Original subtitles

In the criminal justice system,

detectives and prosecutors face daunting challenges

when money is the motive for murder.

[dramatic sting]

The new proprietor of the lodge

was in there on the bed, dead.

Investigators discover a culture clash

surrounding the murder

of a California real-estate mogul.

Camp Nelson Lodge had become a money pit.

Sucking all their finances.

We became aware of a stranger.

What's his connection to Bonnie Hood?

And a startling verdict leads to a second shooting.

The number of times he got shot--I had never seen that.

The two killings were inexorably tied together.

As prosecutors, we carry the heaviest burden

in the American law.

These men and women dedicate their lives to law and order.

These are their true stories.

♪ ♪

[dramatic sting]

[insects chirping]

[eerie music]

The call came in sometime after 3:30 in the morning.

The caller, who identified himself as Rudy Manuel,

said he had been shot.

[sirens wailing]

On the night of August 19, 1990,

my pager went off--

shooting in Camp Nelson at the lodge.

Beautiful mountain resort for the elite.

There were no lights anywhere,

so it was darker than the ace of spades.

I walked in.

Rudy Manuel's laying on the floor

with a gunshot graze across his forehead.

He was talking, and he said, Bonnie's in there on the bed.

Bonnie Hood was the new proprietor of the lodge.

Rudy Manuel was another employee of the lodge.

I walked into the bedroom.

Bonnie Hood was on the bed,

and she's dead.

We transported Rudy to the hospital.

I remember putting him on the gurney.

After Rudy was gone, they called the detectives.

When I got there, the scene was still contained.

In the bedroom, Bonnie's body was found lying on the bed--

partially one leg out of the bed,

and the other one was on the bed still.

So it was like, maybe she was attempting to get out of bed.

But before she was actually able to, she was shot.

She was laying with her hands crossed like this

and a bullet hole in her head.

Crime techs processed the cabin

and discovered a .38 slug lodged in the headboard,

along with a blood trail leading away from the bedroom.

It appeared to be that Rudy managed to crawl on the floor

into the living room to make the 911 call.

Point of entry was determined to be the rear door.

It was a screen that was cut,

and there was some pry marks found.

And there was fingerprints dusted throughout the cabin.

Other than evidence of the blood on the bed

and on the floor and the possible point of entry,

there wasn't much there.

In my mind, it eliminated the possibility of a robbery.

If they was in there to rob,

they would've gotten what they wanted first

and then killed them.

It wasn't a robbery or a crime interrupted.

It was...

He went in there with the intent to kill.

Eventually the body was identified as Bonnie Hood.

Everyone knew Bonnie Hood.

She and her husband, Jim, were from Newport Beach--

the wealthy new owners of the Camp Nelson resort.

My husband and I, we would go up and rent a cabin

with our kids in Camp Nelson.

It felt so personal.

It felt like such a violation of this community.

I remember calling my husband, and just sobbing

and saying, somebody shot Bonnie.

Somebody shot Bonnie.

The community was in shock.

Why did it happen?

Who did it? Are we safe?

I was sick to my stomach and frightened.

♪ ♪

Bonnie was from the Newport Beach area,

and she was married to Jim Hood.

Jim and Bonnie were like the golden couple.

They had a beautiful house in Newport Beach.

They each had a Mercedes.

Jim was in the developing business,

and he had a golden touch.

Nothing that he built had any problems with it.

Jim had this business that he was building,

and they had a lot of money.

They were so well known in Newport Beach

and Orange County social circles.

They had two beautiful children.

When her kids got a little older,

Bonnie wanted to start a second chapter of her life.

♪ ♪

Bonnie had come up here as a child,

and Jim and her had come up here as a vacation.

Three years before the shooting,

they saw the lodge was for sale, and they bought it.

♪ ♪

Bonnie Hood came to Camp Nelson

knowing that she wanted to make the Camp Nelson area

a retreat for people from a metropolitan area,

where they could come up and live the high life,

only live it in the mountains.

♪ ♪

We weren't subject to wanting change.

We didn't want the metropolitan area to come up here.

