a second chance at romance.
- He was very kind and very romantic.
- They were happily married.
They loved their blended family. They loved their home.
- NARRATOR: But a violent intrusion would destroy
their happily ever after.
- He had been severely beaten
and possibly stabbed.
- I wanted to know who did it.
I wanted them to pay.
- * *
- NARRATOR: The hunt for a killer
will reveal heart-wrenching betrayals
and lead law enforcement to uncover a conspiracy
between multiple people and a killer couple
with sinister intentions.
- Each of those young men made a choice
to get involved, but the genesis of
the entire depravity and violence
began with their affair.
- She got all these people caught up in her web of lies,
secrets and deceit.
- He wanted a life with her,
and the only way he knew to get it was to kill this guy.
- To carry out a plan like this
is just diabolical. It's just flat-out evil.
- * *
- NARRATOR: In the heart of the Eastern seaboard
lies the coastal city of Virginia Beach.
- Virginia Beach has a large Navy presence,
and so there is a tremendous amount of suburban housing,
literally thousands of apartment buildings
that are built to house the Navy personnel.
- NARRATOR: On July 29, 1991,
local authorities receive a frantic 911 call
from one of those apartments at 2:20 AM.
- Virginia Beach Police Department Communications
received a call from a woman
indicating that something has happened,
that her neighbor had come to her door
screaming hysterically.
- NARRATOR: The caller identifies her neighbor
as 35-year-old Robin Radcliff.
- She didn't know exactly what was going on,
but she noticed that Mrs. Radcliff's pajamas
were bloodied and she told the police
that there might have been an assault.
- NARRATOR: Dispatchers quickly route
all available units to the apartment complex.
A Virginia Beach police officer is the first to arrive on scene.
- When he arrived at the scene,
Mrs. Radcliff was sitting on the living room floor
by her son.
- They get there and she's hysterical.
She's covered in blood. Where did the blood come from?
Then she points them to the master bedroom.
- When the uniformed officer
went into the master bedroom,
which was at the end of the hallway,
he found a man laying in bed,
and he appeared to be semiconscious,
grasping to get breath,
and it appeared that he had had been severely beaten
and possibly stabbed.
- He's unresponsive, but still alive,
obviously still alive, and so they're calling in EMTs.
- They tried to stabilize him
and then they immediately got him out to an ambulance
and transported him to
Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
- NARRATOR: As backup arrives,
Robin Radcliff identifies the victim as her husband,
37-year-old James Radcliff.
- Mrs. Radcliff had told the officer
that she was laying in bed and she was awakened by
somebody attacking her husband.
And then she was put down on the floor
and then held down on the floor while he was being attacked.
The officer asked her how many people she thought
had entered their apartment,
and she said two or three people.
She wasn't certain,
but she didn't have any idea who attacked her husband.
- And there are obviously a lot of questions
about what happened and why it happened.
- The main factor of course, is, you know, whether or not
you know who did it immediately.
But frequently in these kinds of cases,
it's gonna be somebody who is known to the victim,
especially given the fact that James was the only one assaulted
and there were two other people in the apartment at the time,
Robin and her 13-year-old son.
- NARRATOR: Before life had brought James
and Robin Radcliff to Virginia Beach,
James had spent nearly two decades
building a respectable reputation in the US Navy.
- He was a family man. He was previously married.
He had two boys from his previous marriage,
and he was a real loving, caring type of man,
very responsible at work.
- NARRATOR: Originally from Aspermont, Texas,
James met his first wife, Sandy, when they were still teenagers.
- He was very kind and very romantic.
He was the type of guy that he opened up the door for you,
pulled out the chair when you wanted to sit down,
you know, go into a restaurant.
And it was just his kindness that drew me to him.
- NARRATOR: In the early 70s,
James graduated from high school and enlisted in the military.
- James was a mess management specialist
in the Navy.
His job at that time was to cook for the officers
and the captain of the boat.
