NARRATOR: Melanie Addie is married to the perfect guy.
MELANIE: He seemed like husband material --
just the total package, you know?
NARRATOR: Molly Watson has found a good catch, too.
She finally found her prince charming.
MELANIE: I was numb. I was in shock.
That's my husband.
NARRATOR: The date has been saved, and the invitations sent.
I knew there's something not right about this guy.
GINA: He's the ultimate con man.
What's important to him is having power and having control.
NARRATOR: Until the groom gets cold feet.
He said she was driving him crazy.
GINA: He knew the walls were closing in.
He had to do something.
I woke up, and I smelled gas.
[gunshot blasts]
GINA: She's been shot execution-style.
I think I was supposed to die.
[theme music playing]
MELANIE: I grew up in Paris, Missouri.
It's just this really small town, lots of farms.
Everybody kind of knows everybody.
It's just a very small, rural community.
NARRATOR: In the summer of 1994,
22-year-old Melanie Shepherd is leading a hectic life,
leaving her little time for romance.
I was going to school at College of the Ozarks.
I was studying education.
I wanted to be an English teacher.
I was just really busy going to school and working.
I was a cashier at a convenience store.
I really didn't date that much.
NARRATOR: Everything changes when a 28-year-old mechanic
walks into the store one night.
His name is James Addie.
MELANIE: There was a long line of people, and he was trying
to check out, and he kind of
yelled up to the front of the line, "Will you hurry up?"
And, um, I just kind of gave it right back to him.
I said, "I'm doing the best I can."
And he said, "Well, I'm cooking barbecue at my house,"
and I said, "I don't get any, I don't care."
So later that night, he brought me some barbecue,
and that's kind of how we met.
I thought it was very sweet that --
that he would go out of his way to do that for me.
It was just -- it was very nice.
On a busy night, it was a nice surprise.
NARRATOR: James returns to the store a week later,
and this time, he's not buying groceries.
MELANIE: He asked me to come over,
and that was our first date.
He cooked supper for me.
The food was good, and he's feeding me a lot, um...
[laughs] so that was kind of fun.
We got to know each other pretty well, pretty fast.
We both really liked each other.
He just seemed like the kind of person that could take care
of me and take care of himself and take care of a family.
He seemed like husband material.
Just a total package, you know?
NARRATOR: Not long after they start dating,
James drops a bombshell.
He shares with her that he's been married three times.
So that's kind of shocking for Melanie.
Three times by 28 -- that's a lot.
He said they were cheaters.
They were unfaithful and not good people.
They were just gold diggers and trying to take advantage
of him and of his good nature and his good will.
NARRATOR: Despite this awkward beginning,
six months into the relationship,
things are getting serious, and James pops the question.
GINA: They were sitting on the couch talking,
and he just sort of blurted out,
"Will you marry me?"
MELANIE: I said yes, of course.
At that age, you want fairytales and romance
and happy endings.
It was fun, going to pick out a ring and being engaged.
I felt like a grownup.
I felt very confident that I was with a good person.
I was with the right person,
and he wanted the same things that I did.
NARRATOR: In the spring of 1995, James and Melanie get married.
The newlyweds seem destined for a happy
family life and soon welcome two kids.
MELANIE: Just had our perfect little family,
one boy and one girl.
I am a nurturing person, and I want to take care of my kids,
and I want to take care of my husband,
and I want to take care of my house.
I think he saw that -- yeah, that would work.
That would work for him.
That would work as a wife and good partner in life.
I think that's what he wanted.
He was a strong person.
He was the protector and very capable of handling life.
He was definitely the leader of the family.
He took care of business.
NARRATOR: In 2004, James takes on a higher-paying job
as a prison guard
30 miles away at the Moberly Correctional Center.
He really liked his job.
He really did well in his job.
He had no problem telling people what to do
or being that aggressive person if he had to be.
He could keep people in line.
I think it was a real ego boost for him to have people
listen to him and jump when he said jump,
and then he expected it to happen at home, too.