We couldn't be bothered with that.

We were country people.

Investigators questioned,

was this influx of coastal elites

so threatening to locals that it made Bonnie a target?

It was two completely clashing cultures,

and Bonnie became more and more estranged

from the Camp Nelson community.

So Bonnie and Jim--

they kind of invented this commuter marriage.

Bonnie would be down in Newport Beach.

She would go, like, a Tuesday to a Thursday,

be there for the kids, homework.

And then every other weekend,

Jim would come up with the kids.

So, when Bonnie first hired Rudy to help at the lodge,

I think Jim was relieved.

Rudy was hired to build fences

around the lodge property.

He's building things. He's riding the horses.

He's lugging stuff around. He's doing all of this stuff.

And I think Jim thought,

oh, finally, there's somebody there who is helping her

in ways that I can't.

And as Rudy became more and more inseparable with Bonnie,

there was just obviously something sparking

between them.

There was speculation--

if there was something going on between Rudy and Bonnie--

but nobody could prove it.

I mean, the husband was coming to town only on the weekends.

There may have been different reports

from different people, but you can't dispute

the evidence we found at the scene,

which was that they were both in the same bed

on the night of the shooting.

We need to speak to Rudy and find out what his story is.

[dramatic sting]

[siren wailing]

Rudy was very fortunate,

because the bullet did not penetrate the skull.

He was up front about his and Bonnie Hood's relationship,

that they were having a sexual relationship.

There was an affair between Bonnie Hood and Rudy Manuel.

So that automatically lets us know

that there's more to this investigation.

He was a Native American,

lived on the reservation nearby.

Certain white residents of Redwood Country in the area

believed that a Native American

shouldn't have been in bed with a white woman.

He said that him and Bonnie Hood shared a cabin.

He had recalled securing the cabin doors

and turning out all the lights.

They were in bed.

And then the next thing he recalled was the light

coming on to the bedroom.

And this individual confronted him with a gun in his hand,

told him to get down off the bed and get on the floor.

♪ ♪

Rudy did not comply.

He said, if you want me down,

you're going to have to put me down.

And that's when he was shot.

And then he remembers hearing two shots.

[muffled gunshots, door creaks, car engine turning over]

A vehicle was heard leaving the property.

[engine revving]

♪ ♪

Rudy never made it to the window,

seeing the person drive off.

Rudy Manuel provided as much of a description

as he could of the individual--

a white male, late 30s, blondish-brown-colored hair,

medium to heavy built.

♪ ♪

We had the description that Rudy Manuel had indicated

was the shooter.

Camp Nelson is a mountain community.

They have that neighborhood type of environment,

where everybody knows each other.

There's two lodges in business there--

Camp Nelson, and the other lodge was Pierpoint Lodge.

The detectives started coming up and asking questions

at Pierpoint Springs Resort.

They asked if we could identify the man

that supposedly shot Bonnie.

[dramatic sting]

♪ ♪

On the Friday night prior to the murder,

a man came into Pierpoint, and I served him.

Stranger walks in, and you spot him right away

because he's not your local people.

He ordered his drink.

He sits down at the end of the bar.

He sits there for a little bit, gets up because we have music.

And he went and sat down next to another lady,

made some off-color remarks.

The lady that he was sitting next to approached me.

She said, I really don't like that guy sitting next to me.

I said, not a big deal. I got it.

I walked out from behind the bar.

I said, I'm sorry, sir, but we don't need your kind in here.

You can leave, and you don't need to come back.

He got up. I took his drink, and he left.

Where he went after that, we have no idea.

♪ ♪

The stranger that came in had sandy-blond hair.

Could have been shoulder length,

but it was very, very curly, kind of disheveled.

To our surprise, he kind of matched the description

that Rudy Manuel had put out.

This might be the shooter.

Let's find out who he is and why he was there.

What would have been his motive for killing Bonnie Hood?

♪ ♪

He was either being threatened or blackmailed.

The morning after the murder of Bonnie Hood,

detectives pursued the identity of a man

who matched the description of the shooter

and was seen locally on the night she was killed.

