Original subtitles

This is the story

of two young sweethearts...

She always knew that she would fall

head over heels in love.

...who have a beautiful family.

They knew what it was like to be loved.

She was the best mother ever.

But when the world shifts...

...everything comes tumbling down.

She was very good at hiding it.

Didn't talk about it.

They always fought.

Things at home were really bad.

There was blood everywhere.

Nothing good was gonna come out of this.

It's summer 2000 in Covington, Louisiana.

The Magee family is spending a relaxing

afternoon in their backyard.

Mom, Adrienne, captures Ashleigh playing

with a bright pink vacuum cleaner.

She's particularly proud

of her little girl's new cornrows.

She was the best mother ever.

She always put her kids first.

She always made sure we had everything we needed or wanted.

Always went above and beyond for us.

Adrienne turns the camera to her husband, Jamie.

In his arms is their latest treasure,

seven-month-old Aleisha.

When we were really younger,

we, like, we were best friends, like, we always played together.

We really didn't need anybody else.

These idyllic scenes are a far cry

from their mom's own upbringing.

My mother never spoke about her childhood.

Adrienne's father left when she was just two years old,

and when her mother remarried,

her new stepdad already had a large family of his own.

When my dad married Adrienne's mom,

she was about three years old,

her dad never came around.

She really wanted her mother's attention.

So she had to compete with six other kids.

At the age of eight,

Adrienne moves in with her grandparents.

They worshipped Adrienne.

They just clicked.

I mean, that was like a mother and father relationship

she had with 'em.

While at high school,

a different relationship blossoms for Adrienne.

Adrienne and Jamie,

when they got together, she -- Adrienne was about

16, 17 years old.

He could be very charming, and he was really nice.

She always knew that when she found that person

for herself that she would fall head over heels in love.

She was always enamored and fascinated with love itself.

She was just young, and she was in love

with the idea of being in love.

Adrienne is just 19 when baby Ashleigh arrives.

Da-da!

They bonded immediately, and that was it.

That was her baby -- nobody else could take care of the baby.

She wanted to do everything.

In 1999, Adrienne and Jamie make their union official.

She looked beautiful,

and it was a beautiful ceremony.

It was a sweet day, it really was.

Just four months later, Aleisha is born.

These images were taken

when she's only months old.

Mom Adrienne mostly prefers being behind the lens.

But on rare occasions like this,

Jamie catches her on camera,

grinning at his goofy comments.

Jamie was a great dad.

He was attentive.

He did stuff with the kids.

He would play with the kids a lot.

They would play, um, roll on the floor and laugh and giggle.

Ashleigh was his first,

and she had a special bond with him.

Ooh!

My dad, he was like a big kid.

He always was the fun one and always

wanted to go and do stuff with us.

I think you can definitely tell that I was a daddy's girl.

Yeah.

You said that like you believed it.

My mom just, like, laughed all the time.

She definitely egged it on. -Yeah, yeah.

He was always, like, really interactive.

He was a really interactive dad.

Man, here we go.

After a grueling day's work

welding under the scorching Louisiana sun,

Jamie treasures being home with his girls.

They were his world, you know.

I mean, always had 'em in the truck with him.

When he went off, the kids were with him.

As for Adrienne,

she spends all her energy being a stay-at-home mom.

She was a great mom.

If the kids wanted something,

she did whatever she could to make it happen.

Adrienne's grandmother, Claudine,

provides great support for the young family.

Jamie's work brings in a paycheck,

but money is always tight.

As long as they had food in the house, bills were gettin' paid,

Adrienne was good with it.

It didn't care to her that they didn't

have a big fat bank account.

But they still find ways to have fun as a family.

These images are from one of their days out

with the cousins.

Jamie encourages Ashleigh to feed the seagulls.

Soon, the whole family joins in.

It's a great day out, despite some teasing

between mom and dad.

Just 18 months after aleisha's arrival,

the Magees welcome their third child, a baby boy

they name Ashton Zachary, known as Zach.

My goodness, that little fella...

Aleisha and Ashleigh adored him.

Me and Zach were best friends.

He was the funniest, sweetest little kid.

He was cute.

He did what boys do, whatever he wanted to do,

pretty much.

They knew what it was like

to be loved by their mother,

which turned around and made both Ashleigh and Aleisha

mini moms to Zach.

In April 2002, the family treat Zach

to his first birthday party.

Proud dad, Jamie,

makes sure to capture his baby boy's

milestone occasion on tape.

