[Narrator] In a small Mississippi town,
these two women were everything to each other.
They drawed a close friendship.
If you seen one of 'em, you seen both of 'em.
[Narrator] In the early hours of one winter morning,
their friendship goes up in smoke.
We put a firefighter through the window.
He found her between the foot o the bed and the wall.
[Narrator] Investigators uncover a deadly betrayal
that has been smoldering for years.
This woman was supposed to be her best friend.
[William] She seemed to be looking after her.
I don't really think she was doin' anything other than
watchin' out for her investment
[Narrator] And as a sinister plan is revealed,
a sighting from beyond the grav cements suspicions.
She had seen on the news where she had died,
then she was in Walmart shoppin and saw her.
[Narrator] As the truth unfolds,
this small town may never be the same.
Your past doesn't escape you.
She didn't know it was comin',
and when it did come, she was shocked.
[theme music]
[Narrator] 20 minutes south of Memphis,
the town of Horn Lake, Mississippi
is generally a quiet place.
But on Northwood Cove in the early morning hours
of December 19th, 1994,
the calm is suddenly broken.
In the early morning hours,
one of the neighbors said they heard an explosion
and they reported to the police
[Narrator] Neighbors are gathered outside the home
that is now engulfed in flames.
When we found out that the occupant of the house was
Miss Lula Young,
they all had said that Miss Lula was at home at the time,
and they had not seen her come out.
[music]
[Narrator] The members of the small town fire department
know exactly who Miss Lula is.
Lula Young, she was an EMT.
She was known by a lotta people in Horn Lake.
The emergency services people were real familiar with her
because she rode the ambulance.
A lot of the people that were there and, and tryin' to get
the fire out knew her personally.
It was a bad situation.
[Narrator] The firefighters mobilize,
with one team fighting the blaz
and the other trying to locate 47-year-old Lula Young.
[Leroy] The fire was still goin' pretty good.
We knew we was gonna need a hose line
and go through a bedroom window
in order to try to get Miss Lula out.
We put a firefighter through the window
with the hose line.
He found her between the foot of the bed and the wall.
She was unconscious.
It appeared that she had gotten up,
and tried to get out, and collapsed.
Lula suffered first and second-degree burns
on her torso.
[Leroy] It didn't appear that she was breathing.
And our biggest concern was get her away from the structure.
When Lula was pulled from the fire,
she never regained consciousness,
and she basically died of smoke inhalation.
They pronounced her dead at that point on the scene.
[Narrator] Lula's friends and family are devastated.
[William] Everybody that knew Miss Young
thought she was a good person.
People were really sad...
...that she had died.
"It hurt" is the biggest thing you can always say of
the loss of a loved one in your life.
With Lula, it was a, a thing that's hard
to really process in your mind.
[Mike] Mike Milton and me that morning,
we got up to go deer hunting,
and Mike Milton's wife called, and he said, "Hey, Bubba."
He said, "There had been a fire at your mom's house."
And I said, "Is everything okay?"
He looked at me and he shook his head no.
That was not what I was anticipatin'.
"So, you're sayin' Mom's gone?"
"Yeah, she's gone."
[music]
[Narrator] Lula Welch grew up in a large, close-knit family
in Tunica, Mississippi.
[Mike] My mom was born down in Central Mississippi.
My grandfather was a farmer.
My grandmother was a stay-at-home mom.
[Randy] Lula was born on October the 15th of 1947.
She was the second child of wha eventually become seven.
Lula had a heart just big as a wheel, you know?
Her biggest hobby was makin' other folks happy.
[Narrator] After becoming one of the first in her family
to graduate high school,
Lula married her childhood sweetheart,
John Young.
[Mike] When Mom was a kid, her and my dad grew up together
They knew each other from back when they were,
well, I'd say, 10 years old.
My dad worked construction, so, you know,
Daddy was, you know, in this town today
and that town tomorrow.
[Narrator] In 1970, Lula learned she was pregnant.
The birth of their son was followed a few years later
by a daughter.
Now a family of four,
Lula and John settled in the small town
of Horn Lake, Mississippi.
My mom and dad were the Ozzie and Harriet of the south.