[dramatic sting]

Tight-knit community, word gets around.

There was talk that we were trying to find out

who this person was.

Ray Torrey, who works part-time at the bar,

remembered this individual dined at the restaurant.

♪ ♪

They described him to the detectives,

and they described the same man that we had described.

Ray recalled that this stranger

had come in with his own beer

and left the bottle sitting on the table.

Ray had set it behind the bar

to be cleaned up in the morning.

The bottle was still there.

A beer bottle's a very difficult item

because so many people touch it,

but it was collected

to see if any unidentifiable fingerprints can be found.

♪ ♪

Meanwhile, Jim Hood had been notified after the killing

and arrived at Camp Nelson in a haze

after breaking the news of Bonnie's death

to their children.

He was asked what the relationship was

between Rudy Manuel and Bonnie Hood.

He said they were just good friends.

He was never aware of any sexual relationship

between the two.

Jim maintained that he and Bonnie had a solid marriage

and wouldn't acknowledge an affair,

even when told that his wife was in bed with Rudy.

We felt that he was trying to conceal something,

like he had a perfect relationship with Bonnie Hood.

They were fine. There was no issues.

During an investigation like this,

you start looking at what type of financial records

would have her name on it, have the husband's name on it.

We need to try and bring up more information.

He was asked what type of financial issues

the lodge might be in.

Camp Nelson Lodge,

which was the beloved project of Bonnie Hood,

had become a money pit.

They were struggling to get all the rentals filled.

While Bonnie had this dream

about what she wanted to do with it,

it was really impractical,

given where this place was located.

The lodge--it became a kind of black hole

just sucking all the money out of their finances.

It was losing between $100,000 and $300,000.

♪ ♪

Investigators recognized clear motive--

the financial burden of the lodge

and Bonnie's seemingly public affair,

which Jim was outwardly denying.

♪ ♪

My heart is hurting

for Bonnie Hood and her family.

♪ ♪

Happy family guy.

The Jim Hood that I knew

from our days together as students at San Jose State--

very outgoing, very gregarious guy,

and he was a good student.

And so the two just didn't mesh,

that he would be involved in anything

that would result in somebody getting hurt,

let alone his wife getting killed.

During that interview, there was nothing unusual.

I mean, he acted surprised at some of the questions,

like, no, there's no way.

There was never a problem with our marriage.

As far as an alibi, he was far away.

He was home in Southern California.

Jim Hood was somebody we continued

to consider as a possibility being involved.

♪ ♪

Rudy Manuel had a sister,

and she worked part-time at the lodge.

When she was at the lodge the weekend before,

she had seen an individual

and thought he matched the description

that Rudy had given her of the shooter.

And one of the things she added was that the individual

she had seen had been doing a roofing job

at one of the local cabins.

The resident deputy directed us towards

one particular cabin that had roofing work done on it.

♪ ♪

Mr. Penner was the owner of the cabin.

He confirmed that he did have the roofing redone

on that cabin the weekend before.

He said the roofers were friends of his,

and he provided the names Mark and Matthew Stewart--

two brothers who were in construction.

And they're from Fresno.

♪ ♪

Mark and Matthew Stewart were contacted.

They both indicated that they'd gone up to the lodge,

but they were done with the roofing job

a week before the shooting occurred

and had not returned.

Mark and Matthew Stewart did not match

the description that Rudy Manuel had indicated

was the shooter.

Mark and Matthew Stewart were interviewed.

A friend of theirs just happened to be at the house--

Rick Lamar--

and he looked very similar to the physical description

given by Rudy Manuel of the shooter.

Rick Lamar was asked

if he had ever gone to the Camp Nelson Lodge,

and he said no.

Photographs were taken of both of the Stewart brothers,

Matthew and Mark, to be shown to Rudy Manuel.

Rick agreed to allow his photograph

to be taken as well.

[dramatic sting]

[monitor beeping]

Rudy, while he was still recovering,

was given a lineup, and he pointed to somebody.

♪ ♪

He selected Rick Lamar as being the shooter.