Zach was his world.

That was, like, his little best friend.

Zach's a bit overwhelmed

with all the attention

as he blows out his candle with a bit of help from mom.

Soon he's free to attack his cake, and nearby guests.

When it comes time to open presents,

Adrienne helps Zach peel off the shiny blue wrapping paper,

clearly more enticing than the gift itself...

...a baseball outfit yay!

Adrienne and Jamie Magee seem content

with their slice of family bliss.

They had three beautiful kids.

I think she thought,

at that point, you know, we have our perfect little family.

Jamie and Adrienne Magee are married with three

adorable children and seem like the idyllic

southern family.

We were very rough children.

It was constant, constant dancing.

It doesn't stop throughout the video.

In 2005, after years living

with Adrienne's grandparents,

they move into their own house.

It isn't much, but it is a home.

It was a double wide trailer, had a big front porch.

They put a swimming pool up in the backyard.

Lots of room for the kids.

They were happy, because it's finally a place of their own.

I think they were excited about it.

Me and my sister shared a room,

and my brother had his own room.

Every night, he slept with me and my sister,

so he was always in our room.

We spent most of our time outside.

I definitely knew you had a go-kart, but I don't know

it started, like, this young.

That reflects your driving today.

We had, like, more free range.

It was secluded,

so we were able to go out and explore,

be kids, like without having to worry about going into

the street or, like, whatever parents would normally

worry about.

But the family's move brings challenges

they didn't face at grandma's.

Now.

Jamie is often out, leaving Adrienne stranded

without a car at home with the kids.

What?

Definitely, when we moved,

I don't know why, but my dad seemed angrier

all the time.

He didn't -- he spent time with us,

but it wasn't as much time as he used to spend with us.

When they were together,

they always fought a lot.

A lot of times, I would take my siblings

outside or into the room so they wouldn't see it.

A few months later, when Tracy visits,

Adrienne reveals that things aren't great

between her and Jamie.

I don't have a whole lot of explanation for it,

because she was very good at hiding it.

From the outside, it looked fine.

Concerned for her cousin, Tracy offers a lifeline.

I have a pre-school, and we had a position open up,

and I told her if she would like to take that position,

it was hers.

And she decided that, "yeah, I think I'll do that."

Working at the day care is perfect for Adrienne.

Her kids are close by, and she's earning

her own money for the first time.

I think she really, really enjoyed it.

For the first time,

I think, she saw that she could do something else

other than just be a stay-at-home mom.

It gave her a little bit more independence.

She's always wanted to work.

But when the kids were little, she -- they couldn't afford it,

but she loved her job.

She was able to buy a car and everything, I mean, she was --

she was really making big changes.

For a time,

life is definitely back on the up for the Magees.

Until 2006, when Jamie suffers an injury.

Jamie had something wrong with both of his feet.

Adrienne would come in and say, you know,

"we're not sure what's going on.

"I don't know what's the matter.

"He's been to this kind of doctor, that kind of doctor.

They've done tests."

They were giving him pain medication,

because the pain was that intense.

As a kid, like, no one told me, like, "dad hurt his foot."

Every now and then, you would see him on crutches

or limping, and so we knew, like, his foot hurt.

But we didn't know, like, he was on medication for it.

We had no idea.

In addition to the medication,

to cope with the pain, Jamie turns to alcohol.

Before they moved to Pearl river,

he would drink a beer here and there,

but once they moved over to Pearl river,

he got back with the old crowd

he was hanging with, drinking got more and more,

and Adrienne did -- was not about that.

You could just see he -- he changed.

Jamie himself changed.

It just wasn't right.

When we talked about it, it was more her upset

crying about, you know, "he's in so much pain.

"I don't know what to do.

"I don't know how to help Jamie.

I can't do anything for him."

It just kind of gradually got worse.

Ended up just being, like, a daily thing.

He would just start screaming

and hollering at 'em for no reason.

And she's like, "I don't know what's wrong."

The drinking picked up, and then the eatin' of

the pills increased.

He was -- he was doin' it to get high.

Jamie's addictions are threatening

to tear the family apart.

When Jamie and Adrienne Magee

filmed their kids on the beach

in 2001, life seems perfect.

But just five years later,

Adrienne confides in her cousin, Tracy, about Jamie's

substance abuse and mood swings.

We talked, and she just started crying.

And that's when she told me how bad things were.

That he was taking all

this medication, that he was drinking a lot.

He was being very abusive.