I mean, Mom stayed at home and took care of the house,
and Dad went off to work.
When Dad got home, dinner was on the table.
[Narrator] While John worked hard doing construction
to support the family,
Lula quickly endeared herself t the small Southern community.
Lula was a person who never met a stranger.
[Narrator] Lula became especially close
with her neighbor, Linda Leedom
Linda moved next door in 1978.
She had two kids also that was roughly about the same age
as Lula's kids when they moved there.
So, they drawed a close friendship.
[Narrator] Linda grew up just a few hours from Horn Lake,
in the small town of Selmer, Tennessee,
and eventually moved to Memphis during her high school years.
They had a lot of property money at that way,
and Linda got to doin' taxes.
She did everybody's taxes, you know.
[Narrator] Linda worked from home
and cared for her children,
Melanie and Jennifer,
while her husband, Gary, worked as a truck driver.
Linda was somebody that Mom confided in.
Linda and Lula was two people,
if you seen one of 'em, you seen both of 'em.
[Narrator] When Lula's 15-year marriage to John
came to an end,
the two friends became even closer.
Mom came down and she just...
broke the news.
You know, Dad was home one day, and he was gone the next.
Her and my dad divorced. That was it.
[Narrator] As Lula settled into her new life as a single mom,
Linda stuck by her friend's side.
It was a wakeup call, you know.
I mean, with Mom having to put money back to pay the light bill
at the end of the month.
[Narrator] With Linda's support,
Lula came up with a plan to get back on her feet.
Linda had been takin' courses to become a nurse.
But she told Mom that she could make good money bein' a nurse.
And so Mom was workin' as a LPN
and she got a raise to go work as a medical transcriber,
and she was happy with that.
[music]
[Narrator] In 1988, Lula also began volunteering
with the Horn Lake Fire Department.
When I turned 18, I was able to join the fire department.
We needed somebody to do the bookwork,
and she joined the fire department
to be the bookkeeper and accounting firm
for the fire department.
And later, my mom went and she got her EMT license.
[Narrator] But in the late 1980s,
40-year-old Lula was dealt a major setback.
Mom was diagnosed with cancer in either '87 or '88.
She had developed breast cancer
And then she had to take a series of chemo
and radiation treatments.
[Randy] When Lula did find out she had the cancer,
it really got her down mentally for a while.
But then again, she had the idea of, "I could beat this."
[Mike] I was devastated because of the fact that
my mom was everything to me.
Now, she's havin' to put her life in other people's hands.
She would just, you know, be sick.
It was just terrible.
I couldn't fathom havin' to go through that.
[Narrator] Linda immediately stepped in to help.
Nobody had looked after her the way her friend,
Linda Leedom, had looked after her.
Linda would go buy groceries for her,
bring 'em to the house to her.
Linda was a super friend to her
[Narrator] Lula endured grueling treatment.
But after six years,
she came out the other side cancer free.
[music]
[Randy] She found out she was in remission.
It was a real uplift to her because
she felt like she had beat it.
She, she said all the time, "I can beat it,"
and she felt like she had.
[Mike] I asked her one time,
just, "Do you regret anything?" She said, "Nothin'."
I mean, she lived every day like it was the last one she had.
[Narrator] Tragically,
Lula's second chance didn't last long.
On December 19th, 1994,
her hopes and dreams go up in smoke.
We worked on the fire probably a good 25 to 30 minutes before
we were able to bring it under control and knock it down.
[Narrator] As fire investigators
inspect the remains of the house,
questions begin to arise.
[Chris] When firefighters entered the home
on December the 19th,
they observed a heater close to the front door.
[Narrator] Near the heater,
investigators find another unusual object among the ashes.
[Chris] There was a propane bottle
inside the home.
Not many people store propane bottles
inside their home.
[Narrator] When investigators take a closer look
at the propane tank,
their suspicions grow.
The valve had been turned and left cracked.
That means your gas is comin' out.
So that put a key indicator right there,
there is somethin' strange goin' on.
They thought it might be set intentionally,
but there was only one person in the home,
that was Lula Young.
In my opinion, it wasn't just an accidental fire.
[Narrator] Coming up.
