Original subtitles

I'm being accused of murdering my mom

by my dad,

my sister and my brother.

But there's one thing I do know,

I'm going to see my mom again someday.

That's for damn sure.

To think of your worst day

and take it times a million.

Shirley Carter's dead, and it's a family torn.

In less than 72 hours,

Jason Carter has gone from the 911 caller

who reported a woman's murder

to the suspect criminally charged with murder.

Jason Carter is accused of murdering his mother,

of shooting her at their family home.

Murder in the first degree in Iowa

carries a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

In Iowa, there's no worse sentence.

Jason Carter has never had

any type of charge against him,

and he is seeing this process for the first time,

and with amazing consequences ahead of him.

Alison kanne: On June 19th, 2015,

Shirley Carter was in her kitchen,

in her farmhouse.

Someone came in and shot her twice.

There's the door leading in.

This is the angle that somebody walking into the kitchen would've had.

And so there's Shirley.

You can see blood pooling around here,

dried droplets of blood down by her foot.

You can see some drawers are gone through,

so it looks like a burglary.

Whoever that was also took

a high-powered rifle from the basement,

and we don't know that that missing gun is the murder weapon.

But she was shot with a high-powered rifle,

and the murder weapon has never been found.

The state believes that Jason pulled into the driveway,

went inside,

and either got into some kind of argument with his mom,

or knew he was going to do what he did.

There's two competing theories there about whether or not they argued

and Jason lost his temper,

or whether or not Jason had planned to do this the whole time.

Um...

That's a picture of my mom.

She was so proud.

And this is a picture...

Of me and my mom,

and a kitten I had.

She looks so young there.

I don't know how old I was there.

Gosh...

Forty years ago.

It's terrible seeing him go through this. Um...

It's something that, you know, not only has affected Jason

but it's affected our whole family.

Jason's mom was just such a part of our lives.

If he needed help, she was always right there,

and if she needed help, he did the same.

She was there when the kids were delivered in the delivery room.

She just was the kind of person that was so giving.

That's a picture of my mom and my dad.

That's chase. -That's our son.

I really miss my mom.

This evening, we'll be going over the timeline with Jason

in order to make sure that we understand

what his recollection was

and that he can explain his timeline well,

or whether this all falls

outside of the time where Jason even

should be a potential suspect.

Hi.

Branstad: Ali, do you want to walk through the timeline with Jason?

Kanne: Yeah, okay.

You texted a local grain company at 10:55 A.M.

And said, "hey, can you drop off a load of chemicals at my dad's house?"

Then what did you do?

Took off driving

to mom's, and then I went on down,

pulled up and around the trees by the shed,

and parked right by the fuel barrel,

got out, and I walked in the house, walked straight in.

You opened the door... Opened the door,

screen door. You stepped inside.

Stepped inside and seen mom's legs and feet sticking out.

Kanne: What was the first thing you did?

I knelt down,

and grabbed ahold of her right pant leg

and shook it, and said, "mom."

And...

I could see the blood around her left arm.

Kanne: What did you do next?

I think I called my sister.

'Cause I wanted somebody to be there

now.

I called my dad

and I tried calling Shelly too.

Nobody would answer.

And then I think

my sister called me back,

and I told her how I found mom.

And while I was on the phone with her, dad came in,

he stepped across her,

he knelt down,

and he gave mom a kiss on the forehead,

and said, "mama."

Okay.

Branstad:As a person,

Jason Carter is the guy who

fixed one of the attorney's cars when it broke down.

He's the client who won't call

when he knows that I'm spending time with my children.

Everything that I've seen has indicated that Jason Carter

is a kind and good person.

And a jury's going to decide if he

ever sees freedom again.

It's terrible losing your mom, you know?

She called and checked on all of US

every single day almost.

She was just there for everything all the time.

And, you know, I really miss her.

Mom kept our whole family together.

Now that she's gone,

the whole family is falling apart.

It's terrible.

The whole family is just

a complete shambles.

It's like everybody just went their separate ways.

I thought that I'd be helping my dad

put crops in

and trying to

keep him at ease.

It didn't happen that way.

I'm being accused

of murdering my mom,

by my dad,

my sister

and my brother.

Branstad:Agent Mark ludwick is the lead investigator

in the case against Jason Carter.

He listened to the 911 call before arriving on the scene,

and before arriving on the scene,

had become suspicious of Jason Carter.

I listened to

Jason Carter's 911 call to the Marion county sheriff's office,

and right away, that set bells off.

Every time he would cry,

I'd chuckle at his

lack of, drama skills.

Kanne: Right, you guys ready?

Nathan Olson: Yeah. Hey.

Branstad:Certain factors show guilt

and certain factors show innocence

within a 911 call.

