- Female narrator: A loving marriage is tested by
a devastating accident.
- Christy: The roof collapsed, and my dad and his twin brother
broke their ankles and legs.
And she was taking care of both of them.
- Narrator: But when one of the brothers is brutally murdered,
the question becomes: Was their accident actually intentional?
- Vaughn: The blood spatter was extensive--
behind the door, on the walls, the ceiling.
- Drew: I observed a pillow over the face.
Somebody knows the victim.
They don't want to see what they've done.
- Vaughn: He had enemies around town.
And he may have had people angry at him to come and seek him out.
- ♪
- narrator: Georgia detectives must sift through a series of
lies to expose the cold-blooded truth.
- We uncovered a lot of illicit affairs,
one of which was with a local pastor.
- We found all of these cyber affairs.
Talking up sexual fantasies,
and these wants, and these desires.
- We just got to the point we felt like
this is never going to be solved.
- He changed his story and actually admitted
that he had had a moment of weakness.
- Evil is among us. Evil is everywhere.
There's no other word to describe her other than evil.
- ♪
♪♪
- narrator: September 9, 2002. Thomaston, georgia.
It's early morning in this small town south of atlanta.
And police officer drew jackson is out on patrol.
- Drew: I was a brand-new rookie police officer at the time.
So I had only been on the street for about two months.
I was just patrolling the area when I received the call.
- Narrator: Dispatch reports that a concerned resident has
reported finding his neighbor dead inside his home.
- When I was dispatched to a dead body, my emotions were,
um, all over the place.
This was the first time I'd experienced anything like this.
- [siren wailing]
- narrator: As officer jackson pulls up to the house,
he finds the neighbor who placed the call.
- James mann just told me that tom bragg was his neighbor.
James was just in the front yard, just visibly shaken.
And you could tell he had witnessed something
that was--that was horrific.
When I go in the house,
there was nothing that stood out.
It didn't look like it was in any disarray.
The house was actually--was fairly clean.
There were blood drops going through the entryway...
And into the dining room.
And off to the left of the dining room was the bedroom.
I turn left.
I made it to the doorway of the spare bedroom.
And I didn't enter any further.
I observed the body laying on the bed
with a pillow over the face.
I could see the large pool of coagulated blood under the bed,
the massive amounts of blood and tissue
that were on the walls and on the ceiling.
I could tell there was no need for me to go any further.
I couldn't help tom.
He was clearly deceased.
- Narrator: Tom bragg was born on July 27, 1956,
alongside his identical twin brother, tim,
and their four older siblings.
- Tom was born first.
And then tim was born three minutes after tom.
And they have this funny saying was, "tim kicked tom out."
- christy: They looked identical,
but they acted totally different.
My dad was the real meek, reserved one.
And my uncle tim was the wild, crazy one.
- Narrator: After high school,
tom started working as a long-haul trucker.
He liked the job, but not the solitude.
Luckily, he was able to find someone to keep him company
when he wasn't on the road.
- My mom and dad, um, met at a local huddle house.
My mom was a waitress.
- Narrator: Tom and fredericka fell hard for one another
and quickly got married.
Together, they had a son and a daughter.
- During the summers, my dad would take me and my brother
with him across country in the truck.
And we got to see lots of places.
- Narrator: Tom made a good living.
But the lifestyle was hard on his marriage.
- My mother and father divorced when I was 13.
So my dad moved back to thomaston,
where his mom resided.
- Narrator: By the mid-'90s, tom was at peace with the divorce.
But he didn't want to be single forever.
While out one night with his brother,
a blonde bombshell caught tom's eye.
- My mom was a petite, blue eyes,
natural blonde hair.
She was always good spirited,
always try to be funny.
- Narrator: Mary ann nance was raised in scottown, ohio.
The youngest of five children,
she was accustomed to being well looked after.
- Mary ann, she always had people taking care of her.
Her parents took care of her.
Her brothers and sisters took care of her.
- Narrator: But mary ann was quickly forced
to hone her own mothering skills as a teenager
when she and her high school sweetheart, john vyers,
found out she was pregnant.
- She got pregnant by my biological father
when she was young.
- Lori: My grandparents were very strict.
When you got pregnant, you had to get married.
So they got married.
- Narrator: Mary ann and john had three daughters together.
