[narrator] in the suburbs of nashville,
A singer's husband is brutally murdered.
[ed] he had two gunshot wounds.
One through the ear canal and one in the back of his ear.
He had been literally executed
And left in the passenger seat of a vehicle.
[narrator] police learn this isn't the first attempt
To take his life.
[ricky] he thought he had a blowout,
And then he started seeing this blood everywhere.
[ed] it was a small red car that had pulled up beside him
And shot him with a shotgun.
[narrator] the investigation uncovers an adulterous affair.
She took a job as a secretary for him.
I think it was pretty obvious to everybody
That she was sleeping with him.
[narrator] but a sting reveals motives more complicated
Than a love triangle turned deadly.
The life insurance policies increased to $250,000.
I think she got dollar signs in her eyes
And to hell with everything else.
[music]
[narrator] it's a crisp winter morning in the rural town
Of goodlettsville, located fifteen miles
North of nashville, tennessee.
Goodlettsville is a small town
That's been there since probably the 1850s.
It was kind of a railroad stop.
The people are working class, churchgoing type of folk.
[narrator] on the morning of December 20th, 1991,
A commuter spots a man slumped inside a vehicle
By the side of the road,
And immediately goes home to notify police.
My sergeant and another detective
Responded to the scene, which is on kind of a rural road
North of goodlettsville.
[narrator] detectives approach the vehicle with caution
And quickly realize they have a crime scene on their hands.
It's fairly easy to see that there's a dead guy
In the car.
The body was left in the passenger seat
Of a vehicle.
He had two gunshot wounds, one through the ear canal
And one in the back of his ear, on the left side.
[rodger] if someone is shot twice,
Obviously he did not commit suicide.
He had not been there very long
[ed] there was very little evidence inside the car,
Or very little evidence on him.
There was nothing that would suggest
That he had been robbed.
The victim had a wallet on him and a driver's license
In that wallet. And it gave his address in goodlettsville.
[narrator] the man's license identifies him
As 52-year-old charles donald hurt.
[rodger] obviously, someone had been in the car.
There was no indication that his body had moved
Or been jostled.
And that led officers to believ that he was shot in the car
At that location.
We knew that from the location of the gunshot wounds
And the position of the body,
That don hurt had not had a chance to move,
To defend himself.
Homicides in goodlettsville are quite rare,
And particularly one where someone
Has apparently been literally executed.
So, this was, uh, from the very start
All hands on deck.
[narrator] after nashville police collect
What evidence they can, detectives travel to don's home
To speak with his wife, sharon hurt.
[chuck] they, of course, had contacted her by phone
And, and let her know that he had been found.
When she called me and told me that don had been killed,
I immediately went to her house
She was stunned. You know, accidents happen,
Car wrecks happen, murder's intentional.
I don't know what would motivate somebody
To want to do that to don. Something did not feel right.
[narrator] don hurt, as he was known to friends,
Was born in nashville on July 20th, 1939.
[ricky] my daddy was born here, and I think everybody
In my family was born right here.
He was a momma's boy.
He, uh, always kept everything clean for his momma
'cause his momma had five boys,
And he was kinda the one that took care
Of stuff in the house.
[narrator] don's love of family never went away.
And in his mid-twenties, he got the chance
To start one of his own.
[ricky] my momma was nancy kirby.
I'm not real sure when they really got married,
But I think my momma was young,
Had my sister, and then she had me.
We had just about anything you wanted, you know.
My daddy always make sure we had something
On the table to eat,
And most of the time he was cooking it.
[susan] donald was a happy man. He was jolly.
He was always carrying on and cutting up,
And I think he was just happy with life.
[narrator] unfortunately, the marriage only lasted
Little more than a decade, but the ending was amicable.
[susan] even though they had divorced
They had remained friends and talked.
[narrator] with a good job and a kind heart,
Don didn't stay single for long
I was, I don't know, 11, 12 when they got a divorce.
My daddy met sharon. I reckon they went together
For about a month or two or three
And then they got married.
My dad was, I think he was head over heels for her.
[narrator] sharon wiley was born on March 30th, 1953,
In frankfort, kentucky,
One of eight children raised on a family farm.
Mom actually, grew up out on, uh, georgetown road,
Out there at the old family house.
[chuck] she has half-siblings from her mom,
And she has half-siblings from her father.