[dramatic music]

Shot dead at 3:00 a.m.

The intruder shot both Bonnie

and her hired caretaker, Rudy Manuel,

in the head execution style.

Bonnie died instantly, but Rudy somehow was spared.

♪ ♪

Rudy Manuel selected Rick Lamar

as being the shooter.

Immediately, our focus turned back to Rick Lamar.

Rick Lamar told us, the weekend that the shooting occurred,

he had been off on a fishing trip with his dad.

The dad--he was contacted by telephone

and confirmed the information.

There was no connection between Mr. Lamar

and Bonnie Hood or Rudy Manuel.

We need to gather more evidence

that actually places him at the shooting.

♪ ♪

[dramatic sting]

♪ ♪

Sergeant of the unit got a phone call from the FBI

indicating they had identified a usable print

from that beer bottle.

♪ ♪

The fingerprint was identified to a Bruce Beauchamp,

who had a criminal record, from Fontana, California.

♪ ♪

Bruce Beauchamp's photograph was shown to other witnesses

who had placed him at the lodge that weekend

and the weekend before.

♪ ♪

Once we saw Bruce Beauchamp, we knew who he was.

We knew that he was the stranger

that had come into the bar.

His photograph was shown to Rudy Manuel.

This was weeks later, so he's had time to recover.

He's not under a doctor's care and under medication.

And Rudy Manuel selected Mr. Beauchamp as the shooter.

But he said he did not know this person,

had never seen him before.

♪ ♪

Okay, who is this Bruce Beauchamp?

Where did he come from?

Why was he there at the bar on the day of the homicide?

What's his connection to Bonnie Hood and/or Rudy Manuel?

♪ ♪

After Bonnie was murdered,

there's a chapel up in Camp Nelson.

There was kind of a coming together

of the different pieces of Bonnie's life

just to recognize her.

I think it was a way of trying to just let her know

they were sorry for the ways they weren't supporting her

and just a way to have everybody celebrate her.

♪ ♪

[dramatic sting]

Tulare County detectives

reached out to Bruce Beauchamp,

who agreed to meet them at the local precinct.

♪ ♪

I expect him to lie, but it was just the opposite.

He admitted he had been up there

the weekend of the shooting.

He had gone back and forth to Pierpoint Lodge,

the Camp Nelson Lodge,

but he didn't know Bonnie Hood.

Mr. Beauchamp's reason for being up there

was because he had set up a date with some female...

and she never showed up.

So he was there at the lodge on that Saturday night

from 8:00, waiting for her between both lodges.

And he stayed there till closing.

I thought it was unusual to come so far from Fontana.

Beauchamp claimed that he had driven four hours

back to Fontana after the bar closed at 1:30 a.m.

That didn't make sense to me.

Given Beauchamp had no apparent connection

to Bonnie Hood,

investigators angled at a financial motive

and pushed him to reveal a source of income.

Bruce Beauchamp said that Jim Hood

is his employer

at a construction company in Fontana.

♪ ♪

Okay, so Beauchamp does have a connection to Jim Hood.

♪ ♪

We focused on trying to identify, what's the motive?

You know, it could be financial.

And then there was another lead that was developed.

Jim Hood collected a fairly large life insurance

on Bonnie Hood.

Was the motive the life-insurance policy

that he had out on her?

♪ ♪

With the murder of Mr. Hood's wife

in Tulare County,

it appears from the evidence that the Hoods

were coming apart.

The District Attorney's Office

and the Sheriff's Office--

we're trying to achieve the same thing.

I always wanted to get their opinion,

say, okay, this is what we have.

What do you think?

We know Bruce Beauchamp had a bit of a shady history.

From the reports,

we had learned Mr. Beauchamp had a drug issue.

He had recently refinanced his home.

He was needing money.

We know Mr. Hood had life-insurance policies

on his wife.

The theory is that Mr. Hood hired Mr. Beauchamp

to eliminate Mrs. Hood

and, just incidentally,

to collect all those insurance proceeds.

♪ ♪

There are plenty of upsides.

The lodge would be gone.

He'd sell it.