For seven years, mary ann struggled
to hold her young family together.
- Her husband was very strict with the children.
So eventually, they divorced.
- Gail: My mother worked at the mill at one point.
And she also worked at a gas station.
She did whatever she had to do
to be able to take care of her three girls.
I think that my mother was unlucky in love,
because she always looked for someone
that she could try to fix.
- Narrator: Five years after her divorce,
32-year-old mary ann's fortunes turned
when she married james wright.
- Lori: He was an older man.
And he made sure the bills got paid.
He took care of her children.
- Gail: I look at james as my father.
He's my dad.
There was nothing wrong with him.
There was nothing that she needed to fix.
And she realized that--being with him,
that she was the one that was broken,
that she had things that needed to be fixed.
- She was seeing a psychiatrist, um, on and off for a while.
She has a nervous condition.
She, um, would often get nervous.
She'd black out.
- Narrator: Sadly, after nearly ten years of marriage,
mary ann and james decided to split.
But their bond endured.
- Gail: They divorced,
but they continued to keep their friendship.
They continued to raise their children together.
That communication and that friendship
that they made never stopped.
- Narrator: Even though she had been through plenty of changes,
one thing remained the same:
Mary ann wanted to find true love.
- Gail: She's a woman that loves being in love.
She is a happy, vibrant person.
She is a caring person.
- Lori: After her and james split up,
she had met this lady named bonnie at the vfw.
And bonnie was dating tim bragg at the time.
And through tim and bonnie, she met tom, who was tim's twin.
- Narrator: Tom and mary ann immediately hit it off.
- When my mother and tom bragg got together, she was happy.
Tom was a funny person. Um, he was sweet.
- Elaine: The first time I met her,
she was extremely nice
and very sweet to me.
She came on awfully strong to win our approval.
- Narrator: After a few years together, in August 2001,
mary ann and tom decided to tie the knot.
And tom quit his job as a truck driver.
- Elaine: Tom started going into construction so he could spend
more time at home with mary ann.
- Christy: My dad had his own roofing business.
My uncle tim, he would help my dad finish up jobs
so that they could spend time together while he was at home.
- Narrator: Nearly a year after his marriage to mary ann,
tom and his brother were hard at work completing a job
at the new life pentecostal church
when misfortune struck.
- The roof collapsed, and they all fell through the roof
and broke their ankles and legs.
My uncle tim moved in with my dad
during the time of their treatment.
And he was staying there.
And mary ann was taking care of both of them.
They were both in a wheelchair.
- Lori: My aunt kind of ran back and forth
delivering coffee, or snacks, or sandwiches, or medicine,
whatever he needed. She was basically his caretaker.
- Narrator: Their recover went well.
And by September, tim had moved out and tom was looking forward
to getting his health back.
- He used a, uh--a cane and sometimes his wheelchair.
But he was on the mend, and he was extremely happy about it.
- ♪
- narrator: However, tom's road to recovery
was suddenly cut short on September 9,
when thomaston police find his lifeless body inside his home.
- Drew: He was on his back, face up, arms down by his side.
And it reminded me of somebody laying in a casket.
It was creepy.
It was almost like he had been taken care of after his death.
- Narrator: Coming up: Detectives shift their focus
to tom's inner circle.
- The first obvious question is: Where's the wife?
- Narrator: And investigators consider a terrifying theory.
- Lori: Maybe they didn't mean to kill tom,
and they mistakenly got the brothers mixed up.
- ♪
- narrator: On September 9, 2002,
46-year-old roofer tom bragg is found brutally murdered
inside his thomaston, georgia, home.
After securing the crime scene, local police immediately summon
the georgia bureau of investigation for assistance.
- The gbi has a plethora of equipment, manpower,
things at their disposal
that the thomaston police department didn't
and most departments don't.
- Vaughn: Upon arrival, I was shown the scene.
There's a white male laying there, apparently deceased,
with a pillow laying over his head.
- Narrator: When investigators lift the pillow,
they make a gruesome discovery.
- There were multiple injuries
to--to the side of tom bragg's head.
But the largest one was all the way through the skull.
- Ben: The crime scene evidence was indicative
of a blunt-force trauma to the head.
The object would have been consistent with a claw hammer.
- The blood spatter that was around that room was extensive--
behind the door, on the walls, the ceiling.