He wanted to have someone just follow along with whatever
he said -- it was tough, because I'm not a prisoner.
He didn't like that
I had my own opinions, and he would get upset.
NARRATOR: After eight years of marriage and with her children
now in school, Melanie looks to pursue
her teaching career, but James puts his foot down.
He didn't want me to work.
He didn't want me to go back to school.
He kept saying, "Oh, no, you need to stay at home.
You need to stay at home."
He just didn't want me out in the world and, you know,
come home and talk about my co-workers and talk about
my job -- he didn't want that.
He wanted me to be focused solely on him,
and he got very upset with me.
He said I don't support him, and it was a big problem.
It was a huge fight.
That was very unexpected.
I thought we were a team.
I thought, you know, we were building this life together,
and I was supposed to just leave everything behind
and just be his wife now?
I didn't like that.
NARRATOR: The arguments only get worse.
For someone who craves control, James starts losing it.
MELANIE: He could get so mad that he would
be threatening and intimidating and throw things.
I can remember going through a lot of
salt and pepper shakers.
I just would always just stand there,
because I don't want to be intimidated.
I don't like that feeling.
I don't like backing down from that.
NARRATOR: Eleven years into the marriage
and desperate for a sense of independence,
Melanie finally defies James.
MELANIE: I started working.
I was a substitute teacher, which was
perfect while the kids were in school.
It felt like this is where I should be.
This is what I wanted to do, and it was nice to get out.
You know, I always said I like being a stay at home mom,
but I liked when it ended, too.
I liked a new thing to do.
For James, I think, it was probably very scary.
She has priorities and parts of her life
that don't center around him anymore.
I think, at this point in time,
James realizes that maybe Melanie is not going to be
the submissive wife that he wants.
NARRATOR: Six years into his job at the prison,
James's work has strangely become all-consuming,
and he disappears for longer lengths of time.
He would leave about 5:30 in the morning,
and it only takes 45 minutes to get there.
So he left pretty early,
and then he wouldn't get home till about five at night.
That's two hours after his shift ended.
Um, I would just question him.
Why are you always so late?
And he was angry with me.
He's like, "Why can't you leave me alone?"
He'd just say, "Well, I stopped and talked
to people," or "I went to get gas."
Sometimes he'd have to wait on a train to go by.
He had all these little excuses.
So that was -- it was just odd.
NARRATOR: There's a reason James is spending longer hours away
from home, and it has nothing to do with work.
He's spending more and more time with one of
the other guards.
Her name is Molly Watson.
TIM: Molly wanted to get a job that can make pretty good money
that she could save back for her and her son,
you know, so she could go back to school.
And so she started out at the Moberly Prison.
Her ultimate goal was to be a psychologist.
NARRATOR: Molly needs the money, as she's
a single mom raising her son on her own.
TIM: Molly was a really good mom.
She gave him all the love in the world.
I am very much a huge geek.
I hate being called a nerd.
TIM: I wanted Molly to find somebody
that respected her for her,
that treated her
like she deserved to be treated, you know?
NARRATOR: In 2011, just a year into her new job,
Molly has started dating someone new,
and she's excited to introduce him to her brother.
TIM: When I first met him,
I just kind of looked at him and I was like, "Hi,
you know, I'm Tim,"
and he's just like...
"Yeah, I'm James," and he put his head down.
Just something about him --
I didn't like him from the get-go.
He was very standoffish.
He would never look you in the eye to talk to you.
He didn't really seem to care.
GINA: James's off-putting demeanor likely raised
questions as to who he was.
What were his intentions, and really, what was he hiding?
TIM: Just something was off about him.
I knew there's something not right about this guy.
NARRATOR: In 2011, Melanie and James Addie have
been married for 16 years -- across town,
Molly Watson has fallen hard for the same James Addie.
GINA: She adored him. She doted on him.
She loved him unconditionally.
She made James her number-one priority,
and that's what James was looking for.