A witness claims to have seen a ghost...
She said the person that she knew as Ms. Lula Young
was walkin' in the store.
[Narrator] And points the investigation
in a new direction.
She said Lula had asked her to do this.
[music]
[Narrator] December 19th, 1994.
A house fire in Horn Lake, Mississippi has taken the life
of cancer survivor and beloved community member,
47-year-old Lula Young.
Now, investigators with the fire department
have reason to believe the blaze was no accident.
Propane bottles, like you use for your gas grill,
are not normally kept inside the home.
There was also a, a electric heater
that was in close proximity to that tank.
There was just several things that didn't add up.
All of this in my mind at that point in time pointed to
it wasn't just an accidental fire.
[Narrator] For the time being,
investigators decide to keep their suspicions to themselves.
[Leroy] I like to keep a lot of this hidden from the public
in the very beginning of it
because you never know who's listening.
[Narrator] There is one thing they can't keep under wraps:
the news of Lula's death.
One of the persons that had come up on the scene
was Ms. Linda Leedom.
She openly said that she was the best friend of Ms. Young,
and how devastating this was.
[Narrator] Linda tells investigators
that she was home with her family
when she heard about the fire.
...because she was her best friend.
[music]
[Narrator] Lula's family struggles to accept the news.
We got the phone call that morning at breakfast
that Lula had passed away.
The term that we got was that
the house had literally exploded.
So, I was tryin' to figure out how the house could blow up.
Nothin' in the house was gas, so how could the house explode?
[Narrator] Investigators have yet to reveal
they found a propane tank in Lula's house.
Investigators are usually pretty close to the chest
on information they share, so when they do get a suspect,
they can evaluate the evidence
or the statement based on what's being said.
[Narrator] Those who knew Lula are shocked that
the trained first responder
would have any fire hazards inside her home.
She was scared of fire. That was her biggest fear.
Everybody said, "Well, she was pretty careful."
She wouldn't do somethin' dumb, that wasn't Ms. Young.
[Narrator] Later that same day,
investigators get the results of Lula's autopsy report.
[Chris] Lula's cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning.
Basically, she died of smoke inhalation.
[William] I knew the coroner very well.
And he had ruled this as, as an accidental death.
[Narrator] However, there is one detail from the autopsy
that gives investigators pause.
They found some sleepin' pills in her blood.
Based on the pills found in the autopsy,
one has to wonder, did Lula take these herself,
and actually set the fire herself?
Or did someone give them to her?
[Narrator] The amount of medication was not fatal,
but investigators must consider if the pills were meant
to keep Lula asleep and unable to escape the raging fire.
[William] Lula Young had been in Horn Lake for a while.
It's a fairly close-knit community.
Talking with her neighbors and people that, that knew her,
that she's now in remission.
Absolutely no way that suicide would've ever been a factor.
[Mike] She wasn't depressed at all.
Here was a lady that was lookin' forward to life the next day.
At this point, investigators aren't sure about
the sleeping pills or even if this is arson,
but there are enough red flags to keep the investigation open.
[Narrator] Investigators continue speaking to neighbors,
but make little headway...
Until just a few days later,
when they receive a call from an insurance agent,
Brenda Driver.
The agent explains that she'd sold Lula a policy
just four months earlier.
She had seen on the news where Lula had died in the fire.
[Narrator] But that's not why Brenda's calling.
She says that not long after the fire,
she had the shock of a lifetime while grocery shopping.
[Chris] Within two weeks after the fire,
Brenda Driver was in Walmart, shopping,
and saw who she thought to be Lula Young,
the person she sold the policy to.
[Randy] She said she went home and told her husband
she'd seen a dead woman walkin',
because she had these papers sayin', "This lady's dead
and I'm lookin' at her in the face," you know?
[Chris] Brenda Driver attempts to contact Lula Young
at the number she has for Lula Young.
Linda Leedom answers the phone,
identifies herself as Linda Leedom and Lula's sister.
And confirms she's dead.
[Narrator] Investigators immediately bring
Brenda in for an interview.
[Leroy] Ms. Driver reported the fact
that she had been to Ms. Lula's house
and sold a policy to Ms. Lula for insurance.