- Narrator: Investigators note that tom's leg is in a cast--
a fact that would have made it difficult to defend himself.
But they don't believe tom even had a chance to react.
- At first glance, you think he's laying there.
He's asleep--that's the position he's in.
That's why I believe he was asleep
when the first blow was hit.
And I don't believe he woke up.
I think the first blow actually was the deadly blow.
It's like he never even moved.
- We put the murder occurring in the early morning hours,
because the crime scene evidence showed that he'd been laying
in that bed for several hours before he was found
because the blood had coagulated.
- ♪
- vaughn: You didn't have nothing taken,
nothing rummaged through.
You had no indication of anything other than this was
a deliberate killing of tom bragg
for no other reason than to eliminate his existence.
I think any experienced investigator would have came out
with that assessment just from viewing the body.
They were close to this person.
They took the moment
to cover the person's face with the pillow.
- Drew: That's usually a sign of crime of passion.
Somebody knows the victim.
They don't want to see what they've done.
- Narrator: Investigators step outside to speak with
the neighbors who called 911--
james mann and his wife, lee henry.
- He was supposed take tom to the parts store to pick up
a part for his truck that morning.
And tom had never showed up at his house.
So that's why he had come over to check on tom.
He found the door open, called out for tom bragg.
He entered the house, made his way to the spare bedroom,
where he found tom bragg laying face up in the bed
with a pillow over his face.
- The first obvious question is: Where's the wife?
- Drew: I spoke to james mann's wife, lee henry.
And that's when I first heard about mary ann,
tom bragg's wife.
Lee henry told me that she had already
called mary ann and told her that she needed to get home,
that there was a problem.
- Narrator: James and lee explain that they were sitting
on their porch, drinking their morning coffee,
when they saw mary ann leave the house around 6 a.M.
- Mary ann told them she had a doctor's appointment
that she was going to.
There was nothing unordinary.
They said she acted normal.
She wasn't in a hurry or disheveled or seemed upset.
- Narrator: After mary ann departed,
james and lee saw an indication that tom was still alive.
- Ben: After mary ann had left that morning,
they saw the red glow of a cigarette on the front porch
of tom and mary ann's residence.
- It wasn't unheard of for tom to get up very early in
the morning, have a cigarette, a cup of coffee,
and then go back to bed.
He was known to do that.
- Narrator: As investigators wrap up their interview with
james and his wife, mary ann arrives on the scene.
- Mary ann's truck pulls up right in front of my car.
Her and her friend, debra clay, get out of the car.
- Narrator: Detectives carefully deliver the tragic news
about her husband.
- Vaughn: I see her get weak kneed.
Mary ann went into, like, panic mode.
She almost collapsed there on the side of the road.
- Narrator: Once mary ann is able to gather herself,
she confirms that she headed out early for an appointment
with her psychiatrist in the city of lagrange.
- Vaughn: The morning of the death,
when mary ann left the house, she went to pick debra clay up
at around 7 in the morning because they had to be
in lagrange for the appointment at 8,
and it's about an hour's drive.
- Narrator: Although debra confirms mary ann's alibi,
investigators still scan mary ann for signs of blood.
- Once you looked at the crime scene
and you really just saw how gruesome it was,
you know the person that did that
had to be covered in blood and tissue.
I mean, there--there's no way for that not to have happened.
- Narrator: They also ask to take a look at her truck.
- I looked in the cab and I looked in the back to see
if I noticed any blood, anything of that nature.
And I didn't see anything.
- Narrator: Investigators ask mary ann if she can think of
anyone who would commit such a gruesome crime.
- Tom didn't have any enemies. Everybody liked tom.
Even if tom owned them money, people still liked him.
One of the things that mary ann indicated was, well, tim bragg,
tom's twin brother, had enemies around town.
And he may have had people angry at him to come and seek him out.
And according to her, tim had been staying in the house
for a little bit of a time after the accident,
and he had stayed in that room.
- Lori: After tim moved out, tom chose to stay back there in that
bedroom due to the fact he was in pain.
He didn't want mary ann bumping his leg
while he slept at night.
- Narrator: Mary ann's statement has investigators considering
a disturbing possibility.
- Lori: They were twins.
It would be easy to mistake tom for tim,
especially being that he was in the wrong room.