He wanted somebody who put him first always.
NARRATOR: Molly's family is less than impressed with this
new man in her life, who is 16 years
her senior.
Molly told me he was in the process of getting
a divorce, you know, for six years,
that he had, like, two kids.
GINA: He says that he's trying to be there
for his kids and do what's best for them,
so he's still living with his estranged wife.
I thought that was weird.
You know, I've been divorced,
and I wouldn't live with my ex-wife.
NARRATOR: James visits Molly almost every day
after work at her parents' house.
They spend all their time together in her bedroom.
GINA: Molly is living at home with her parents.
She's very close with her family.
He's not making any attempts to
really build a relationship with them.
And so it just seems like there's secrets,
and there's something that's just not right.
He would try to keep her away from everybody.
James would try to separate Molly from her son.
You could always tell that he did not
want Molly's son in their life at all.
My dad didn't like him.
My mom flat out told me, you know,
"I don't like the guy," and it killed me to watch my sister
keep dating him, because you know,
I knew she could do better.
NARRATOR: Molly is so enamored with James,
she brushes her family's concerns aside.
She was in love.
I mean, love is blind, and in her case, that's the truth.
You could point out things to her that
were obvious, and just...she would deny it.
NARRATOR: In 2016, 5 years into their relationship,
Molly and James take their first trip together.
[phone rings]
MELANIE: He received a phone call from one of his friends.
He got off the phone, and I said, "What was that about?"
And he said, "Oh, he wants me to go to Mexico with him."
GINA: Melanie encourages him to go with
his co-workers and have a good time.
In reality, James wasn't going with co-workers.
He was going to Mexico with Molly, his secret girlfriend.
For Molly, this was amazing.
She wanted to go on a vacation with James so badly.
She was madly in love with him.
And this was just an opportunity for them
to grow their relationship and spend more time together.
TIM: It looked like when they started to go on
vacation that they were more committed to each other,
you know, like he was maybe getting serious about it.
You know, we've had the doubts about him, but okay,
maybe this is -- maybe this is good.
NARRATOR: When James returns home
a week later, Melanie notices something odd about his photos.
I said, "Well, where are the other people
that you went with?"
And he said, "Oh, I don't want pictures of them."
So there was only pictures of him in the resort and the beach,
and that's all I saw.
NARRATOR: A year later,
unbeknownst to Melanie, James takes her to
the same vacation spot where he took Molly.
MELANIE: It was so nice.
We just had each other, and we spent all our time together,
and it was just -- it was a great trip.
We had so much fun.
GINA: At this point, James has been carrying on
this double life for so long
that he's gotten so used to it
and comfortable, to the point where he's arrogant
enough to take his wife on the same vacation
he took his mistress.
NARRATOR: In October 2017,
when James lies and tells Molly his divorce is finalized,
she's ready to take the next step.
TIM: The only thing she told me about the proposal was that
she had asked James to marry her, and he said yes.
Molly looks really happy -- you could tell
that she's ready to get married.
GINA: Now he's got to figure out what he's
gonna do, because he still has a wife.
NARRATOR: Molly quickly busies herself prepping for her dream wedding.
She picks April 29th, 2018, as the date,
and she's planning to hold it at the Stoney Creek Hotel,
where Samantha Cohen is their wedding planner.
SAMANTHA: She had a smile on her face the entire time we would meet.
She just had, you know,
this look in her eye of, like, "This is my day.
I'm so excited. Let's make this happen."
She wanted to be the princess for the day.
You know, every girl imagines their wedding day and wanting
to be the bride or the princess walking down
the aisle.
TIM: That's what she wanted -- to find
Prince Charming, to settle down, and happily ever after.
But I thought, what's she thinking?
You know, she don't want to marry this guy.
Nothing good can come of it.
NARRATOR: During the Christmas holidays just a few months
before the wedding is to take place,
James shares some devastating news with Molly.
[tires screeching, crashing noises]
GINA: He tells Molly that his ex-wife,
Melanie, has been in a terrible car accident.
