

That were threatening.

♪

"roses are red, violets are blue,

We are going to [bleep] jason and your house too."

"mrs. Weden, we wanted to send you a warning

That something is going to happen to jason soon

And he is going to get hurt real bad.

Jason won't know when or where, but it will be very soon."

That is scary.

That is freaky.

That's like something out of a movie.

I didn't have any idea why I would be getting these.

That's why it was just scary.

Kay, I think your mother knew her killer...

And I think you might, too.

Oh, my god.

Female reporter: A forensics team

From the state bureau of investigation

Spent most of the day and night collecting evidence

That will hopefully lead them to miller's killer.

In the meantime, people living where it all happened

Are worried that whoever did this is still out there.

♪

It was one of the coldest days I remember working.

The wind was howling through the trees.

[ wind howling ]

There were several inches of snow on the ground.

It was miserable conditions.

♪

[ radio static ]

Man: [ over radio ] detective may?

♪

Detective may. Come in.

I got a call up the blue ridge parkway.

Someone found a body in the snow.

Oh, god.

D-did someone get lost in the snowstorm?

Doesn't look like it.

Alright. I'm on my way.

♪

[ car engine starts ]

[ siren wailing ]

♪

May: There was no one around. It was so quiet and peaceful.

The only sound was the snow falling from the trees.

[ snow crunches ]

[ wind howling ]

There were no tracks in the snow.

Detective.

Down here.

We could see the outline of the body,

So we sketched, measured, and photographed everything.

♪

Let's brush him off and see what we got.

He was stuck to the ground, frozen hard to the ground.

[ sighs ]

It was obvious from the marks on the skin

That animals, probably small animals,

Had eaten his foot.

♪

Wait.

Is he naked?

♪

He had nothing on his body -- no clothing at all.

♪

Oh, my god.

He's been shot...

Twice.

The first gunshot wound was to the left temple.

He also had a gunshot wound to the right side of his neck.

So it was here and here.

He's been murdered.

♪

Female reporter: The body was found in the woods along highway 421 near deep gap.

No doubt it was murder.

We're asking for anybody with any information

To contact the watauga county sheriff's office.

Female reporter: There are no significant clues.

Snow has covered everything.

[ wind howling ]

Detective, we got a match in another county.

We got a hit on a possible missing person from rowan county

Whose physical description

Matched the description of the body.

It was outside our county, almost 100 miles away.

Officer: His name is viktor gunnarsson.

His landlord reported him missing a month ago.

The report does mention a woman.

The name of kay weden came up in the investigation

As being the last person that we knew of

Who saw viktor gunnarsson alive.

One of the first orders of business was to interview kay.

She's our only lead. Bring her in.

♪

Please, have a seat.

♪

Can you tell me how you know this man?

It's viktor.

We're in a relationship.

Been looking for him for weeks.

Kay, I'm sorry to tell you this,

But viktor is dead.

No.

No!

He's been shot.

No! [ sobs ]

♪

Kay: I was so devastated.

♪

[ sighs ]

Because that was taken away from me.

[ sniffles ]

I wondered where he was.

I kept thinking something else may have happened.

Did murder ever cross my mind?

No. No.

I can't believe this is happening again.

Kay, what do you mean by "again"?

Viktor was gone...

For about a week.

Then my, uh...

Then my mother was murdered.

The fact that viktor gunnarsson and catherine miller

Were both shot twice in the head

Indicated that there was a possibility

That the same person had murdered both of them.

I'm gonna track down detective gale

And compare notes

Kay weden was the key.

She was the tie to viktor and to catherine.

Kay, I need you to understand

That it's possible that whoever killed your mother

Killed viktor too.

Kay: I seemed to be the link

Between two people who were no longer living.

I was absolutely terrified.

♪

Jason: I was sound asleep.

And then just, pow.

[ gunshot ]

[ breathing heavily ]

Straight up in bed.

Mom!

I kinda look around.

"mom!" -- just like a little kid that had a nightmare.

What is it? What's going on, huh?

-I don't know. -What's wrong?

There was just a really loud noise.

O-- wait, what?

It sounded like a gun.

Wh-what?! A gun.

Where? Wait a minute!

Mom came into the room,

And the only thing I could explain was

It sounded like a piece of wood hitting a piece of plexiglass.