Maybe they didn't mean to kill tom.
Maybe they meant to kill tim,
and they mistakenly got the brothers mixed up.
- Narrator: Investigators waste little time
contacting tim bragg,
who agrees to meet for an interview
at the thomaston police department.
Tim admits that he likes to have a good time,
but insists he's not in the habit of making enemies.
- Vaughn: We didn't find any indication that he was this
hell-raiser, going around town, getting in fights,
causing trouble.
We didn't see anything to indicate
that he was that type of person at--at all.
- Narrator: But just as investigators are wrapping up
with tim, they notice something alarming on his leg cast.
- There was a spot, what appeared to be like
a brown spot on his cast that may have been a blood spot.
- Narrator: Tim vehemently denies any involvement
in his brother's murder.
- Vaughn: He showed up to the police department
with bonnie powell, who confirmed his story
that he was home with her at the time of occurrence
and had been home since the previous night.
The blood spot did raise some suspicions,
but there's a thousand reasons why,
if you've had a cast on as long as this man has,
that you would have a spot of blood on it.
- Ben: It was never determined that tim had any involvement
in tom's death.
They were very close.
And there was just never any evidence
that pointed towards tim.
- Narrator: Tim reveals to detectives that he has
his own theory about who killed his brother.
And he believes this wasn't their first attempt.
- He felt that investigators should know this because,
to him, the manner of what happened with tom
at the roofing job was very suspicious.
- Narrator: Coming up-- a new suspect emerges
with strange ties to the accident
that left tom in a wheelchair.
- Could it have been the actual killer standing there?
- Narrator: And salacious rumors give way to an outrageous truth.
- Her and the pastor became romantic.
- Vaughn: She's straight up playing
the damsel in distress card.
It was like a bad soap opera.
- ♪
- narrator: Following the murder of tom bragg,
investigators in thomaston, georgia,
are questioning his twin brother, tim,
who has his own suspicions about who might have
committed the crime.
He says following the roofing accident
in which they both broke their legs,
tom went back to the church to examine the roof
and made a frightening discovery.
- Tom noticed that one of the bearing walls
had been cut through with a saw.
- Vaughn: He was already suspicious of james wright,
who was the ex-husband of mary ann bragg.
- Elaine: James wright had been at the site
where they were roofing.
And he had been seen there the day before.
But no one knows why james wright was there that day.
Tom knew that james wright did not like him.
And of course, it was mutual between them.
- James wright was also, um, a concern of the family's,
as well as the deceased, tom.
He was always in the perimeter no matter what mary ann did.
- ♪
- narrator: When investigators track down james wright,
he surprisingly admits that he still has feelings
for his ex-wife.
- James wright will, uh, do anything for mary ann.
He could not say no to mary ann.
- Narrator: James also admits
that he and tom had their issues,
but denies having any hand in his death.
- James wright loved my mom unconditionally
'til the day he died.
But there would be no reason for my dad, james wright,
to hurt tom.
- Vaughn: James wright took a polygraph,
and he never backed down on his statements.
There was no connections with him to the roofing accident.
He passed the polygraph with no problems.
He wasn't there, and he had an airtight alibi.
- Narrator: With their most promising lead falling through,
investigators reach out to tom's friends and family,
who share a troubling rumor about mary ann.
- She was, apparently, having multiple affairs.
- Elaine: Tom was worried that
mary ann was running around on him.
That was really why he wanted to stop his driving
and start doing roofing and construction work.
- Narrator: Among mary ann's rumored lovers,
one name immediately grabs investigators' attention.
- One of the people that she was allegedly having an affair with
was the neighbor, jimmy mann, from across the street.
The man who found the body.
- Narrator: Friends and neighbors say there was
a very public confrontation between the two men
just weeks before tom's death.
- There at the walmart in thomaston,
jimmy mann and tom bragg had exchanged words.
- Narrator: When investigators consider
this newfound information,
they naturally become skeptical of james mann's initial story.
- This man across the road is having an affair with your wife.
Why would you want him coming in your house, waking you up,
and taking you to an auto parts store
a couple of weeks after you got into a, uh--
a spat with him at walmart over an alleged affair?
None of that made sense.
- Narrator: Investigators confront james at his home.
And he confirms a past relationship with mary ann,
but insists it's been long over,
and that he had absolutely nothing to do with tom's murder.