It would get rid of his cheating wife

and to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars

for her personal insurance.

There was no direct evidence to connect Jim to the crime.

Meanwhile, Bruce Beauchamp was arrested

for the murder of Bonnie Hood.

♪ ♪

If your theory is that Jim Hood

bought a hit on his wife,

you'd like to find the source of funds.

In Bruce Beauchamp's checking account--

or savings account,

a $10,000 payment he can't explain, right?

That would have been the linchpin in proving

that Jim Hood had ordered the hit.

♪ ♪

There was a search warrant issued

for Beauchamp's residence.

♪ ♪

But there was nothing to connect him to it.

♪ ♪

As long as Bruce Beauchamp wouldn't roll on Jim Hood,

then Jim Hood was in the clear.

His innocence, or his freedom,

depended on the goodwill and financial relationship

of Bruce Beauchamp.

I've been asked not to discuss it in great detail,

but he did work for me.

And I'm just-- I'm a little surprised.

In fact, I'm very-- you know, I'm shocked by it.

We're all amazed.

Investigators suspected that Jim Hood had hired

Bruce Beauchamp to kill his wife, Bonnie,

yet Beauchamp was the only one being charged with her murder.

[dramatic sting]

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

In this case, I believe Mr. Hood

was the driving factor in the murder of his wife,

but the DA's Office decided not to use that connection.

They felt that that would just muddy the case.

A man police finally arrested--Bruce Beauchamp.

Although prosecutors had evidence against Beauchamp,

without his cooperation,

they had little to implicate Jim Hood.

They decided not to include Hood

and go all-in on their case against Beauchamp.

I think that the Jim Hood information

should have been factored into this trial,

but I try not to second-quarterback prosecutors

because that's not my field.

Playing to their only strength,

prosecutors intended

for Rudy Manuel's planned testimony

to corroborate all of their circumstantial evidence

against Beauchamp.

As the sole eyewitness, he was pretty much the linchpin

of the case in that county.

I felt reliable in the information he provided.

But then he didn't tell the truth

about the nature of his relationship with Bonnie.

Rudy Manuel got on the witness stand

and denied that he had a sexual relationship

with Bonnie Hood.

Whether it was shame or something else

that drove Rudy to change his story,

in a crushing turn,

his credibility and the case were ruined.

[dramatic sting]

♪ ♪

The Tulare County jury found Bruce Beauchamp

not guilty...

♪ ♪

And subsequently was acquitted.

He can never be tried for it again

because of the double jeopardy rule.

He's a free man.

Mr. Beauchamp was also free

to point the finger at Jim Hood.

When you talk about a jury of your peers

and all the peers

are white, blue-collar,

and the person who is on trial is white, blue-collar,

looks like them, and the person who is accusing them

is Indian,

I think that very much factored in this trial.

I could not accept the fact

that Bonnie would be this victim

who would never have justice

and would never have peace, in a way.

"Fontana resident...

"accused and acquitted

of murdering Bonnie Hood."

I have great faith and great confidence in the jury system,

but my life's experience in the practice of law,

having practiced law now for 40 years,

the jury does not bat 100%.

A lot of lives were shattered

as a result of the murder of Bonnie Hood.

When you tell me there's a life-insurance policy,

I'm not going to pre-judge,

but it certainly causes me

to be more questioning...

about who was doing what.

♪ ♪

Jim Hood was still a free man down in Orange County,

and everybody went about their business, I think,

until March 22, 1992.

[dramatic sting]

♪ ♪

[line trilling]

This crime occurred in an industrial complex

in the front office.

There was bloodstains on the office chair,

and there's bloodstains on the floor.

[line beeping]

No one could say what happened in that room

in the office.

According to Jim Hood,

Beauchamp just walked into the business

with a gun to shoot him.

Beauchamp was just crumpled on the floor,

laying there with his hand out,

with this gun just sitting in his hand.

I had never seen that,

and no one I talked to had ever experienced

where a person had been shot with the weapon in his hand,

and it still was in his hand when he hit the ground.

It just doesn't happen.