No, I'm okay. Are you okay?

I'm okay. Hold on.

Somebody shot through the bedroom wall.

Had it been merely a matter of inches to the left

And maybe just a couple inches up,

It would've hit me square in the head while I was asleep.

Did you get hit? I'm okay.

What is it? I'm okay.

[ echoing ] it just scared me.

[ echoing ] oh, my god.

Um...

I'm just grateful I'm not dead.

You know?

I wouldn't wish something like this on anybody.

It's not fair. It's really not.

Okay. Alright.

Who's doing this?

I don't... I don't know.

[ sobbing ] I don't know.

Kay: I was worried for jason's life.

I was worried for mine.

Was like living

In some bizarre, nightmarish dream.

[ crying ]

And that's when we called the police department.

They found a bullet at the front of my sock drawer.

Kay: And they did what they did to preserve it.

And that was like...

"okay. We'll get back to you."

I guess it left me with a lot of questions, but they left,

And, you know, so you're back to square one

Wondering who did it,

Why did they do it.

Narrator: With investigators unable to determine

Who the shooter is, kay becomes desperate.

She turns to her ex-boyfriend,

A police officer named l.C. Underwood.

Kay: L.C. I know we went through a rough breakup.

I just don't know who else to turn to.

Do you trust these detectives?

I trust them.

I just don't know if they can protect me.

I think because l.C. Was a police officer,

I called him and he said,

"oh, I'll come right over and look."

You said you got another letter today.

Yeah.

He brought over his rubber gloves

And his little tweezers and all kinds of stuff,

And he explained to me

That this is how you do the forensics on this.

Can you see anything?

No, nothing obvious.

♪

Listen.

If you're not happy with the way this is being handled,

I can talk to them, I can help.

Really?

L.C., I really appreciate you saying that.

Of course.

♪

I couldn't sleep I couldn't eat.

It was literally driving me insane.

You never know what's coming or when.

♪

[ telephone rings ]

♪

Hello.

[ man breathing heavily ]

[ dial tone ]

The harassment was hell.

[ telephone rings ]

♪

Hello?

[ man breathing heavily ]

Phone calls -- 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 in the morning.

[ telephone rings ]

Hello?

Hello?

[ man breathing heavily ]

No doubt about it, I was being stalked 24/7.

[ telephone rings ]

♪

[ knock on door ]

♪

[ telephone rings ]

Kay: You've got somebody chasing you and stalking you.

What would I do? Where would I go?

Where would I hide?

[ knock on door ]

♪

♪

♪

Detectives, come on in.

There was a lot to learn about kay's background,

Her family, her relationship with victor gunnarsson.

We've hit a dead end with physical evidence.

But we have an idea.

These letters --

"roses are red, violets are blue."

They're intimate.

We think that whoever has been threatening you

Might be somebody that you've been intimate with.

Any relationships that ended badly?

Honestly, the worst breakup I had was l.C.,

But we're good friends now.

L.C. Underwood?

Yeah. Do you know him?

A police officer, right? Oh, yeah.

We've crossed paths a few times.

Upon talking with kay,

We began to learn more

About her on-again/off-again relationships

With l.C. Underwood.

Kay: When I first met l.C.,

He was a police officer for the city.

He was somebody I thought to be mr. Wonderful,

And then he began to show some really strange behaviors.

We dated off and on until one day

When he flipped out on me.

♪

Jason: Me, my mom, and l.C. Had taken a trip.

It ended up being just a straight nightmare.

Everybody, buckle up.

He had just washed his car that day,

And we had a snow shower.

Hey, look, it's snowing.

[ chuckles ] oh.

Aw, shoot!

And l.C. Just flew off the handle.

F this, f that,

You know, cussing everybody,

Making everybody's afternoon miserable

Because it was dirtying up his car.

He, uh...

He scared the [bleep] out of me.

L.C., it's just a little bit of snow.

Why don't you shut up, kay.

I had never heard such venom

Come out of somebody.

I just couldn't stand to be around it anymore.

I broke up with l.C.

Because he was not a person I wanted to be around at all.

And then he just started screaming at me

Like it was my fault that it was snowing.

May: Red flags jumped out at me of things

That she would describe

As far as underwood's behavior.