It was great adventures together,
traveling with the Navy, seeing new places,
and our oldest son, Spencer was born in
Charleston, South Carolina.
We lived three years in Puerto Rico,
and James and I's youngest son, Nathan, was born in Puerto Rico.
- I was daddy's little boy.
We did sports together. He was always my coach.
He was funny, goofy.
To me, he was probably the best dad in the whole world.
- NARRATOR: In 1983,
the family landed in Pensacola, Florida,
but life in the Navy meant James was often away
from his wife and two sons.
- Sometimes, you drift apart,
and it's hard at times to find that connection
to get back together.
- NARRATOR: In October 1987, after 16 years together,
Sandy and James decided to divorce.
- I remember when my parents, I guess,
told me and my brother that they were divorcing.
We were basically, why?
Why can't y'all live together, whatever?
I think we were heartbroken.
- NARRATOR: Around the same time,
James met 29-year-old Robin Gaddy in Florida.
- James met Robin in a bar
where one of his relatives worked,
and I'm assuming, since James and I were, um,
separated at the time, he felt lonely.
- NARRATOR: Originally from Utah,
Robin had moved to Florida to start over
after two failed marriages.
- She had two kids, a daughter and a son.
She seemed like a nice person.
And I assume she was drawn to him because of his
sweet personality,
and his kindness, and his outgoingness,
and being able to joke about things.
- NARRATOR: After a whirlwind romance,
Robin and James decided to tie the knot.
- Within a couple of months,
they were married.
- It seemed like my dad and Robin were happy.
- NARRATOR: James continued to juggle family life
with a demanding job.
- He got transferred up to Virginia,
and when he got transferred up there,
it was hard for us to go up there to see him.
- NARRATOR: By July of 1991,
an end to all of James' hard work was in sight.
Following a recent deployment,
James was only seven months away from retirement.
- His dream was when he retired from the Navy,
he wanted to become a chef and work in a big restaurant.
- In his mind,
he must've been dreaming about that next career.
He must've been on cloud nine.
- NARRATOR: But less than two weeks later,
James Radcliff's dreams have been shattered,
as Virginia Beach detectives try to make sense of
a vicious attack that has left him critically wounded.
- When you open up the door to the master bedroom,
the master bed itself
was completely saturated with blood.
There was blood spatter all over the headboard,
the back of the wall,
both sides of the bed and pillows.
- One of the evidence technicians
was a blood spatter expert,
and so from the blood spatter that was found on the wall,
on the ceiling in the bedroom,
he was able to determine that at least one sharp-edged object
was used to stab James,
and at least one blunt-edge object
was used to strike James.
- The telephone has been ripped away
from the nightstand,
and it appeared to be completely disconnected.
There was some other things that were thrown about,
the clothes on the floor.
- We knew there was some motive
behind this, naturally, but we didn't know exactly what,
and that's where we jumped into it and started trying
to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
One of the theories would be that this was a burglary,
and that the burglary did go wrong. It went awry.
- There was a few items reported missing
by Robin Radcliff from the residence.
Her husband's wallet and his credit cards
were taken from the master bedroom.
- The front door opens into the living room
of the apartment.
There was a stand upon which there was a TV,
and it was apparent that something that had been
connected to the TV was missing.
- Walking through a crime scene,
one of the things that you're looking for
is points of entry and points of exit.
- There were three bedrooms
in the apartment. A master bedroom,
which is where James and Robin stayed.
There was a bedroom where Robin's son stayed,
and then there was another bedroom.
- When we looked in there,
the dresser was pulled away from the wall,
away from the window. The window was open,
and the curtains were hanging outside the window.
- There was no damage to get into the, uh,
in through that window.
No signs that the lock had been jimmied.
- It very well could've happened
where a burglar could've found a window that was unlocked,
entered uh, to steal what he or she could,
and then attacked Mr. Radcliff.
- NARRATOR: Coming up,
police receive new information that takes the case
in a whole new direction.
- James told one of his shipmates
that somebody threatened him,
and so he felt afraid for his life.