So, in this case, we really have to look at

whether or not the 911 call is truly indicative of guilt in any manner.

Branstad: The "I don't know what happened"

is probably what they say is the biggest red flag,

when he's observed the whole and seems to know

what happened better than anyone else.

Kanne: What about the two hours?

I agree that's an odd thing for him to say,

but he had no reason to think that

other people would think it had been two hours.

He had no reason to think that that would

turn suspicion away from him in some way.

When I listened to it, I honestly got kind of emotional

because he sounded so absolutely

just heartbroken.

Branstad: But that's because you know him. I know.

Branstad: I agree that he sounds fake

to someone who doesn't know him.

When he gets upset, he always sounds hysterical,

and so we got to figure out a way to show the jury that,

and I don't know how to do that.

People react differently in stressful situations.

How can you say

that definitively, based on something they say in a stressful situation,

that they're most certainly guilty or not guilty.

I just don't think it rises

to the level of scientific certainty.

Agent ludwick says that he focused

on our client based on the 911 call.

Our argument is that

no expert can listen to a 911 call

and say that guy's guilty or not.

Kanne:Motive in a murder investigation is important to understand.

It's not something that the state is required to prove,

but it does help explain why someone might do this.

One of the motives that the state has put forth

for Jason allegedly murdering his mother

is a financial motive.

Kanne:Jason's a farmer.

Essentially, the state is saying

Jason was broke

on the day of the murder, and that he was desperate.

And because Jason stood to inherit his parents' land

in the event of both of their deaths,

the state's saying that he killed his mother as sort of a step toward that.

It's really important for US to understand

whether or not Jason and Shelly were in financial distress

on the date of the murder.

So, today we're going to go over

Shelly and Jason's financial records.

How do you answer the question,

"why do you have $83 in your checking account

"on June 19th, 2015?"

Well, actually, 'cause on June 19th... I get paid on June 20th.

I'm not joking. The 20th of every month.

So, you're saying that's your salary

that's going into the checking account?

My salary goes into the account

the 20th of every month.

Kanne: Okay.

So, what we want to be able to ask you on the stand is,

if you wanted to get money on June 19th, 2015...

...how much could you have gotten?

I had the $20,000 line of credit

that was connected to my checking account.

I had a $10,000 credit card that had a zero balance,

and I also could have contacted

Smith fertilizer and grain,

told them to cut me a check for over $15,000.

So, right there alone, on that day,

I could've accessed $45,000.

And then, we had $145,000 worth of grain

sitting in the bins that we hadn't sold yet.

Kanne: Right.

So, when we ask you those questions,

I don't want you to lead with the credit cards.

I want you to lead with the amount of cash that you had access to,

because, you know, I've got a credit card too.

So, you mean $145,000? Kanne: Yeah.

Essentially, just showing that

you're not financially desperate in any way. No.

So, as you can see, we had well and enough

to cover all of our expenses.

I would think the documents speak for themselves.

Kanne: Well, yeah, you know, before looking at all these documents

it looked, you know, not bad,

but it looked, you know, relatively average.

This makes you guys look good.

Thanks, Ali.

Kanne:The main issue that the prosecution has pushed,

"well, you had $83 in this checking account on that day.

"Therefore, you're desperate, therefore, you murdered your mother."

I, frankly, really don't think the prosecution has a point.

Um, you know,

I've seen a lot of different clients

that actually have financial issues

and these aren't one of them.

Everybody that we've talked to who knows about farming has said

this is totally normal for a farmer.

Jason's timeline is extremely important to our case.

We need to establish, to the best of our ability,

what time Jason could have arrived at the crime scene.

Bart Howard:The day of his mother's murder,

Jason, he was taking grain

from his different farm locations

to the cargill processing plant.

We know that he had a timestamp, 9:58 A.M.

So, what we're trying to do is establish the amount of time

it takes from cargill plant

to the farm where Shirley Carter was murdered.

And if we can prove that the time

doesn't fit the actual timeline,

there's no way that Jason could be responsible

for the actual murder of his mother.

Jason's going to go as fast

as he feels comfortable driving the truck.

The speed limit is 65 here.

So we're going seven miles over the limit.

We should tell the prosecutor,

"go buy your own damn semi and run your own test,

"and you take all the risk."

But nope. Here I am going like hell.

Unbelievable! UN-freaking-believable.

Howard: We're back at the farm where the semi stays,

and we're going to hop into Jason's truck

and we're going to head to, um,

the Carter residence

where the actual murder took place.

Kanne:Whoever shot Shirley

has got to pull up in the drive,

get out of the car,

get the gun,

and position themselves

in the position that they would need to shoot Shirley.

Then they shoot her twice,

stage the burglary,

go to the office, ransack it,

go to the bedroom, ransack it,

and then they've got to hide the gun,

because the gun was never found.