Do any other events with l.C.

Stick out in your mind?

After we broke up, there was one thing that happened

That was kind of strange.

I was out having dinner.

I was on a date.

And it was a normal night like any other.

I'm gonna give this place a five-star review.

Great food. Great ambiance.

I was on a date. We were having a nice dinner.

♪

[ laughs ]

I think she's just having a bad day.

Honestly, I really like this place.

Well, I'm glad I picked it.

[ laughs ]

L.C.

What are you doing here?

How's it going, kay?

Good.

We're just having dinner.

Oh, I can see that.

♪

♪

And so my date said, "why don't you leave?"

And he turns and points his finger and he said,

"if you don't shut up, I'll kill you."

He looked at me, looked at the glass,

Looked at the tea, picked it up...

[ gasps ]

...And poured it, ice and all, in my lap.

How do you react?

You just sometimes go numb.

♪

He looked at me stone cold and turned and just left.

♪

Kay, have you considered the possibility

That l.C. Might be behind all this?

He's a cop.

And he would never hurt jason.

I'm certain he wouldn't hurt my mother.

May: I think kay was going through a visible struggle.

Everything pointed to underwood.

No way was she even considering the fact at that point,

Even after her mother is found murdered,

That he was responsible.

She was unconvinced that underwood was dangerous.

I know it's difficult to consider,

But...

He's been trying to help me.

Even though I was not fond of l.C.,

Because he was a police officer,

I trusted him.

I felt kind of stupid for having called him

And asked him to help me,

But I didn't know.

Did I ever think that he would murder

My family member and a friend?

Absolutely not, because he said he loved me.

And you don't do things like that to people that you love.

♪

In my opinion, he had been stalking them at restaurants.

He threatened the man that is gonna kill him.

I knew that stalker was l.C. Underwood.

The allegations in the letters and in the phone calls,

It was all a desperate effort to get this woman

Back into his life.

But how misguided is that, and how evil is that?

We found circumstantial evidence

That we could use,

But we we had almost zero physical evidence.

And that is why we did the search

On l.C. Underwood's house.

♪

It was not what you would typically expect.

When I saw it myself, I was like "whoa.

This guy is so over the top."

Yeah, he's got to be nuts.

Oh. My god.

♪

We gained access to l.C.'s residence

From an attorney

Who was representing l.C. Underwood at the time,

Without him being present

Because he had no communication whatsoever with me.

He wouldn't allow it.

It was almost sterile.

It was eerie being there.

I'll head upstairs. You get started on the first floor.

We need to find the murder weapon.

We needed to search underwood's residence

And his vehicles.

We wanted to find the guns,

But we did not find the guns.

But I knew that whatever we saw

Would be very telling about his personality,

And it absolutely was.

♪

♪

Everything was situated perfectly symmetrically.

In his kitchen cabinets, for instance,

He would have soup cans alphabetized.

They were turned with the labels facing forward.

They were all very neatly stacked.

♪

We were very thorough in our search.

♪

♪

♪

In his clothes closet,

His shirts were all hanging the same direction,

The hangers equally distanced -- spaced apart,

And he had rubber bands around the tassels of all of his shoes

Just to keep them from being frayed.

Underwood was scary ocd.

His compulsiveness was extreme.

Everything in his house, inside the cabinets,

Inside the garage, outside his house,

Inside his cars, his closet, his drawers --

Everything was just intensely obsessive.

I mean, it was just unbelievable.

It was apparent that l.C. Underwood,

As an experienced police officer,

Went to great lengths to cover his tracks as well as he could.

We examined the 1979 monte carlo

Parked under the carport.

When you opened up the hood, the engine compartment

Didn't have a speck of dirt on it.

I thought to myself,

"well, we're not gonna find anything in here."

But we did.

We looked in the trunk of the car,

And we see what we think is a footprint

On the underside of the trunk lid.

May: When I first saw that shoeprint,

All I could picture was a grown man

Struggling in the trunk of that car trying to get free.

[ muffled breathing ]

We are thinking then that this is what might have happened

The night victor was killed.

Unfortunately, we were unable to match it with a shoe.

Victor's shoes were gone.

Gale: So we seized from the car the trunk mat,

Just to process it

For whatever evidence may be in there.