She told me about how,

for a while, she would leave work with the kids after school

and just drive around.

They would go pick up dinner, she'd drive through,

you know, a McDonald's

and eat dinner in the car, because she didn't want

to go home.

And he worked in the evenings, and she'd wait

till he would leave,

and then she was going home with the kids.

I was upset and shocked, and my recommendation was,

"you're gonna move in with us."

As they pack their belongings,

the children are none the wiser to their mother's

escape plan.

She said, "we're having a sleepover

at aunt Tracy and uncle Gerald's house."

We were so excited, 'cause it was a new place

and new people to be around.

They would sleep either on the bed with

their mom or on their own little mattress.

We would all just, like, stay up and watch movies.

Jamie is convinced that Adrienne's

decision to leave is temporary.

I think his initial reaction was more,

"you'll be back."

But Adrienne realizes that life is better

away from her husband.

Sometimes, we'd sit and talk, and she talked about it,

"he still thinks I'm coming home, and...

I'm not. I'm not going back."

Ho-ho!

Christmas 2006 at Tracy's is

a much happier environment for the children.

The more time that went by,

I think the more he started taking it more seriously

and feeling like, "this is it. It's over."

When she left him, it's like he lost everything.

I think her working on her own,

being -- becoming more independent and feeling...

A little stronger

and not feeling like as much of a victim...

Scared him.

Although Adrienne is firm in her decision

to be apart from Jamie,

she promises that he can always see the kids.

No matter how bad things got between my mom and my dad,

she always wanted us to go see him and have a relationship

with him, and I think that

has a lot to do with her childhood, with not

having a father figure,

and I think she thought it was really important for us

to have -- have a male role model in our life.

Look! Go see!

I'm after!

Go!

Jamie had all three of the kids pretty much

every weekend.

She never

told him he couldn't see his children.

Everything was civil. They were getting along.

I was like okay, this was not what I expected,

but okay, this is good.

Jamie takes this as a sign

that he can win Adrienne back.

He bought her a Valentine's day gift.

And it was a heart, it had a little heart

with some diamonds in it.

And she brought it home and showed me and I said,

"well, what does this mean?"

And she said, "it doesn't mean anything.

"He thinks that because he's buying me

jewelry now, I'm gonna come home."

She was done with him.

You know, it was past that, she'd -- after so long,

I think one person can only take so much abuse.

When his advances are rejected,

Jamie sends Adrienne abusive text messages.

It got to the point where she wouldn't go there

to his house to drop the kids off anymore,

because he's made threats to her.

So she would make sure she met him in an open, public area

to where nothing like that could happen,

you know, where there was people around.

Fearing for her family's safety,

Adrienne seeks legal protection and issues a restraining order

against Jamie.

On the 18th of April in 2007,

the day after the restraining order was issued

and he was served...

It was a normal day for us.

It was my brother's first baseball game.

Adrienne left with the kids.

One of my employees said that Jamie had

just sped into the parking lot of the school.

And he had a weird look on his face.

So my first thought was, he pulled in

to find them to see if she was at school.

And so I immediately got nervous

and started trying to call her cellphone.

I realized my mom went a different way

than we normally go.

And, um, she started getting panicky.

Turned around and saw a white truck was behind us.

As I'm driving and I'm rushing,

and I'm still re-dialing the number, I'm leaving messages

on her phone, I'm leaving messages on our home phone.

"Are you inside?

"Did you leave your phone out in the car?

Listen to me, please pick up the phone."

We were receiving multiple calls about

a vehicle that was ramming into another vehicle

on the service road.

I ran out into the parking lot to my car,

fired up the lights and sirens, and headed to the location.

As I pulled in, I saw the small car

crashed into a tree in the front yard of the house.

I saw the female driver

she was laying in --

in the grass next to the vehicle.

I saw the gunshot to her head.

She wasn't breathing.

I called that in,

and that's when I saw the small child

laying out middle of the intersection of the street.

He was still moving.

It was heartbreaking, he was trying to --

it's almost like he was trying to get up.

The boy is five-year-old Zach Magee.

The shooter is nowhere to be seen.

A neighbor came running up,

saying she had two girls in the garage.

The two girls are the Magee sisters.

Seven-year-old Aleisha is unharmed,

but eight-year-old Ashleigh has been shot.

I saw that she was injured in her shoulder.

I had them -- asked them to go get a clean towel,

wrap it over her shoulder, and keep pressure on it,

keep her talking, I didn't want her

to go into shock or anything.