And it had also named Ms. Linda Leedom
as the beneficiary to that claim.
Ms. Lula Young had told Brenda Driver that
they basically were sisters.
And that's the reason that Linda Leedom was
given the beneficiary part of it.
The total amount of polices were approximately
700 thousand dollars.
The policies were so big, that they required a physical.
[Narrator] With their suspicions raised,
investigators wonder:
Is it possible that Linda Leedo could have posed as Lula?
They showed her a picture of Linda Leedom.
And Brenda Driver said, "Yes, that is the lady."
Law enforcement also found the nurse
that actually performed the physical.
[Chris] Showing photographs of Linda Leedom
to the nurse who conducted the exam,
investigators were able to determine that
Linda Leedom was the one that actually posed as Lula Young
and took the medical exams.
[Narrator] Instead of pulling Linda in for an interview,
investigators opt to build ther case by talking to those
who know her best.
[Leroy] We were building up with the case that we had.
You talk to friends, you talk to family members.
That's the easiest way to find out information on somebody.
[Narrator] Investigators quickly learn that
Linda's insurance scam wasn't exactly a secret.
However, Linda claimed that Lula was in on it.
Linda says to people Lula had asked her to do this,
and asked her to take the medical exams,
because she had cancer,
and she knew she could not complete those exams and,
and obtain those policies for that value.
Linda was supposed to be taking care of the kids.
That was Lula's wishes.
[Narrator] But Lula's family isn't buying it.
Lula never said anything about an insurance policy
that she had taken out for anybody.
[Chris] The DA sent it to the feds
to let them handle the insurance fraud,
the mail fraud, so that there would be no chance
of double jeopardy in state court
if he was ever able to prove that Linda was involved.
[Narrator] While federal authorities take over
the fraud case,
investigators refocus their attention on Lula's death
[Leroy] At this point in time,
I do believe Linda Leedom was involved.
We found that Ms. Leedom had a alibi.
In fact, she was at the home at the time of the fire.
We knew it was arson.
But trying to prove arson in a lot of times is hard to do
because it's hard to get to
the person that actually set the fire.
[Narrator] Coming up.
The investigation falls into peril.
[Leroy] We had a leak of information being given to
a particular person.
They were feedin' information to her.
[Narrator] Investigators make a bold move
to uncover the truth.
Their state investigator's sitting in another room
listenin' on a body wire.
[Narrator] Mississippi authorities investigating
the fire that took the life of 47-year-old Lula Young
have found that her best friend Linda Leedom,
stood to gain over 700 thousand dollars
in insurance payouts.
[Chris] Linda was her best friend,
and she said Lula Young wanted Linda to take care of her kids.
The intention was to defraud
the insurance company about the cancer,
and for Linda to take care of her kids with that money.
[Narrator] While federal authorities dig into
the insurance fraud,
local investigators continue looking for proof
that Linda is behind Lula's murder.
We knew it was arson,
we just didn't know who had set the fire.
[Narrator] Months pass with no new leads.
However, they do learn that Linda Leedom has been keeping
close tabs on the investigation
Ms. Leedom had two people that was good friends of hers also,
and one happened to be a dispatcher.
And they were feedin' information to her.
Ms. Leedom was gettin' information
about as fast as we were.
[Narrator] To stop the leak,
investigators take an unusual step.
[Chris] They released false information to the public
about an extension cord bein' the cause of the fire
to try to get the person who di set the fire to relax
and not be worried about it.
I wanted her to feel like, "Hey, everything's cool.
I ain't got nothin' to worry about."
[Narrator] Although no arson or murder charges have been filed,
Linda remains under investigation
for insurance fraud.
[Chris] Early on, investigators had contacted
the insurance companies
and advised them not to pay on the policies.
One of the policies still paid 275 thousand dollars
before the investigation stoppe payment of the rest of it.
[Mike] I never saw any of that money.
I didn't know anything about the payouts or the money
or the reasonings behind all of this.
[Chris] When it was all said and done,
Linda used the money to purchase numerous rental houses.
[Narrator] While Linda appears to have no intention of
making good on her promise to care for Lula's kids,
that doesn't prove she is a killer.