That's a lot to get done.

There's mom and dad's place right there.

Howard: 5407.

I don't think the timeframes of what we're seeing

give US any,

any time where he could actually commit a murder.

Kanne:If Jason had drove at the fastest speed,

the earliest he would have gotten there would have been 10:54 A.M.

That gives him 14 minutes

to murder Shirley, get rid of the gun, all of these things.

I mean, that is the maximum that it could possibly have been,

and we think it was much less.

The state will argue

that he could have murdered his mother within that timeframe.

From our perspective, that's impossible.

Kanne:Special agent Mark ludwick is the lead case investigator

for this homicide investigation.

The murder happened on Friday, June 19th, 2015.

Um, on the Monday following that,

Jason was approached by agent Mark ludwick

outside of his home.

I would say Jason Carter became my primary suspect

on Monday, the 22nd,

after we had

face-to-face time that morning,

that conversation was very powerful to me.

Kanne:It came out through the course of that interview

that Jason had, in fact, had this affair.

Kanne: Inconsistencies are a pretty standard way

to call into question a witness's credibility.

If you can show that

somebody has lied in the past

it brings the question to the jury's mind, "well, are they lying now?"

Kanne:That interview goes on for 11 hours.

On, and on, and on, "you murdered your mother, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't." "You did, didn't you?" "No, I didn't."

Law enforcement is allowed to do this,

but it's very bullying,

and he's really defensive, with good reason.

Shelly:During his interview at the sheriff's office,

I wanted to talk to Jason about

planning his mom's funeral,

and the agent said to me,

"you probably should know

"that your husband's having an affair,"

and I...

Just speechless, heartbroken.

It's been very hard for our marriage,

and, you know, I know that that has nothing to do

with his mother's death.

People make mistakes,

and to be a good Christian is to forgive.

I've forgiven Jason,

but I will never forget it.

Kanne:Jason's family has

definitely not stuck by him throughout all of this.

The first day when Shirley was murdered,

the entire family came out very strongly saying that,

"no way Jason did this. We know him.

"It's not possible. It's not in his character."

That includes jana, Jason's sister,

and his brother, and his father, bill.

Shelly: Hi, guys.

Hi. Olson: Hey, guys.

Kanne:Our current theory as to why

Jason's family members turned against him

is that agent Mark ludwick deliberately manipulated them

into believing that Jason was guilty.

Shelly, what happened there?

It was just so strange to be that distraught,

and disturbed, and it just felt like

everything was going crazy and falling apart,

and he's like,

"jana, why don't you just come back here with me so we can talk."

And I just thought, "what?"

All right.

Kanne: See, look, "what did he have to gain now?"

She's already... She's come to the conclusion at this point.

Yup. Why didn't she come outside...

Come the next day and eventually say something.

This is the point where

she got set on that path.

And it's really hard to bring people back from a path

of believing what they believe.

And then ludwick gets back into his car

with another law enforcement officer,

I don't know who it is,

um, and they say something really interesting.

Kanne: You hear that? He said, "is your mic on?" "You're not recording..." Yeah.

One of the biggest weaknesses in our case

is that your family's against you.

And one of my biggest concerns

is the jury's gonna look at it and say,

"well, if his family thinks he did it, he must have."

It's unusual to have an investigator trying to recruit

family members or other individuals

over to his position with regard to an investigation.

I don't think there's any question that

strategically, agent ludwick intended

to get jana to turn against Jason,

and that was the effect his words had.

This is a really rare picture

of my mom and dad,

me, and my brother and sister.

This is my brother,

and that's my sister, jana,

of course me, and my mom, and my dad.

Sure were happy then.

Ludwick absolutely

used the affair against me,

and,

pretty much tried to paint a picture

to my dad and sister, you know?

If he can have an affair, he can shoot his mom.

They sure bought it hook, line and sinker.

It's just like they lost

all their common sense.

You would think

that your own flesh and blood

would know that deep down

there is no way in hell

he could do this to his mom.

They blame me for my mom's death

because they listened to Mark ludwick.

I've never seen a more evil

officer in my life.

I grew up on a farm just east of here.

If we drove to the other end of the field

and looked straight across that open gap over there,

you can see my dad's place.

The the only place I ever remember.

I was the youngest child by far.

When my brother left, I was eight years old,

and my dad showed me what chores he did.

I was expected to do that morning and night.

And I did it,

you know, you weren't gonna tell him no.

I think that's my dad.

That's my dad right there seeing what's going on.

Seems like whenever I'm over here,

somebody's driving by to see what I'm doing.

I used to be worried

he might harm me in some particular way.

Um... I guess over time we've gotten over that.

You know,

my dad's always been right about everything.