Narrator: Detective gale must wait

For the analysis of l.C. Underwood's trunk mat,

But fearing his fellow officer will strike again,

Gale tries a new tactic.

I hooked up a tape recorder,

And then placed the telephone call to l.C.

[ telephone rings ]

And I tried to prompt him into saying things

About what had happened.

Zero to 60 in two seconds.

I knew him before this ever happened,

And I was the enemy all of a sudden.

He's very nervous

That we're getting closer and closer.

He may have thought I was a backstabber,

But...

I have no loyalty to bad cops.

I was hoping that he would threaten me

So that we could at least put him in jail for that.

He never went quite that far.

♪

[ gasps ]

♪

♪

I was scared to go anywhere,

Scared to go in the front yard,

Scared to go in the backyard,

Scared to stand in front of a window.

I was absolutely terrified.

I even had my will written.

♪

♪

Who's there?

I just felt like I was in a war zone,

Psychological war zone.

There's a person who has killed your mother

And the guy you're dating,

And he's still walking around town.

You don't know whether he's coming after you.

♪

L.C.?

♪

L.C.?

♪

Kay: L.C. Destroyed my mother's life,

But he also destroyed jason's life.

L.C. Underwood was the absolute devil,

The most evil. Vile thing that ever entered my life.

Putting him in my son's life and in my life

Was the absolute worst thing that I ever did.

♪

♪

[ sighs ]

I regret the great divide

That l.C. Just created.

I'm so sorry, jason.

I feel like this is all my fault.

I don't like saying it's her fault.

You can't see everything that's gonna happen.

You don't know what's around the next corner,

But she sure as hell contributed to the outcome.

♪

♪

[ telephone rings ]

Gale: I got the call at home.

I said, "hello," and he said, "hey, don this is the lab.

I got some news for you."

The lab agent was literally

Folding the trunk mat up to send it back with no results

When, with his naked eye, he saw some hairs

That he had never seen before.

We found 15 head hairs on that trunk mat

All consistent with being victor gunnarsson's.

It proved once and for all

That victor gunnarsson had been in the trunk

Of l.C. Underwood's monte carlo on the night he was killed.

I always believed that was a divine intervention.

That was a significant piece of evidence in the case.

Reporter: The watauga county sheriff's department

Arrested salisbury police officer l.C. Underwood today.

Underwood is charged with first-degree murder.

♪

When we took custody of him,

It was just me and l.C. In the room.

Do you know what those are?

Those are photos of the people you killed.

It was unnerving because there was nothing behind his eyes.

It was like looking at a mannequin.

♪

♪

I said, "I know that you killed victor gunnarsson,

And I know that you killed catherine miller."

He said, "well..."

♪

And he didn't finish his sentence.

And that's as close to a confession

As I would ever get from l.C. Underwood.

What we believed happened during the night of December the 3rd,

Victor gunnarsson and kay weden had kissed

On the front stoop of kay's residence.

L.C. Underwood saw that happen.

He went to where victor gunnarsson lived

Dressed in a police uniform,

Got victor in his personal vehicle.

♪

He was taken out into the woods

Off the blue ridge parkway,

Shot and killed.

♪

♪

[ gunshot ]

[ birds cawing ]

♪

♪

♪

Kay: It was actually December 25th.

I was at my cousin's house.

And paula called and said

That l.C. Had died.

♪

It was absolutely the best christmas

That I've had in 27 years.

But now that he is bona fide dead,

I hope that jason and I can repair those fractures

That we've lived with.

♪

I felt that you held me responsible

For introducing l.C. Into our lives.

Mm-hmm.

I'm really sorry for that.

But, you know, I have a lot of anger.

My childhood and college years were, you know, in fear.

That has a lot to do with it, you know?

Yeah.

When I called you christmas day to tell you

That l.C. Had died,

You and I both, I think, realized that we were

Now ready to come together as a family.

Well, it definitely makes it easier.

It's a big burden that's not there anymore.

It's gonna take time. It's gonna take communication,

Again, and understanding.

I think we'll get it.

I mean, it's just not today,

Tomorrow, maybe a year from now,

But you're always gonna be my child.

Yeah, you're always gonna be my mom.

Oh, yeah.

Love you, mom.

He's always gonna be my baby.

♪