For the next two years,
investigators continue to question
anyone familiar with Lula and Linda...
Until 1997, when they finally get the break
they've been waiting for.
[Chris] A confidential informant had approached an officer
that, that he had a trusting, real good relationship with
and confided in him.
He started talkin' about Ms. Leedom and her involvement.
[Narrator] On January 16th, 1997,
investigators sit down with the informant, Robby.
[Chris] He was friends with Lula and Linda.
He confided that Linda had actually approached him
on two different occasions, asking him to basically
kill Lula as a mercy killing.
She had cancer, she was dying.
[Narrator] When Robby declined, Linda asked him for advice.
[Chris] He was friends with several police officers.
So, she asked him about how to burn a house down
without gettin' caught.
He didn't go to the authorities at that time,
because he didn't think she was gonna really go through with it.
I don't think he thought Linda
was capable of actually doin' it.
[Narrator] Robby's statement comes close to confirming
investigators' suspicions about Linda,
but they will need more.
Robby is willing to help.
He agrees to wear a wire and meet up with Linda.
They began tryin' to use him to go in and speak to Linda
and try to get her to confess.
I don't know how many times the sent Robby in to talk to Linda,
you know, tryin' to get her to say on tape that
she had been the one to do it.
She didn't confess.
They just never got what they wanted.
[Narrator] Investigators fear the case is once again
in danger of stalling out,
until a second informant, named David Vincent,
comes forward two weeks after the first tip from Robby.
[Chris] David Vincent was tryin' to get a lighter sentence.
He was in jail himself, he wanted help on his charges.
On February the 3rd, 1997,
I went in to talk to the informant in jail.
[Narrator] David tells them that he has information
about Lula's death--
information he got from his former landscaper,
Charles Wayne Dunn.
[Chris] They'd been workin' together.
Dunn had confided in him one day
that he had did somethin' that he regretted.
Charles Wayne Dunn told David Vincent that
he had killed Lula Young,
and that Linda Leedom had paid him to do it.
[Narrator] At this point, David reveals a detail
investigators have long suspected,
but never made public.
[Chris] Charles Wayne Dunn told David Vincent that
he had to make it look like an accident,
because if she died from cancer, the policies may not pay.
When he was tellin' the story,
what was runnin' through my head is, "We got her."
I mean, this is the break we've been looking for,
if he's tellin' the truth.
The next step for me is to try to substantiate what
David Vincent is tellin' us.
And so, I did a little research on Dunn and find out
that he was on probation.
[Narrator] In Charles Wayne Dunn's file,
investigators find information connecting him to Linda.
Linda Leedom was listed as his employer
and person to contact in case of emergency.
[Narrator] Confident that they are on the right track,
investigators set up a sting.
I devised a plan with his probation officer to have
Dunn come into the probation office
for a meeting.
Then they got David Vincent out and wired him,
and had him report like he woul just been put on probation.
And I had them sit in the lobby together,
like they're waiting to see their probation officer.
[Narrator] With the wire live,
David acts surprised to see his former co-worker and friend
We had him ease into the conversation, and then
get into what Dunn had told him in the past.
David Vincent had said that
he was thinkin' about killing somebody,
and that's the way he got the conversation started.
[Chris] Dunn's response when
Vincent's asking him about the situation was,
"You should think about it, your past doesn't escape you."
The irony of that, his past wasn't escaping him.
There are state investigators sitting in the other room,
listenin' on a body wire, and Vincent just said,
"Hey, you remember the time you told me you killed this woman?"
While Dunn didn't come out and say exactly what
I hoped he would say,
he didn't deny it at all.
At this point, I felt like that I was ready to
actually talk to Dunn myself.
[Narrator] Coming up.
Face-to-face with a suspected killer,
investigators drill down for the truth...
Chris told him, "You know why you're here, and so do we."
[Narrator] And a disturbing picture
begins to take shape.
This was not the only time
he had set a fire for Linda Leedom.
[theme music]
[Narrator] Two years after Lula Young
is killed in a house fire,
Mississippi authorities are eager to talk to
Charles Wayne Dunn,
following incriminating statements
made during a wiretap.