She's actually on life support,
and he needs to be there for his children
and to help them with the care of their mother.
TIM: Molly felt bad for James,
told him, you know, if he needed her
to back off any, you know,
and give him some space, she would and that she was there
for him, whatever he needed,
you know, that she understood he was doing it for his kids.
I think it made Molly feel guilty
about the wedding coming up.
NARRATOR: Is Melanie's supposed accident
a strategy for James to get out of the wedding?
Melanie, in fact, is alive and well for now,
but soon, she will come perilously close to death.
There's this really strong gas smell in our bedroom.
I believe that Melanie was at a very high risk of
being killed.
To think that you're so close to losing your life...
it's -- it's terrifying.
MELANIE: It was late at night, midnight,
one o'clock, I woke up, and I smelled gas.
It was very, very strong in the bedroom -- I thought, well,
this is not dissipating, this is not normal.
And Jim wasn't there.
He wasn't in our bed. He wasn't in the bathroom.
So I got up, and I went to find Jim
to tell him that there's this really strong gas smell.
She goes downstairs, and she finds that
all the windows and doors are closed.
MELANIE: Jim wasn't anywhere in the house,
and I thought this could be serious.
This particular night,
he was outside on the deck, smoking a cigarette.
It was
unusual for him to be outside smoking.
He would usually just smoke in the dining room at the window.
So I told him, I said, "Really strong gas smell.
I don't know what it is."
He said, "Okay, well, you stay out here."
And he went back in the bedroom and opened
the windows and just said,
"I don't know, it's probably some farm equipment outside."
GINA: But it's a little suspicious, because the windows are closed,
and when she goes outside,
she doesn't have this overpowering odor anymore.
MELANIE: Eventually, the smell did go away,
and I was able to go back to bed, so...
I don't have an explanation for that.
It was so strange.
NARRATOR: While Melanie worries about James and his odd behavior,
Molly Watson is blissfully anticipating
her fairy tale wedding.
After seven years of dating James,
her dream is finally coming true.
Her excitement was so palpable.
I mean, you watch her videos,
and she just radiates excitement and love.
Hi, everyone, it's Molly, and here is the dress on me,
and I have to say, I was actually really impressed.
You can tell, uh, just by talking to her,
she has always dreamt of her wedding.
I mean, she had three wedding dresses, like, this
was not just any normal day in her life.
She's been dreaming of how this
wedding was gonna look for years.
I think she finally found, you know,
her prince charming, and this was
the next chapter of her life.
NARRATOR: Molly seems unaware that James lacks the same enthusiasm,
but his detached demeanor is obvious to others.
When I was meeting with James and Molly,
it was all Molly giving the input.
He really just sat there, kind of staring off into space.
He was a very quiet man,
didn't smile often, and just kind of was there.
He didn't really give much input into the conversations,
and he just didn't seem like he really wanted to be there.
He didn't seem to care.
And he said, you know, "Oh, well,
"we're getting married, you know,
as long as it shuts her up, you know, whatever,"
that's kind of his attitude towards it.
NARRATOR: On April 22nd, just a week before the wedding,
James drops another bombshell about his supposed ex-wife.
[heart monitor beeping noises]
TIM: We were told she was in this coma,
and...
they determined that she would never recover from her injuries.
From what Molly told me directly,
Melanie's life support,
they were gonna go ahead and pull the plug,
because they decided that she was
too brain damaged and that they were gonna have to
just let her go.
[flat line beeping noise]
I reached out to Molly to get a final in-person meeting
scheduled with her and James, and she had emailed me back
saying, "I don't know if James will be able to make
"the meeting, as his ex-wife had
just passed away that weekend before."
NARRATOR: James is lying,
and Melanie is still very much alive,
unbeknownst to Molly and everyone else around her.
GINA: I think James wanted so badly to
get out of this predicament he had created
that he was hoping by creating this tragic situation and back
story that maybe Molly would
come to the conclusion to cancel the wedding, and that
would sort of be his get-out-of-jail-free card,
but that's not what happened.