- NARRATOR: And a new clue casts suspicion
on someone close to the victim.
- On the front of it, the card, is a pregnant woman,
and that strikes my interest immediately.
You kind of realize that there's a good likelihood
what we have here is a love triangle.
- * *
- NARRATOR: 37-year-old Navy man James Radcliff
is in grave condition after he was violently attacked
in his bed, while his wife Robin
was held down by another assailant.
- When I arrived at the scene,
Robin had already left and gone to the hospital.
She'd already changed her clothes as well
and left bloody pajamas behind.
Anytime we have bloody potential evidence,
we collect it.
- NARRATOR: Since the victim, his wife and her 13-year-old son
are all at the hospital,
investigators turn to another source of information
within the family.
- I went back outside because Mrs. Radcliff's
daughter, Tina and her husband, Michael Bourne
were waiting out there.
Both told me that they had received a call
from her brother right after the incident happened.
He told them that something had happened to James
and they needed to come over to the apartment.
Tina told me that her mother and stepfather
had been married for approximately four years.
They seemed to be a loving couple,
cared for each other.
She told me that her stepfather had just returned
from a six-week deployment on July the 18th.
- NARRATOR: Tina tells detectives that
she and her husband came to dinner at the apartment
earlier that night.
When they left for their apartment around 11:00 PM,
nothing seemed amiss.
- She generally seemed extremely upset about what had happened.
She couldn't give me any reason at all why somebody would
break into the house and beat her stepfather like this.
- NARRATOR: While detectives are still gathering
information at the scene,
they receive a devastating call from the hospital.
- I received a call from the midnight detective
that was with Mrs. Radcliff at Norfolk General Hospital,
and he advised me that
James Radcliff had succumbed to his injuries and had died.
Since James Radcliff was employed with the US Navy,
we notified NCIS.
- Two Navy officers showed up.
They told me that James had been murdered.
I called the two boys next to me
and I set them down
and I told them that their dad passed,
and there was anger, there was sadness.
- It sucked, it hurt.
Mad at the world.
I wanted to know who did it.
I wanted them to pay for taking my dad from me.
- NARRATOR: The case is designated
a homicide investigation,
and James Radcliff's body is transported to
the medical examiner's office for a full autopsy.
- The medical examiner indicated that there was
multiple blunt force trauma to his head
and that he had at least three stab wounds,
two on the right side, one on the right-front torso area,
the other one in the back.
The cause of death was from blood loss
and aspiration,
actually breathing in his own blood.
- Police know,
as do police reporters and journalists know,
most murderers don't kill people up close, and when they do,
there's normally a personal relationship
or a personal vendetta.
This was a personal crime.
- NARRATOR: Given the personal nature of the homicide,
detectives circle back to James's grieving widow,
Robin Radcliff, for more information.
- Mrs. Radcliff arrived at police headquarters.
I tell her at the time that I know it's a terrible time
to have to ask her a lot of questions,
but I'd like to go through
what happened this Sunday evening.
She said Tina and Michael stayed there
and watched television with them till about 11-12:00,
and then they left, went back to their apartment,
and that her son went to bed,
and Robin and James retired for the evening.
- Robin said that
she had taken some sleeping pills
and she was sleeping soundly, and all of a sudden,
she's awakened by rough, deep voices,
and she gets knocked off the bed onto the floor.
- She was laying facedown on the floor,
and that person actually put his foot on her back,
she said, to hold her down and told her, don't move,
and it sounded to her like a man's voice.
- She said she didn't get a good look at anyone.
She was horrified, she was panicking,
and didn't know what to do.
- She assumed by her feet there was two or three people
in the apartment.
- NARRATOR: When she was sure the intruders had left,
Robin tells detectives that she rushed to her husband's aid
and realized his injuries were extensive.
- Robin ran to the phone, picked it up, and it was dead.
She couldn't dial 911, so she ran out screaming
for someone to help her, someone to call for help.