♪ ♪

[indistinct chatter]

The gun that was in Beauchamp's hand,

it didn't bother me too much

until we actually started getting

into the bloodstain pattern of the case.

[camera shutter clicking]

♪ ♪

These are the impact spatters

indicating that there was a point of origin

very close and low to the ground in that area.

First shot entered the top of his head.

♪ ♪

When there's an impact to your head from a gun,

you'll have impact spatter,

and Beauchamp's right hand

is on top of spatter near his head.

But the funny thing about this

is there's no blood spatter on his hands,

no blood spatter on the gun.

So what that indicates is the hand was there

after the blood spatter hit the floor.

♪ ♪

We think he staged the scene inside his office

before he called the Sheriff's Department.

Two years after Jim Hood was suspected

for the murder of his wife, Bonnie,

he was now tied up in another killing.

Tonight's top story-- Bonnie Hood,

murdered mysteriously in an isolated resort,

but now the man they tried is dead

amid the most unexpected twist of all.

♪ ♪

911 Emergency.

[dramatic sting]

We had Jim Hood transported

to the San Bernardino Sheriff's Office.

When Jim Hood was interviewed by the detectives,

he continued to keep his story straight,

that it was totally self-defense.

Jim Hood says Beauchamp and his wife's brother

were engaged in a number of nefarious activities,

including stealing equipment from the construction site

of a shopping center that Jim Hood was developing.

And so Hood--

he fired the brother-in-law, who was also working for him.

Beauchamp was upset that his brother-in-law had been fired.

♪ ♪

Jim Hood claimed

that's what the meeting in his office was about

and that Bruce threatened him first.

He claimed Bruce Beauchamp reached behind him,

pulled out a .357 Magnum,

and aimed it at Jim Hood's chest.

Jim Hood pulled a Glock 9 from his drawer

and started shooting at Beauchamp.

Shot him seven times.

The number of times he got shot,

there was no way that that was self-defense.

It just doesn't happen that way.

Hood claimed that he feared Bruce Beauchamp

would show up to hurt him,

so he had his own gun ready at his desk.

We run background checks on all the witnesses and victims.

And then when we found out

that Beauchamp had been acquitted

for the murder of Bonnie Hood,

myself and another detective

went up to Tulare County.

♪ ♪

[dramatic sting]

♪ ♪

The two killings were inexorably tied together.

Mr. Beauchamp was hired to kill.

He got acquitted, much to Mr. Hood's surprise.

And that once Bruce Beauchamp was acquitted,

he was able to extort--

or he thought he would be able to extort

plenty of money from Jim Hood.

Mr. Hood was not going to take that chance.

I try not to get involved personally in a case,

but I just want the justice part of it to work.

Let's get it done.

And then we get a copy of the report.

The gun was found in his right hand,

when, in fact, he was left-handed.

♪ ♪

Evidence was stacking up

that Jim Hood had staged the crime scene in his office.

So, in March of 1992, almost exactly a year

after Bruce Beauchamp was acquitted

for the murder of Bonnie Hood,

Jim Hood was arrested for the murder of Bruce Beauchamp.

♪ ♪

[dramatic sting]

♪ ♪

The theory of People versus Jim Hood

is that he bought a hit on his wife, Bonnie Hood.

♪ ♪

However, Bruce Beauchamp was acquitted.

He was going to expose Jim Hood

for his complicity in the murder.

That made him a threat to Jim Hood

that had to be eliminated somehow.

Investigators theorized

that Hood was not about to be extorted,

especially by someone he had already paid.

The prosecution will prove

that this defendant lured the victim to his office,

that, in fact, shot him

and then planted the gun on him.

And this is not going to be done by witness testimony,

but rather cold, hard facts.

I set it up to have a video done,

the animation of the crime itself.

It was one of the first times

that they had animation in a homicide case.

So right now in San Bernardino County,

it's a case that involves love and sex,

a contract killing, and now computer animation.

Mr. Beauchamp showing up.

Mr. Beauchamp not carrying a weapon.

There's a series of shots.

♪ ♪

The gun in the hand...

staging the scene.