Lee backs her husband's claims.
- Vaughn: One thing that was consistent all the way through
was that her and jimmy mann were together all morning.
There was no chance or opportunity for him
to sneak across the street and do these things.
- Narrator: But there is one vital detail
that lee and james do waver on.
- The only inconsistency ever really found
in anything they said was the cigarette glow.
You know, "oh, it was tom glowing--glowing cigarette."
then it--"well, we didn't really see a face."
"well, it could've been a taillight reflection
in the window because it was a brief flash."
- narrator: The uncertainty raises even more questions.
- Could it have been the actual killer standing there?
Or was it a taillight reflection?
We don't know.
- Ben: From what lee henry and james mann stated,
that mary ann would've left,
it--it still could've mean mary ann had committed the crime
and that someone else was still there after the murder.
- Narrator: Without concrete evidence that tom was alive
after she left the house,
mary ann is back on the suspect list.
- Vaughn: We were focused on trying to figure out exactly
who and what mary ann was doing.
- Narrator: Police discover that mary ann had a hobby
to keep her occupied.
- Lori: Mary ann at the time had engaged in chatroom activity
on her computer.
She seen the computer as a distraction,
as a way to talk to people, give her somebody to talk to.
- Vaughn: She had lots of guys who were interested in her
online, and as well as in town.
- Narrator: Police obtain a search warrant
for mary ann's property, including her computer.
And what they uncover is shocking.
- Vaughn: We found all of these cyber affairs.
Talking up sexual fantasies, and sexual favors,
and--and--and--and these wants and these desires.
- Narrator: As investigators scroll through the list of
online suitors, they are surprised by one in particular.
- We uncovered a lot of illicit affairs that mary ann
was involved in, one of which was with a--a local pastor here
in thomaston, uh, by the name of steve craven.
Tom and tim had both fallen off a roof.
And it was the church that pastor steve craven
was the pastor over.
- Christy: It was a blow to me when I found out,
because I let him do a eulogy at my dad's funeral.
And I didn't know any of this.
- ♪
- ben: We interviewed pastor steve craven.
At first, he denied any involvement with any kind
of illicit affair with mary ann bragg.
- Narrator: But investigators have proof to the contrary.
- Ben: Once we confronted him with the emails and the photos,
he changed his story and actually admitted that, yes,
he had a moment of weakness, as he called it.
- Lori: When tom's accident happened, with him out of work,
mary ann, she had trouble making the bills.
So she sought help from the pastor and the church
to help with her bills.
During that time, her and the pastor
became friends and got romantic.
- Narrator: Despite the relationship with mary ann,
investigators find no reason to believe pastor craven
was involved in tom's murder.
Nor do they believe that he or anyone associated
with the church caused the roof collapse.
- Vaughn: His alibi was that he works at the air force base,
almost two hours away from thomaston
and where the incident occurred.
At this point, this was just another person in town that
mary ann was flirtatious with, she was coming on to.
She's straight up playing the damsel in distress card.
It was like a bad soap opera.
- Narrator: While the number of men
that mary ann was involved with continues to grow,
investigators are far from proving
she had anything to do with tom's death.
- Lori: Yes, mary ann cheated on her husband,
but that is not a crime.
- Narrator: But soon, investigators get a tip
that suggests mary ann may have been capable
of far more than cheating.
- Vaughn: On the tip line that the family had set up,
a former son-in-law of mary ann bragg submitted a tip.
Several years prior, mary ann had asked him
to get rid of james wright.
He believes that mary ann may be up to her old tricks
and was trying to eliminate her husband.
- Narrator: Coming up: A selfish motive rises to the surface.
- Vaughn: He can't work. He can't bring in money.
She's tired of waiting on him.
- Narrator: And the investigation comes
to a screeching halt.
- It was a living hell. It was a nightmare.
- ♪
- narrator: Investigators looking into the death of
46-year-old tom bragg have learned that his wife, mary ann,
was engaged in multiple affairs,
both in person and over the internet.
- Vaughn: During the time leading up to the murder
of tom bragg, tom is injured, he's not working.
He's got two broke legs.
Mary ann's staying at home on the computer all day talking to
men in the surrounding areas.
- Narrator: But a tip from mary ann's former son-in-law
leads investigators to believe
that she may have had more than just lust on her mind.