And I really, honest to god, can't think of

one time he's ever admitted to being wrong.

I don't know, he kinda just carries around an iron fist.

And god help you if you cross him.

Kanne:This green metal gun cabinet here

is where the missing gun came from.

You can see there's an unspent round

for a .270 in that door.

Crime scene team originally did not document that.

I mean, they took this picture of it,

but didn't give it any significance.

They also didn't collect this gun cabinet.

Now, it's doesn't take

a background in crime scene investigation

to know that when you think a murder weapon has come

from a particular location,

you may wanna dust it for prints,

or, you know,

keep it from being contaminated with further

by removing it from the crime scene.

Unfortunately, there were some failures

on the investigation of her body.

We don't know the time Shirley died.

We just wish her body temperature was taken.

It's not indicated on any report.

Both Jason and bill have said that Shirley was cold and stiff.

Bill, in particular, used the words "rigor mortis" repeatedly.

'Cause that's a big issue here,

because if she died, as the state has said,

between 10:50 A.M. and 11:08,

then there's no medical possibility that she was in rigor mortis.

But if she was in rigor mortis,

there's no medical possibility that Jason did this.

What law enforcement is supposed to do

is look at the evidence first,

then come up with a theory about who did it.

What happened here, pretty apparently,

is that they picked a theory first,

and then law enforcement wasn't really interested

in pursuing any leads that didn't fit the theory

that Jason was guilty.

Branstad:I talked with ed bull, the prosecutor.

Ed has pretty much said

if you wanted to plead to voluntary manslaughter,

which is a 10-year sentence,

I'm gonna say between three and five years served,

but it's closer to three in everything I've seen,

that he would consider an alford plea...

What's that?

Branstad: An alford plea is a plea where

the defendant doesn't directly admit anything, but says,

"even though I'm not admitting this, I want to take advantage of the plea."

Most of the time when you do that, that's essentially

a guilty plea without pleading guilty.

This is an offer so good

that we have to wonder

how confident the prosecutor can feel about this case.

You need to talk about and think about it.

You're the one who has all the real risk here.

I mean,

I've told you, I mean, if we lose,

Ali will cry for days,

I will be beside myself,

ward will feel terrible, Nate will beat himself up,

but we wouldn't be serving the time.

And you have to make the final decision.

You just have to think about that.

And you can decide any time, but the sooner the better.

Branstad:This is an offer that you don't often see.

This would be a difficult decision for anyone.

Whether unfairly accused or not,

and you're looking at life in prison,

a deal that has you

in prison for a much shorter time,

and able to get out of prison in time

to see your child graduate from high school

and meet your grandchildren

is tempting.

The prosecutor, ed bull, offered a plea.

And... I was up all night.

I laid there and I watched my wife sleep.

I almost went and got a coin

and flipped it.

But...

I'm not a gambling man.

It's hard to,

give up a guarantee

to see your wife and kids in a few years.

But I'm not...

I'm not doing it.

I'm not...

Not accepting Ed's plea

for something I didn't do.

Um...

My family and my mom would be really disappointed.

And quite frankly,

I wanna see Christine hand them their ass in court

and bring this all to light

on how everything's been done.

Win or lose,

I want her lay it all out there like it really is.

Branstad:We've received police reports

provided by the state.

Mostly, they are audio recordings

from individuals who

went to law enforcement

and said, "hey, we've got information that may help you

"solve this murder case."

This is certainly information

that calls into question the investigation,

calls into question the analysis

of what really happened on June 19th, 2015.

Okay...

Kanne: So, I thought maybe we could listen

to charity roush's audio.

I've read a report. Have not listened to the audio.

Okay.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Branstad: Whoa!

Olson: Wait, what?

Branstad: She's saying that Joe said

he did it. Kanne: He did it.

Okay.

It's very clear that she heard something

that she believes was about the murder,

and she heard it back when it was going on.

Finished it?

Holy moly.

Branstad: Your honor, we have statements by law enforcement

showing an unwillingness

to pursue leads.

This is hearsay.

How is this going to be admissible?

Kanne:The state wants to exclude the evidence

of these other suspects.

Even though it's hearsay,

we're not offering it for the truth of the matter.

We're offering it to show

that law enforcement did a really bad investigation.

Absolutely UN-freaking-believable.

I could make or break the case.

Really makes a guy wonder,

what the hell are they trying to pull?

We're scared.

Branstad:I get that.

We have two kids that he has to go home to.

Branstad: There's no DNA evidence, no fingerprint evidence,

no ballistic evidence.

In order for the state's theory to be true,

every single person who did make an analysis

as to time of death is wrong.

Only two people know what happened that day.

One of them is dead,

and the other one is sitting in that chair.

Find him guilty as charged.