[Randy] On February 20th of 1997,
Chris Sheley and I went to Wayne Dunn's residence.
And when we got there, Wayne goes,
"I've been expecting y'all."
[Narrator] Dunn accompanies them back to the DA's office
for an interview.
I began interviewin' Dunn and,
and was goin' through some preliminary background stuff.
He was nervous and uptight. And kind of panicky.
Chris told him, "You know why you're here, and so do we."
And finally, he started his confession.
[Narrator] Dunn explains that he met Lula in 1993,
when she hired him to do some work around her house.
[Randy] Dunn was a handyman,
he went over and did stuff for her.
[Narrator] Charles Wayne Dunn was also friends with Linda.
And he says in 1994,
Linda came to him with a dangerous proposition.
[Randy] He said Linda, she confronted him that
she would give him five thousand dollars to kill Lula,
because Lula was suffering 'cause she had cancer.
She told Wayne Dunn that she was gonna die anyway,
so why not take advantage of it?
Ultimately Dunn confessed that he was the one that
set the fire.
[Randy] We got an arrest warrant that night,
and one of us booked him into jail.
[Chris] After Dunn confesses to the things, we, of course,
would like to try to substantiate
what he's tellin' us as much as we can,
by tryin' to get him to talk to Linda wearing a body wire.
[Narrator] The following day,
investigators put their third
and hopefully final sting into action.
[Chris] They wire him up and send him in to talk to Linda
under the pretense that he's feelin' bad about it.
Linda didn't say the things
we would've liked for her to have said,
but she didn't say anything that indicated that
she was innocent either.
And to the contrary,
she wound up givin' him, like,
two hundred dollars I think to leave town.
[Narrator] After failing to get the confession they need
to make an arrest,
Dunn returns to investigators,
who press him for more details of the murder.
In Dunn's original confession,
he left out the, the part about the propane tank and so forth.
[Narrator] Dunn says on December 18th, 1994,
he went to Lula's house for a visit.
Dunn went over to just act like
he was comin' by to visit with her,
'cause she was familiar with him.
[Narrator] Dunn brought a propane tank
Linda had asked Lula to keep for her.
[Chris] Dunn said he had given her medicine
to make her fall asleep,
so that she wouldn't suffer during the fire.
He waited on her to go to sleep before he set the fire.
He talked about cracking the valve on the propane,
and he put newspaper down in front of the propane heater.
He turned the heater on and walked out the door and left.
Once the heater come on, ignited the paper,
the gas was already there for the paper to ignite it,
and that's when you get the big explosion.
[Chris] He was tellin' us enough about it
that wasn't public information.
He told it in a way that...
That you got the feeling that he's telling you the truth,
or he did it himself.
[Narrator] Before the interview ends,
Charles Wayne Dunn drops one more bombshell...
One that investigators do not see coming.
[Chris] One of the things that Dunn told us about
when we were interviewing him was that
this was not the only time
he had set a fire for Linda Leedom.
[Leroy] There happened to be a fire that was set on a house
that was in South Haven.
And that house belonged to the, Ms. Leedom's daughter.
It was two years after
the initial fire in Ms. Lula's house.
They just evidently decided the best thing to do is
set it on fire and then get that insurance money also.
[Narrator] Investigators are stunned.
[Chris] Linda Leedom has gone from
this person that everybody knew and liked
to this basically criminal mastermind.
We felt like we had enough after talkin' with Dunn
and doin' the body wire with Dunn
that we could go to a grand jury
to try to move forward with the case.
[Narrator] On March 11th, 1997,
three years after Lula's death,
the grand jury indicts Linda Leedom,
and authorities move forward with an arrest that same day.
[Randy] The initial warrants for Linda Leedom
were capital murder, conspiracy to commit capital murder,
three counts of forgery,
conspiracy to commit arson,
arson, and three counts of fraud.
She acted like she was in shock
If I remember correctly, she goes, "What's this about?"
[Narrator] Following her arrest,
investigators execute a search warrant
at Linda's home.
One of the things that we found in the search warrant
was several hundred thousand dollars' worth of insurance
on another individual.