He needed to keep up the charade as the loving fiance,
and so he doesn't cancel the wedding,
because he knows that's gonna devastate her.
NARRATOR: Two days before the wedding,
James still hasn't told Molly the truth.
SAMANTHA: That Friday, when he came in by himself,
after he dropped everything off and paid,
you know, I asked him, "How are you feeling?"
And the only words that he said
was that she was driving him crazy.
GINA: It's probably pretty common for grooms to be a little
annoyed with brides as it gets close to the wedding.
But for James, I think Molly was driving him
crazy because he knew the walls were closing in.
He was still married to Melanie,
and he had to figure something out quickly.
NARRATOR: The night of April 27th, Molly abruptly leaves
her parents' home without much of an explanation.
She was actually making something to eat
when suddenly, she got a phone call.
And after that phone call, Molly leaves really quickly,
and she just sort of rushed out of the house.
Given that she was cooking,
her parents felt like she would be back really quickly.
NARRATOR: At his home,
James tells his wife, Melanie, he's stepping out.
MELANIE: Well, he was out in the garage, and then he came in
and said he was gonna go to a friend's house.
This was about seven o'clock, and then I went to bed about
7:30 -- I usually go to bed pretty early.
NARRATOR: Later that night, a driver on
a deserted road notices something unusual.
GINA: He sees these two vehicles parked on the side of the road.
He figures one of them is having engine trouble,
so he stops to see if he can help.
An older man tells him that everything is fine,
he can go, and so he proceeds on his way.
On his way back,
he passes the same spot, only this time,
there's only one vehicle.
The Monroe County Sheriff's Office got
a call around 10:30 at night that
a passerby named Glenn McSparren had found a woman
in a very remote area of Monroe County
on a low water crossing.
He told police that there was a woman who was laying
in front of a car on this dusty, dirty country road.
Her eyes were open.
She did not appear alive to him.
NARRATOR: Investigators rush to the scene.
Police quickly identify the cause of death
as a gunshot wound to the head.
This woman is out in the middle of nowhere,
and she's been shot execution-style.
It leads them to believe this was
a planned murder, and someone lured her out there.
And they identify her by finding a marriage license on
her passenger seat
that identifies her as Molly Watson,
who's engaged to be married to James Addie.
[distant siren, radio chatter]
NARRATOR: In the early hours of April 28th,
just one day before Tim Watson's sister is to
be married, he gets a call from his dad.
[phone vibrates]
As soon as I saw what time it was,
I knew it was something serious.
He said, "Timmy,
"the highway patrol just left our house.
They found Molly dead on this dirt road."
And immediately, I was in shock.
[distant radio chatter]
MELANIE: About 2:30 in the morning,
I got up and I looked out the window,
and there were four vehicles with flashing lights.
I went to the door, and Jim was there first.
He opened the door for these four cops.
And so I asked them, "What's going on?
Why are you here?"
And nobody would answer me.
Finally, somebody asked me, he said, "Who are you?"
And I pointed to Jim and said, "Well,
I'm his wife," and Jim said, "Yes, that's my wife."
And then the mood kind of changed a little bit.
KATHARINE: Investigators had no idea
what they were walking into.
They thought they were making a death notification to
a fiance, and they find out
he's already married for 23 years.
They discovered Melanie Addie,
and everything changed.
Suddenly James Addie, who they expected to be
the bereaved fiance, who would
surely receive the worst news of his entire life,
was now a suspect.
NARRATOR: Detectives escort James into the dining room for
an interview while another investigator asks Melanie
curious questions.
MELANIE: Where were you tonight?
What did you do tonight?
Do you know Molly Watson? She's been found dead.
I didn't know who that was.
I didn't know who Molly was.
I didn't know how she was at all related to my family.
They told me who Molly was
and that they were gonna get married.
I asked him, "Do you -- do you have the right person?