- Vaughn: We did discover that she had asked about having
a previous husband taken care of or killed.
He felt that investigators should know this because to him,
it looked like she was trying to do the exact same thing
that she had tried to do years before.
- Narrator: To investigate the claim,
detectives reach out to the long list of potential lovers gleaned
from mary ann's computer.
And one by one, they confirm disturbing requests
they received from her.
- How can I take care of him?
How can he go away? How can he disappear?
Basically, she was looking for someone to kill him,
to take him out.
- Narrator: Although mary ann
purportedly wanted her husband dead,
it's unclear as to why...
Until investigators delve into
tom and mary ann's financial records.
- In February of 2002,
mary ann had taken out a life insurance policy on tom bragg
in the amount of $25,000.
Our investigation showed that tom bragg was never even aware
that this insurance policy existed.
- Narrator: On October 25, investigators ask mary ann
down to the station for a third interview.
When they confront her with evidence of her infidelity,
she plays it cool.
- Vaughn: When confronted with her yahoo chats
and things of that nature, that--that was roleplay.
- Narrator: Mary ann tells detectives
that her online affairs were just a way of coping with
her growing unhappiness with tom.
- Vaughn: She even made the statement to me in an interview
that she is supposed to be the one being taken care of,
not being a nursemaid for a cripple who can't work.
- Narrator: Investigators believe mary ann just handed
them another hint as to why
she may have wanted tom out of her life.
- Leading up to tom's death,
that's kind of the mindset that she was in.
"I'm tired of washing clothes, feeding him, cooking for him,
"cleaning after him.
"and he can't work. He can't bring in money.
This is not what I signed up for."
- lori: One of the witnesses said that my aunt had been
looking for someone to kill her husband,
and that she had been offering to pay them money
out of the insurance policy.
I never heard my aunt mention that.
- Vaughn: She's denying everything about the past,
about trying to have her ex-husband killed,
trying to have tom killed.
She never had those conversations,
that the people are making that up.
- Narrator: While police believe they've zeroed in on a motive,
whether or not mary ann found someone to do her dirty work
for her remains a mystery.
Detectives continue to dig.
But within months, the trail of evidence goes ice cold.
And tom's family grows frustrated.
- We would go to the police department every day.
And we would badger the police.
And it was--it was a living hell.
It was a nightmare.
And we just got to the point
we felt like this is never going to be solved.
- Narrator: Mary ann also frequently called
the thomaston police department.
But she wasn't looking for answers
about who killed her husband.
- The only thing she would talk about is,
"why haven't I gotten my insurance money?"
their investigator for the insurance company would call me
and say, "hey, can we release this money?
Is she still a suspect?"
"absolutely, she's still a suspect."
"okay, thank you very much."
they would not pay.
And that would highly frustrate her.
- The police department and our office had suspected that
mary ann was the perpetrator of this crime for quite some time.
- Narrator: With the investigation at a standstill,
detectives decide to retrace their steps.
- If you're a good, trained investigator,
you documented your interviews.
And so you can come back a year, a year and a half later,
and re-interview those people.
And sometimes you can catch them up.
- Narrator: They start with the cornerstone of mary ann's alibi:
Her friend, debra clay, who rode with mary ann
to the doctor's office on the morning of the murder.
Debra reveals that she wasn't completely forthright with them
on the day of tom's death.
- Vaughn: Debra clay tells us eventually that mary ann
gave her some--some drugs.
She took those drugs.
They made her very sleep and very weary.
And she slept most of the ride to lagrange,
which is about an hour ride.
- Narrator: Debra recalls emerging from
her drug-induced slumber just long enough
to witness something particularly odd.
- Debra clay did tell us
that she recalls once the vehicle stopped.
And she remembers they were on a bridge,
and mary ann throwing an item in a plastic bag off the bridge.
Debra sleeps again.
She awakes again at the hardee's in greenville.
She remembers mary ann disposing a large trash bag
into the dumpster there at the hardee's.
And then they proceed the rest of the way to lagrange,
to the doctor's appointment.
- Narrator: Investigators believe that if the bags exist,
they likely contained evidence
mary ann was eager to get rid of.
- Ben: If mary ann had thrown
a bag of clothing from the vehicle,
we theorized that that was clothing that had blood on it,
and possibly the murder weapon as well.