- After the neighbor called 911,
Mrs. Radcliff realized that,
oh my God, she left her son in the apartment,
so she ran back into the apartment
into his room, which, fortunately,
he slept through the entire incident
and wasn't awakened till his mother Robin woke him up.
- NARRATOR: Detectives ask Robin about
her relationship with her husband.
- Robin told police that they were happily married,
that they loved their blended family,
they loved their home,
they loved living in Virginia Beach,
and that there was no problems.
- She generally appeared to be somebody
that was grieving and wanted to be helpful,
to try to give me as much information as possible,
so I can find out who's responsible
for her husband's death.
- NARRATOR: In the midst of the interview,
investigators suddenly receive new information
from the Naval Criminal Intelligence Service.
- We had notified NCIS that James Radcliff had died
and they were making death notification
to his command,
and the command, some of the shipmates,
had told them that James Radcliff,
just about a week ago, had a fight.
James told one of his shipmates
that somebody actually threatened him,
and so he felt afraid for his life.
I contacted James Radcliff's command,
his ship, the USS Comte de Grasse,
and talked to some of his close-friend shipmates
to see what James Radcliff had been telling them.
- NARRATOR: Soon after James returned home
from a six-week Navy deployment,
friends say he got into a physical altercation
with another Navy man, 34-year-old Gary Hinojosa.
- The very day that he returned home,
this guy Gary was sitting in his apartment,
and he confronted his wife about who was this guy
sitting in his apartment.
She tried to pawn it off that, oh, he's a friend of Michael,
who's, you know, Tina's husband.
Well, Michael's only 19 years old,
and James Radcliff eventually said that
he kept prompting his wife about this Gary,
and she finally admitted that
she was having an affair with him
while he was deployed.
- There was a confrontation between
Gary Hinojosa and James Radcliff,
an altercation over the situation
with Robin Radcliff.
- Early on in the investigation,
there's a lot of red flags that are going off.
I know that Mrs. Radcliff is withholding
a lot of information.
She's lying to me about what's going on
in their relationship between her and her husband
and that things are much more complicated.
- * *
- NARRATOR: Less than 24 hours after James Radcliff was killed
during a violent home invasion,
Virginia Beach police have learned that
he had been involved in an altercation
with a Navy man named Gary Hinojosa
after James learned that his wife Robin was having
an extramarital affair while he was deployed.
- They had a fight.
He described the fight as being more like
a wrestling match. And then after the fight,
they went separate ways, but there was a lot of tension
between James and his wife, Robin.
- NARRATOR: Detectives circle back to their interview
with Robin Radcliff, but they don't confront her
with the new information right away.
- She had driven her car to police headquarters,
and so I asked her, I said,
you mind if I take a look in your car? Just to, you know,
you never know what you're going to find.
And the car is out there,
and so I thought I'd just take advantage of the situation.
- NARRATOR: Robin immediately provides detectives
with her car keys.
Inside, they make a telling discovery.
- When I did a search on her car,
I found in the glove compartment a Hallmark card.
On the front of it, the card is a pregnant woman,
and that strikes my interest immediately,
so I open it up, and it's addressed to Robin.
- It's a love note from someone named Gary,
saying, you're carrying my baby.
Well, this immediately changes everything.
- Within a very short period of time,
we realized that the Gary that was on the card
was most likely this Gary Hinojosa.
You kind of realize that there's a good likelihood
what we have here is a love triangle.
I brought that card back into headquarters
and confronted Mrs. Radcliff about this particular card,
and after looking at it, she said,
yes, I was lying to you. I did have an affair
while my husband was deployed and I believe that
I'm pregnant with this man's child.
- NARRATOR: As detectives confront Robin,
they receive another unexpected surprise.
- Just so happens that this Gerardo Hinojosa showed up.
He says that he's friends of Robin Radcliffe,
and he's there to pick up Mrs. Radcliff
to give her some support,
since they just found out that James had passed away.
- NARRATOR: Police seize the opportunity
to talk with Gary Hinojosa.