The gentleman's name was Robert Stovall,
and we found out that she was tryin' to make arrangements to
whereby they was gonna do him in also,
just like they did Ms. Young, for insurance purposes.
I found all these insurance policies
on Robert Stovall,
with Linda Leedom bein' the beneficiary.
And we discovered Stovall
was a individual that Linda Leedom's mother
oversaw his financial dealings and so forth.
This really brought a red flag to me,
because in my case against Dunn
I had interviewed his friend wh said he had actually been asked
to help Dunn kill another individual.
And, and at the time, I didn't give it much thought.
It kind of felt like one of those deals,
"Well, he's just tryin' to be important in the case,"
and so forth.
But then when I found these insurance policies,
a little bell went off in my head and said,
"This is who he's talking about."
She already had talked to somebody to actually
take care of Robert as far as takin' him out.
[Narrator] Fortunately,
they find that Linda hasn't yet had time to pull off
her next plot.
They find Robert Stovall alive and well.
[Chris] When Stovall was interviewed,
he didn't even know who Linda Leedom was.
Once she did it with Lula on the insurance stuff,
I think she saw that opportunity with
the Stovall situation, too.
[Narrator] Coming up.
Lula's loved ones worry that her killer may escape justice.
She was doing what Lula wanted in obtaining
those policies fraudulently.
She's sittin' there listenin' and totally unmoved by this.
She probably felt like, "Money will buy me out of this, also."
[Narrator] By the spring of 1997,
Linda Leedom is in custody awaiting trail,
almost three years after the murder of her best friend,
Lula Young.
While Lula was battling cancer,
the woman she thought was her best friend
was plotting her death.
Linda is plannin' on killin' somebody
is sick to begin with for money.
She seemed to be looking after Ms. Young.
I don't really think she was doin' anything other than
watchin' out for her investment.
It was extremely cold, extremely cold.
[Narrator] In August 1999, Linda stands trial.
Linda, of course, did not plead guilty and went to trial,
and we tried her for capital murder.
[Narrator] Prosecutors paint Linda
as a greedy woman who plotted Lula's murder
for financial gain.
[Chris] The story that we were tryin' to show
was just how manipulative and evil she was.
I mean, this woman was supposed to be her best friend.
[Randy] To buy insurance, wait 'em to go into effect,
go take physicals to do it.
I mean, this is not somethin' I decide on Tuesday
and I go do it on Wednesday
and we take care of it on Thursday.
I mean, no.
This is a months, months, months-long process.
[Narrator] The prosecution's star witness
bolsters their claims.
[Chris] In Linda's murder trial,
Charles Wayne Dunn took the stand
and told of his involvement in the murder of Lula Young,
and he also told of Linda Leedom's involvement.
Linda's defense was she was doing what Lula wanted
in obtaining those policies fraudulently.
The plan was for her to be the recipient of the money,
because the kids couldn't supposedly handle the money.
[Narrator] As the trial unfolds,
Linda's lack of emotion stuns the courtroom.
She's sittin' there listenin'
and, and watchin' what's goin' down,
but totally unmoved by this.
In all of her life, if anything ever had went wrong with her,
money bought her out of it.
And I think in her heart she probably felt like,
"Money will buy me out of this, also."
[Narrator] After a brief deliberation,
the jury returns a verdict.
Linda was found guilty on all accounts.
[Randy] When Linda was found guilty at the trial,
the judge looked her in the face and the words he told her,
"You never deserve to walk the streets of Mississippi again,
and I'll see that you don't."
He gave her life in prison with no possibility of parole.
[Narrator] Though Linda is safely behind bars,
the legacy of her coldhearted plot
lingers in Horn Lake.
Linda Leedom was the greediest, selfish, coldhearted-est person
that I ever met.
Linda Leedom is exactly where she needs to be.
[Leroy] She took of a lady was already fightin' cancer.
A lady that was well known in the community,
a volunteer that'd help anybody
And to do her that way all for the one thing...
money...
is so coldhearted.
It's just hard to fathom.
What I never understood, though,
is how you can go from friendship to...
To that, you know? It just...
That's the part I never understood.
My mom looked in the good of everyone.
My mom tried to help anyone tha she can with whatever she could
[music]