- Narrator: Debra also recalls mary ann making an odd statement
after her doctor's appointment.
- Vaughn: She wanted to know, if she told her psychiatrist,
if it would be protected under doctor-patient privilege.
- Narrator: Investigators quickly put in a request
with the psychiatrist's office for mary ann's records.
- We had to fight to get his records.
And I think it was because
what his records was going to do to her.
- Narrator: Coming up: A slip of the tongue
breaks the case wide open.
- Ben: That proved that she knew.
It was the gotcha moment for me.
- ♪
- narrator: Two years into their investigation,
georgia authorities desperately need a smoking gun
to tie mary ann bragg
to the brutal murder of her husband, tom.
Investigators are now fighting for critical records
from mary ann's psychiatrist.
- It pretty much comes down to a court order, uh,
to get everything.
And then it was still like pulling teeth
to get these records.
- Narrator: In 2005, nearly 3 years after the murder of
tom bragg, investigators obtain the coveted medical records.
- On the morning of the murder, according to the doctor's note,
mary ann bragg appeared to be distraught and made the comment
to the doctor that, uh, she had just found out
that her husband had been killed.
- Narrator: The statement immediately raises red flags
for investigators.
- She had not been notified by law enforcement at that point
that her husband had been murdered.
- Vaughn: What does that tell you?
She knew he was dead
because she had killed him before she left that morning.
- It was the gotcha moment for me.
- Vaughn: When those records came out
and we get that information,
and then you put that with everything else we've got,
we're good to go.
- Narrator: On November 8, 2005,
investigators arrive at mary ann's home,
where they finally place the 49-year-old under arrest.
- Ben: Mary ann bragg was charged and indicted with
the offenses of malice murder, felony murder,
and aggravated assault.
- Christy: The news of her arrest to my family
was a relief.
We could finally rest.
- Elaine: I was just crying,
just crying from just wonderful feelings
that this was finally over.
I--it was so much relief.
- Narrator: In September 2006, mary ann's trial begins.
Prosecutors allege that in the weeks leading up to the murder,
mary ann was getting increasingly frustrated
with her new lifestyle.
- Vaughn: You go back to investigations 101,
ability, opportunity, motive.
Who checks those boxes?
She married tom because tom was known to be a hardworking man
who could provide for her
and give her the life that she wanted.
- Ben: From the prosecution's standpoint,
she was tired of tom being disabled from his injury.
She was tired of there being no income coming into the house.
She was tired of having to take care of tom.
And she was looking for a way out.
- When you start putting the rumors together
and you start figuring things out,
you start seeing some consistencies here.
She wants him bashed in the head.
But she can't nobody to do it, so she does it herself.
She betrayed and killed her husband.
- Ben: In the early morning hours,
probably right before she left
to go to her doctor's appointment,
between 5:30 and 6:00 am would've been
when mary ann killed tom bragg.
- ♪
- narrator: To back up their theory,
prosecutors call a laundry list of witnesses to the stand.
- Elaine: They brought in all the boyfriends that she tried to
hire to murder james wright and tom.
They were very explicit about how she went about asking them
to commit murder for her.
- Narrator: But mary ann's defense team argues
that the prosecution's case is purely circumstantial
and far from airtight.
- Her defense attorneys argue that there was
no direct evidence to tie her to this crime.
- Dawn: She couldn't do nothing like that.
And I told her exactly what I thought.
That I knew she couldn't do nothing like that.
- Narrator: After a week of testimony,
the state rests its case.
And the jury comes to a decision.
The jury found mary ann bragg guilty on all three counts:
Malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault.
She was sentenced to life in prison
on the malice murder count,
and also life in prison on the felony murder count.
She was sentenced to 20 years to serve
on the aggravated assault count,
which were all three maximum sentences
provided by law.
- To know that my mother got two life sentences
and 20 years, um, was devastating.
She will die in prison.
And that's heartbreaking.
But myself, I will not quit--quit praying that
something will happen,
and she will walk out of there before that time.
- Elaine: We didn't want the death penalty
because that would have been too easy for mary ann.
She needed to think about what she did to tom every day.
- Vaughn: Evil is among us. Evil is everywhere.
And when you look at people like mary ann bragg,
there's no other word to describe her other than evil.
- ♪