The defense generally presented Mr. Hood as a good guy

who was trying to act in self-defense.

He wants this case to go to trial.

He wants to be vindicated.

He's worked all of his life

to get where he is,

and he wants to keep that.

If he would leave with these charges hanging over his head,

everyone would assume that he was a cold-blooded killer.

He does not want that for him.

He does not want that for his children.

He does not want that for his friends

and the rest of his family.

Mr. Hood had enormous resources

and could present things to contradict our positions,

like the computer animation.

Our evidence will demonstrate to you that he acted properly

under the law in self-defense.

The defense agrees that Hood did indeed kill,

but provided its own animation--

one portraying a gun in the hand of the dead man

and Hood as an innocent victim of all of this.

His eyes were looking at me

like he was gonna beat the living heck out of me.

I'm scared to death.

I thought, you know, he was going to kill me.

♪ ♪

And then he reenacted what he said happened,

with a dummy standing in for Bruce Beauchamp.

And that was very peculiar.

I sat through the trial.

I couldn't imagine this jury could be listening

to all the evidence that I was listening to

and come up with any other decision

than that he was guilty.

But there was a part of me that worried

that he was going to get away with this.

Tonight on "Hard Copy"...

Jim Hood lost his wife to a mystery man's bullet.

Now he's been shot dead, too.

Jim Hood pulled the trigger.

Was it murder or self-defense?

While Jim Hood sat in jail, a new scenario emerged.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Sharon, who was Bruce Beauchamp's wife,

was called as a witness and testified.

♪ ♪

Sharon testified that Jim paid him $50,000

to kill Bonnie.

Once Bruce Beauchamp got acquitted,

Mr. Beauchamp decides to milk Mr. Hood

for all he can.

Sharon indicated he went to ask for more money.

You better pay me another 100,000,

or I'm going to say you paid me to kill your wife.

And so the jury

had to decide what happened

in those two minutes or three minutes

inside Jim Hood's office.

And, of course, all the defense has to do

is convince one person that they're not guilty,

and we don't get a conviction.

In the end, the seemingly damning evidence and testimony

weren't enough to convince the jury

beyond a reasonable doubt.

Jim Hood's trial results in a hung jury.

It seemed impossible to me that he would not be convicted.

The case was declared a mistrial.

There's nothing you'd less rather do

than try a case twice.

♪ ♪

[dramatic sting]

♪ ♪

So, in June of 1993,

Jim's second trial begins.

When Mr. Hood got on the witness stand,

he had conformed his version of events

to match the physical evidence

he had heard in the first trial.

What's an innocent man have to do

with changing his testimony?

The prosecution seized the opportunity

to call jurors from the first trial,

who testified that Hood had told them a different story.

Jim changed his story

about how Bruce was after he'd been shot.

He'd physically laid down and shown one thing,

and then he physically laid down and showed something else

in the second jury trial.

And I knew.

I knew that he had just hung himself.

♪ ♪

The jury had a verdict,

and that verdict was that Jim Hood was guilty

of first-degree murder.

When the verdict comes back,

there's a certain sense of justice done for the victims.

However, the hit for hire--

sending Beauchamp up to kill Bonnie--

is a theory that has never been proven.

As a result, the murder of Bonnie Hood

is considered unsolved.

♪ ♪

A lot of people forget

that there were two children in that Hood family

that endured this whole thing.

They lost their mom. Their dad went to prison.

♪ ♪

They're the biggest victims of all in this case,

♪ ♪

[somber music]

♪ ♪

It's just a shame.

♪ ♪

When I picture Bonnie now,

I think of her in her jeans and her flannel shirt,

blond hair down,

sitting on Mulberry, her horse, riding the trails.

I think she's still up there in Camp Nelson.

I think that was her happy place.

♪ ♪

I tend to want to disbelieve that my fraternity brother

would do something like that.

I've been married to my wife for 52 years.

It's just hard for me to understand

how somebody could get to that point in rage--

the enormity of taking someone's life.

But I have no reason to believe he did.

But I have no reason to believe that he didn't.

♪ ♪