"Are you sure you have the right person?
Because that's my husband."
I was numb. I was in shock.
It was hard to get this through my head,
because this was --
this was my husband, and this was our life, and this other
person had no place in it.
And the story did not make sense.
NARRATOR: Out of Melanie's earshot,
James comes clean to
the officers about his relationship with Molly.
He admitted the affair and said that
it had been going on for seven years.
GINA: He tells them, though, that he had
absolutely nothing to do with Molly's death.
KATHARINE: They asked him where he was that evening.
James Addie responded that he left the home around
seven o'clock to go visit a friend.
He said the friend was not home,
so he turned around and came back home and arrived around
8:30 that evening and that he went to bed shortly thereafter.
NARRATOR: Did James go to bed as he claims
to police, or did he secretly meet Molly?
When forensics examined the bride-to-be's computer,
they find evidence to suggest she had been obsessed by one
thing in the 24 hours leading up to her death,
and it wasn't her wedding.
Molly Watson had been searching
for evidence of Melanie Addie's death.
She was searching to see if there was an obituary or any
evidence of this horrible accident that had eventually led
to Melanie's death.
Of course, Melanie Addie was very much alive,
and she was unable to find any evidence
that she had passed away.
NARRATOR: Did Molly come to the crushing realization that
Melanie was alive, and there would be no wedding?
GINA: I think she questioned James on it.
And at that point, he knew the jig
was up, and he had to do something.
NARRATOR: Back at the murder scene,
investigators scour the area and find Molly's
cellphone and a discarded T-shirt.
Police also go through Molly's phone records
and are able to piece together her last known movements.
The last phone call she ever made was 22 minutes long,
22 minutes, which is the exact amount of time
it took Molly Watson to drive from her home to her death.
The entire time, she was on the phone with James Addie.
TIM: I think somehow he convinced her to meet up
with him so he could talk about it,
and he got her out in the middle of nowhere
and took her life.
KATHARINE: Police looked at the victimology of Molly Watson,
who did she know,
who in her life might want her dead,
and they determined -[gunshot blasts]
that only one person, James Addie, had the motive,
means, and opportunity to take Molly's life.
NARRATOR: James Addie is arrested and taken into custody.
The next day, Melanie starts looking
for evidence of James's double life.
I went out to the garage, which was kind of his domain.
It was a lot of storage things that we kept up there,
a lot of boxes,
and I started looking a little closer at
the boxes, and these were not my things.
These were Molly's things.
They had her name on the boxes, and that's
when I found the photo album of them on vacation.
And a lot of kitchen stuff, just household things
that were at my house.
She was planning on moving in,
I guess -- it was very overwhelming.
I didn't know how to process this.
He was home every night.
I don't know when he saw her
or how they formed a relationship over seven years
and why he would go forward
with marrying her or planning this wedding
when he was still married to me.
How is this supposed to work?
I don't know what he was thinking.
I was just angry, just angry.
NARRATOR: Melanie thinks back to the night of the gas leak
and is left to wonder about James's possible intentions.
The thought is chilling.
MELANIE: I started to put all of that
together about the gas in the bedroom.
I think the idea was for me not to wake up.
I think I was supposed to die.
I think he was
trying to get rid of one of us.
NARRATOR: Had James tried to kill Melanie but failed,
so he chose Molly instead?
NARRATOR: James Addie has been arrested and charged with
first-degree murder in the death of Molly Watson.
A heartbroken Melanie confronts her husband.
I went to the jail a few days after he was arrested
and asked him, what the hell?
What are you doing? This is our life.
And he didn't -- he didn't have any answers.
He apologized for the affair.
He never admitted that he killed her.
He said that he was sorry,
and he didn't know we had such a perfect life.
Too late now.
He lost everything, and he knew it.
He knew everything was gone.
He knew I wasn't gonna stick around.
It was not gonna be his support system anymore.
This was it. We were done.
NARRATOR: James's case goes before the court
in the spring of 2021.