He agrees and sits down with detectives
for a formal interview.
- Gary Hinojosa was stationed at Oceana
in Virginia Beach,
and he worked with Robin Radcliff's son-in-law,
Michael Bourne, and Michael's wife, Tina,
who is Robin's daughter, made a connection,
and so they all met each other.
And when Gary and Robin met, Gary was smitten at first sight.
- He admits that they had an affair
that's been going on while James was deployed.
And we told him that we also were aware that
there was a fight between him and James,
and he admitted to the fight,
but said after the fight that they shook hands
and they went separate ways.
- NARRATOR: Gary claims that Robin had ended
their months-long love affair
to focus on her marriage to James.
Their suspicions growing,
detectives ask Gary if he has an alibi
for the night of James Radcliff's murder.
- He said that he was at his house all evening long,
and he said that Tina, who is Robin's daughter,
and her husband Michael Bourne,
had just moved into his house with him that weekend,
and he said that they sat and watched television
throughout the night, and he believes that
all of them went to bed somewhere around 1:00
in the morning.
- NARRATOR: Detectives confirm with Tina and Michael Bourne
that Gary is their roommate.
- I talked to Tina and Michael Bourne,
and they told me that once they left Robin's apartment,
they went back over to Gary's house,
so he had people to alibi him out.
- NARRATOR: Without any evidence to hold them,
police release Robin Radcliff and Gary Hinojosa.
- We knew that there was a connection between them.
We suspected that there was a lot more to this story
that they were not giving up.
Within a few days after that,
the family went to Texas for the funeral,
so there's a couple of days
I'm not able to talk to them at all.
- NARRATOR: Four days after his murder,
James Radcliff is laid to rest
in his hometown of Aspermont, Texas.
- My oldest one took it the hardest.
Taking them to the funeral
and them actually having to see their father in a coffin,
actually having to see their father
being buried in the ground. It was hard on me,
but I know it was the hardest on them.
- NARRATOR: One month passes without any leads
in James Radcliff's murder.
Then, on August 29, 1991,
a local newspaper publishes an article
that gives the case new life.
- I'm at work at the Virginia Beach bureau
of the Virginia Pilot, and Robin calls me,
and she goes on a vent
about how the police have mistreated her.
They're accusing her of hiring people
to kill her husband.
She says, how would I even know how to go about doing that?
I don't know how to hire people to murder someone.
- Well, when I read that in the paper, I said,
we got a whole new ballgame here.
I never confronted her with that.
I never asked her about anything like that.
I knew right then that they must have hired somebody.
For her to say that, they must have hired somebody.
That's a slip of the tongue that she never should have said.
So we're probably looking for a murder-for-hire situation.
- NARRATOR: Coming up,
as detectives begin building a case against Robin Radcliff,
a shocking revelation will open the door
to multiple suspects, and an unexpected motive.
- He wants to rationalize what he's done,
and so he says, there's a reason,
there's a good reason why I hired these people
to kill James Radcliff.
- That blew everybody's mind.
How could she be so callous?
- * *
- NARRATOR: One month after the murder of James Radcliff,
police suspect his widow, Robin
and her lover Gary Hinojosa were involved.
So far, there has been little evidence
to connect either of them.
But following Robin's plea to the media,
detectives decide to take a closer look
at her daughter and son-in-law, Tina and Michael Bourne,
in the hopes that they might know something.
- Michael and Tina Bourne were living with Gary,
so we devised a plan that what we were gonna do
is all the players that we knew, we're gonna bring them in
one at a time and talk to them,
starting with Tina and Michael Bourne,
because they seem to be the weakest link in the group.
So on September 3rd, I called Michael Bourne up,
and I told him that I needed to talk to him and Tina.
I needed them to come down to police headquarters.
He said, yes, it's no problem, they'll be down there.
As soon as they arrived there, we separated them
and put them in two separate rooms,
and I talked to Tina.
I told her that, you need to tell me the truth what happened.