He had five children besides her and marcie.
Sharon and marcie were just a year apart in their age.
And they were besties, you know.
Marcie was very studious, very intellectual,
Very driven to succeed.
Sharon was intelligent, but in a whole different way.
She was people oriented.
[narrator] as sharon entered into adulthood,
Her larger-than-life personalit made her a natural performer,
And she loved to sing, especially gospel music.
She loved to put little groups together,
Little ensembles, and do different harmonies.
[chuck] I remember before she got into church,
She would sing in the dance halls,
Kind of a grand ole opry type of feel.
Her focus was on gospel music,
But she always wanted to make it.
[narrator] while pursuing music came naturally to sharon,
Matters of the heart did not.
My father was between tours in vietnam
When they got together.
He went back for his second tour,
And then a little later I was born.
My younger brother, my half-brother,
Was from a marriage that she ha to a man named ron dearinger.
They got together right after I was born.
[ron] mom and dad met. She was a waitress
And she caught dad's eye is all I know,
So, and it went from there.
I would say in between '72 and '73, somewhere in there,
Is when they actually got married.
Chucky is three years older than me. I was born in '73.
[music]
[narrator] ron and sharon set out together
To make her dreams come true.
[music]
[lela] music was her dream, but it was also her comfort.
Late '80s, they decided they were going to buy
A bus and kinda hit the road.
My mother talked him into quitting
And moving to tennessee.
She was gonna be a star.
[narrator] but the realities of pursuing a music career
Put a strain on the marriage.
[ron] we were living on the bus,
And, you know, you can't have a kid and a mom and dad
Living on a bus. It was rough, you know.
And then dad, he just come and asked me one night,
You know, "do you want to stay, or do you want to go with me?"
"I'm going with you. Going back to kentucky."
So, we left.
I was still young, I was only 14, 15 years old.
My other brother stayed down with her, chuckie.
The bus and the, the tension over all the, the money;
That was the beginning of the end.
There was a point where it was, "okay, I'm done."
I had had enough. And so, I went into the army.
Eventually, we heard that her and ronnie had split.
[narrator] after recording one gospel album,
Sharon's dream began to fade.
[chuck] she made an album. She worked hard at it.
But it never went anywhere.
[narrator] by her late thirties, sharon's goals
Still seemed impossible to grasp,
But she would get another chance at love.
[chuck] she was working as a cashier
At a grocery store in nashville
Don was a truck driver.
And he made deliveries to that grocery store.
And that's how they met.
Don was "head over heels" in love with my mother.
Everything I saw out of that man was complete devotion to her.
He seemed like a great guy, a really nice guy.
He treated her well.
[narrator] three years into their marriage, in 1991,
Their happily ever after comes to an abrupt end
As sharon learns of her husband's violent death.
[chuck] there was a detective, or maybe two,
That came to her house, and I told them
That she was not in any shape to talk to them.
And so, they were like, "okay, can we come back tomorrow?"
And I was like, "yeah, let her calm down,
Let her absorb this, and then come back."
[narrator] the next day, sharon agrees to sit down
With detectives and tell them what she knows.
She says the last time she saw don was around 7pm
On the 19th, the night before his body was found.
Sharon hurt told the police that her husband had met up
With someone at a flea market to purchase a handgun.
[narrator] sharon says don never came home that evening,
Prompting her to report him missing
The following morning.
When he did not come back at the appointed time,
She became worried over his absence.
[narrator] police had just started processing
The missing person's report when don's body was discovered.
Sharon gives detectives one more piece of information
That piques their interest.
[rodger] when the police were interviewing sharon hurt,
One of the key things the police learned
Is that he had been shot before.
And, apparently, she had no details whatsoever
About the shooting and what might have caused
Someone to try to kill him.
[narrator] sharon says they were just trying
To move on from the incident, but detectives plan
To dig into these claims further.
At the same time, an officer is sent to the flea market
To gather intel, but comes up empty.
It was such an unusual situation from the start.
From there, the police focused on who had a motive
To want don hurt dead.
[narrator] coming up: Detectives learn more
About the previous attempt on don's life.
He knew if he didn't make it to the rest area
Up on top of the hill, he'd probably be dead.
[narrator] and his family suspects someone close to home.
We was trying to tell him, "daddy look, wake up,
Smell the roses. None of this adds up right."
[music]