Prosecutors paint a picture for
the jury of what they believe happened
that fateful night.
The night of April 27th, I believe that he called
Molly Watson
and told her to get in her car and start driving
to this remote area.
She arrived at the low water crossing,
opened the door, and he shot her once, and he panicked.
He left Molly's body there for anyone to find.
Going into the trial,
we felt that the evidence against James Addie
was overwhelming.
NARRATOR: The T-shirt found by police
is a key piece of evidence.
KATHARINE: In addition to the T-shirt having gunshot residue on it
and the victim's blood on it,
there was something else important about the T-shirt.
That T-shirt had been made by
James Addie's daughter, Emma Addie.
MELANIE: And this was specific to Emma.
She had made this shirt and kind of
messed up the design a little bit.
KATHARINE: She was able to identify that T-shirt as
one that she had made and given to her father.
So the T-shirt was extremely important, because we know it
came from the crime scene, because it had Molly's blood
on it, and we know
that it came from the defendant's home.
NARRATOR: James had told police that on the night of the murder,
he had gone out but was home by 8:30 p.m.
His daughter, though, contradicts that story
when faced with the daunting task
of testifying against her own father.
Emma Addie was interviewed about her father's
whereabouts, and she gave a very different story.
I was still up doing homework at around 10 p.m.
And that's around the time that dad came home.
GINA: He returns home and sees his daughter, Emma, still up.
He's a little surprised,
and Emma described him as being nervous.
James gets in the shower right away.
And Emma also notices that her dad does laundry,
something that would normally be her mom's job.
And did you smell anything?
Yes, I smelled bleach.
KATHARINE: Emma Addie's testimony was key
to dispute the alibi that
James Addie had provided to the police and to
be able to come into court and to tell the world
that your father had lied to the police,
it was incredible.
She had a tough job, and she handled it.
She did really, really well.
She's an inspiration to me.
She is. She's amazing.
I just ask, plead with the jury,
to give this monster the max sentence possible.
On April 28th, 2021, what would
have been Molly and James' third anniversary
had they been married, James Addie
is found guilty of Molly's murder.
I hereby sentence you to life
imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
TIM: I just wanted justice for Molly.
That's all I cared about.
You know, as long as I heard those words guilty
comin' out of the judge's mouth, and thank God they did.
MELANIE: He had the means, he had the motive.
He didn't have a good alibi.
He wasn't home that night.
So it all kind of added up.
He's absolutely responsible for this.
NARRATOR: James Addie is convicted, but it's
still hard to comprehend his sickening actions.
GINA: It's unfathomable that James thought the solution to
the problem was to kill someone
instead of just breaking up with them.
In his mind, that was the right thing to do,
and that's what's scary.
It's terrifying that that is his way out.
TIM: Had he walked away,
just never talked to her again,
we'd be fine with that.
You know, she'd be upset, she'd still be here.
He chose to take her life.
He's an evil person.
GINA: It's tragic to think that somebody who was so excited
to be a bride
and to have a happily ever after instead
had this tragic ending.
MELANIE: The family,
they're the ones that suffer in this.
They are the true victims.
They've lost Molly, and they will lose her...
you know, at family get-togethers
and holidays and vacations,
and she's just not there for them.
TIM: She definitely knows how much I love her.
I would like Molly to be
remembered as the sweet, loving, giving person
she was.
She just -- she'd do anything for anybody.
SAMANTHA: I'd hug her and just say how
sorry I am that this happened to her,
and I hope she feels that justice has been served.
And I hope she's okay.
TIM: I still go out to her grave site,
and I have conversations with her, you know, and...
she said everything's fine. Everything's okay.
NARRATOR: As for Melanie, she has found
a semblance of peace in her life.
MELANIE: It's good that it's finally over.
I'm divorced and on my own,
but I'm much happier on my own than I was married.
I'm good all by myself. I really am.
I'm just really lucky that I have a good job,
a fun job, great co-workers.
I just -- I have a good life. I'm happy.