- NARRATOR: Under extreme pressure from law enforcement,
Tina comes clean.
- She said her mother had come to her and said that
they were thinking about killing James,
that Gary Hinojosa had set it up,
that the person that he hired to do the killing
was Mario Murphy.
- NARRATOR: In another interrogation room,
Michael also cooperates.
According to Michael,
Mario Murphy is a friend of Gary's.
Mario had also enlisted the help of his friend,
17-year-old Aaron Turner, to commit the crime.
- Mario's friend was there,
and agreed to go ahead
and go along with this burglary-killing,
and they had set it all up.
They put on dark clothing, gloves.
They had metal pipes and two knives.
As they were getting prepared and talking about this,
Gary Hinojosa's roommate shows up, Jamie Hall.
And he's hearing what's going on and gets excited,
and he says that he'll go along.
- Michael Bourne was the driver of the vehicle,
he brought them there,
and Hall as well as Mario Murphy and Aaron Turner
exited the vehicle with the equipment.
They went through the back window,
which was left unlocked.
- It was Robin who had arranged that,
for the entry, for the assailants.
- NARRATOR: Michael tells detectives
he waited in the car while the murder took place.
- He just stayed in the car the whole time
and drove them back to,
I believe it was Gary Hinojosa's place.
- NARRATOR: Armed with this new information,
police worked quickly to track down
the three alleged accomplices.
- Mario had moved in with Aaron.
We located both of 'em.
We transported them to police headquarters.
- We put a couple of officers, detectives,
surveilling the apartment, or the house,
where Gary resided so they could arrest Jamie
when he arrived home.
And when he arrived home, they arrested him,
brought him in, and interviewed him.
- I believe they were all being interrogated
at the same time,
and eventually they all just toppled like dominoes.
at the same time, - NARRATOR: One by one,
each of the three co-conspirators
corroborates Michael and Tina's allegations
that Robin and Gary
were the crime's true masterminds.
- Gary and Robin had hired Mario
to do the killing
and told him that they will pay him
$5,000 for the killing,
that she would receive $100,000
from her husband's military life insurance policy
and then he would get paid from that.
- NARRATOR: The accomplices also elaborate on
the horrific details surrounding James Radcliff's death.
- Mario Murphy said that Aaron Turner
was the first one to hit him,
and then when Aaron Turner hit him in the head,
he hit him so hard, the whole bed shook.
- Jamie Hall held a flashlight on James
as he lay sleeping unconscious
while Aaron Turner and Mario Murphy
took turns beating and stabbing James
while he lay unconscious.
- After they finished beating him and stabbing him,
they left the bedroom and came down to the living room
where Robin Radcliff was waiting
and pointed out the VCR for them to take
as part of the fraudulent burglary
they were trying to stage,
and so they did.
And they left with that in a duffel bag
and exited the apartment.
- They left through the window they came in.
As I understand it, they got in the car,
driven again, by Michael, and returned to Gary's home.
- Mr. Radcliff, a man who served his country,
he didn't stand a chance. He was asleep in bed.
He couldn't even fight for himself.
To carry out a plan like this is just diabolical,
just flat-out evil.
- NARRATOR: Police immediately issue arrest warrants
for the alleged killer couple.
- I had been surveilling the home,
and I knew that Robin was at the home,
and I went up to arrest her.
She asked if she could make a phone call.
She called Gary, and the person that answered
said that Gary couldn't talk because he was being arrested.
- NARRATOR: While Robin maintains her innocence,
Gary decides to offer a full confession
to the press from jail.
- Gary Hinojosa was in love,
and he wanted to talk to me because he wanted to find out
how Robin was doing.
He wanted me to tell Robin that he loved her
and he also wants to rationalize what he's done.
And so he says, I wanted to protect,
well, the woman that I wanted to be my wife.
I wanted to protect my baby.
There's a reason, there's a good reason
why I hired these people to kill James Radcliff.
From Gary's perspective, what drove the killing
was James' treatment of his wife, Robin.