We went in an ambulance,

and I was brought to children's hospital.

I was just kind of in and out of consciousness.

I just remember being really uncomfortable.

My arm hurt really bad.

I walked into that room, and...

There's this sweet little girl lying on the bed on her side,

and there was just blood everywhere.

And they were going in and out,

givin' her ivs and givin' her blood.

She had lost so much blood.

And, um, I remember that there was

a police officer with her.

And she was awake, though, and she looked up at me,

and she was crying, and she said aunt Tracy...

"I don't know why my daddy shot me."

I didn't know it was my dad's truck at the time,

and I saw he was pointing his gun out the window.

We crashed into a tree.

My mom got out the car.

My dad had the gun.

She was trying to fight for it.

Jamie, stop!

I told my sister to act like she was dead,

said that he wouldn't hurt her.

My brother tried to run away.

I just remember her screaming, "no, Jamie, no, not the kids."

And I heard the gunshot noises,

and I turned around, and my mom was

laying there in the grass, and she wasn't moving.

And then I had turned back,

looked over my shoulder, and I saw

my dad standing there with the gun pointed at me.

He looked me in eyes and then...

He shot me.

Adrienne and Zach

are both pronounced dead at the scene.

Due to her big sister's quick thinking,

Aleisha has escaped physical injury, however,

Ashleigh is fighting for her life in the icu,

and her father, Jamie, is on the run,

wanted for murder.

Jamie Magee has shot dead his wife, Adrienne,

and their five-year-old son, Zach,

while eight-year-old daughter,

Ashleigh, is critical in the hospital,

police launch a manhunt, fearing he'll strike again.

After James had fled the scene,

the entire department was looking for him.

The hospital was on lockdown, because they hadn't

found Jamie.

I had to protect these girls right now.

That was my first priority.

A police negotiator calls the fugitive's cellphone.

And Jamie answers.

Jamie agrees to give himself up

in a Walmart parking lot.

Police surround the retail complex.

But as the minutes tick by,

there's still no sign of him.

Jamie has slipped through their fingers.

There's police everywhere,

so I just kind of grab 'em and say,

"you've got to get him, you've got to find him."

In a situation like that, they were able to request

the cellphone company's assistance

in tracking the location of his phone signal.

We requested assistance from

other agencies that were ahead.

Jamie's still on the phone.

Get down!

James...

-Good job. -Thank you.

Two hours after shooting his family,

Jamie Magee is captured 130 miles away near

mobile, Alabama.

The fact that they caught him, I was happy,

because I could tell the girls that they didn't have to worry.

Stunned detectives asked Jamie

to explain what happened.

He admits killing Adrienne in cold blood

but denies it was premeditated.

Now they need him to acknowledge responsibility

for Zach's death.

The boy was trying to run away.

He was shot in the shoulder and the head, but from behind.

Investigators discover that just hours earlier,

Jamie purchased a stockpile of ammunition,

refuting his claim he didn't plan the massacre.

He went to Walmart and bought 100 rounds of buckshot.

I don't know if there's anything more

premeditated than that.

He's charged with two counts of

first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.

At his trial in October 2009,

he pleads not guilty.

The jury unanimously finds him guilty

and recommends two death sentences.

He's currently awaiting execution.

It's not gonna bring her back.

It's not gonna bring Zach back.

Tracy stepped forward and became

the girls' legal guardian.

They're our family -- there was no thought that went

into it. I said, "that's it. They're mine."

Today, they still struggle to come

to terms with their father's actions.

Say, like, your dad did that to you.

You -- like, that's still your dad.

You still love your dad.

Why he would try to hurt me and my siblings,

that's -- that's something I can never really understand.

Survivor's guilt -- that is something that I still

struggle with to this day.

We definitely felt betrayed, because, you know, someone

who's supposed to love you unconditionally,

you know, turns around and tries to kill you.

The sisters and their family dearly

Cherish the memories of Adrienne and little Zach.

When I'm feeling really, um,

really sad and really lonely and just need, like, an extra

an extra boost, I liked,

I like to go to their grave and just -- just sit there.

She made a point to make sure that me

and my siblings always knew that we were loved.

We did everything together,

and for -- to not have that no more,

it's -- it's been hard.

He had this light about him.

He was just a good kid.

Sweet little boy.

I like to think of him as a butterfly,

and every time, um, a butterfly

comes by, I always whisper, "hey, Zach."

That's kind of how I think of him.