According to Gary, it was an abusive relationship.
- * *
- NARRATOR: Virginia Beach police have indicted six people
for the murder of James Radcliff,
his wife, Robin Radcliff, her lover, Gary Hinojosa,
and the four men who carried out the attack,
including Robin's son-in-law, Michael Bourne.
Based on her cooperation,
Robin's daughter, Tina Bourne has not been charged.
Gary claims that he orchestrated the murder-for-hire plot
in order to save Robin from an abusive relationship.
- He did say that he had masterminded it,
but he'd also said that he was just sitting at home crying
and his buddy, Mario shows up,
and Mario gets incensed by the fact that
James is beating Robin.
Mario hates men who beat their wives.
And Mario was the one who said, we gotta get this guy.
We gotta save Robin.
- NARRATOR: But detectives know there is no evidence
to support Gary's claims
that James was ever abusive to Robin.
- James would've never hit a woman.
He was not that type of man.
Robin manipulated the whole thing.
It was all a bald-faced lie.
She was just manipulating people to get what she wanted.
- Robin had definitely some degree of avarice.
She was aware of the death benefit
for a military person.
I think that's what motivated her.
- I think that Gary's motivation
truly was his love for Robin.
He was very emotional, a romantic,
as ironic as that sounds.
And I think he wanted a life with her,
and the only way he knew to get it
was to get James out of the way.
- Robin and James could've gotten divorced,
and she and Gary could've been a couple
and raised their child,
but that wasn't enough.
They wanted James' insurance money.
Gary and Robin reached out and incorporated, um,
young men to get involved in their conspiracy.
Each of those young men made a choice to get involved,
but the genesis of the entire depravity and violence
began with Gary and Robin.
- NARRATOR: In the fall of 1992, Gary Hinojosa, Michael Bourne,
Aaron Turner and Jamie Hall each plead guilty
to first-degree murder
and are sentenced to life in prison.
- Mario Murphy was charged with
capital murder for hire,
and the judge sentenced him to death.
- Six people arrested, five of 'em pled guilty.
Robin was the only one who went to trial.
In my mind, she was the most culpable.
- By the time Robin went to trial,
she had given birth to Gary's baby,
and the baby was being cared for by family members.
- NARRATOR: In February 1993,
Robin Radcliff pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.
- A lot of the trial was back and forth
with different psychiatrists.
The defense was saying she had multiple personalities.
The prosecution was,
no, she is a cold, calculated murderer.
- The question is,
did the individual know the difference
between right and wrong, number one, and if so,
could she control her behavior?
- NARRATOR: At trial,
prosecutors use Robin's blood-soaked nightgown
to prove that Robin knew exactly what she was doing
the night her husband was murdered.
- According to our expert witness,
it wasn't blood spatter. It was transfer blood stains,
which were consistent with her getting back
into bed with James and making sure that
his blood, as he's losing life, is seeping onto her nightgown.
- She went back and laid in the bed
and rolled around in his blood to make it look like
she was in the bed when he was attacked.
That blew everybody's mind.
We couldn't wrap our heads around,
how could she be so callous?
- NARRATOR: On February 17, 1993,
a jury finds Robin Radcliff guilty of capital murder
and conspiracy to commit capital murder.
She is sentenced to life in prison.
- It was such a relief when they came in
with the guilty verdict.
It was like the world had been lifted off my shoulders.
Yes, there's finally going to be justice for James.
- She was a spider woman.
She got all these people caught up in her web
of lies, secrets and deceit,
and it ended up in murder.
And it's a sad thing that she destroyed all of these lives
just for her own benefit.
- I mean, I'm still angry.
I mean, God says you're supposed to forgive everybody,
but I don't think I can ever forgive them.
I mean, they took someone dear to me away.
- I always wonder if, you know,
if he was still alive,
I'd really think we would've been back together
as a family,
and he would've got to follow his dream of being a chef.
I wish that we could've had more happy memories with James.
But Robin ruined that.
- * *