Mom spent her life caring for people.
[woman 1] She was the most amazing grandmother
that anyone could ever have.
[laughing]
I really felt like Marshall loved Ann.
[Ann speaking]
[woman 2] She would call him hon,
and you thought they were a happily married couple.
[tool whirring]
[Ann speaking]
Her focus had to be on him and only him.
[Ann] Uh-oh.
I said, "Mom, you need to get out of there
and you need to stay away."
[woman 2] He's showing his dark side now.
Something's wrong now.
It was just horrible.
[woman 3] It's just hard to believe that he would do that.
It's nothing but evil.
[narrator] August 19th, 1995,
Ann and Marshall Metz
celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.
[all speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[all laughing]
Ann was very outgoing.
She was a very
loving person
that would do anything for anybody.
[Ann speaking indistinctly]
Mom was a individual who spent
her life caring for people.
She loved taking care of people.
[man speaking]
[Ann speaking]
[man speaking]
[music playing]
She made you feel like you were a friend
right off the bat.
This was huge for her. She never had
anybody make big fusses about her.
[Kathy speaking]
Marshall is kind of glued to her side.
[Kathy speaking]
[Ramona] He looks happy.
[Kathy] Aw.
He's interacting here more so than what he usually did.
They both look happy, actually.
[Jimmy] I think she loved him.
I think she loved him all along.
I think she felt like he was
the best person for her.
[man speaking]
[Ramona speaking]
[narrator] Ann Sue Young is born on December 6th, 1947,
in Huntington, Pennsylvania.
In 1954, her family moved to Maryland.
[Ramona] When we were young,
she would do anything for us.
She would help out the younger ones.
We would go roller skating.
She got the roller skates with the pom-poms
and everything, we were kind of jealous of that.
[narrator] Ann marries Franklin Trout when she is just 16.
[Ramona] Ann had two children
from her first marriage with Frank,
boy and a girl, Phyllis and Jimmy.
The relationship of
my biological father with Mom,
he was one of the kindest people you'd ever meet in your life.
But when he drank,
he was abusive to Mom
and she got out of that relationship.
[Ann speaking]
[narrator] Ann meets Marshall Metz
shortly after her divorce
in 1968.
[Ramona] She wanted someone that would take care of her.
She was looking for someone to be a lifetime partner.
[Kathy speaking]
[Ramona] That was when Marshall came into her life.
[Ann speaking]
[laughs]
I didn't so much hit it off with him at first.
You know, it took me a while to, uh, get to know him.
He was a man's man.
Marshall had a previous marriage,
and from what I understand, he had six children.
[narrator] Marshall and Ann
marry on August 28th, 1970.
[narrator] The years roll by for the couple.
Family friend Kathy Burress
films them opening gifts at Christmas.
I really felt like Marshall
loved Ann,
and just wanted her around him.
[Kathy laughs]
[laughs]
[Kathy] He was very protective of her.
He would do anything that she wanted to do
and go anywhere that she wanted to go.
[Ramona] He always called her hon,
she would call him hon,
and you thought they were a happily married couple.
[Marshall speaking]
[Jimmy] I never
walked into a room with Marshall
and introduced him as my stepdad. Never.
You can ask anybody that. He was my dad.
[Kathy] He liked guns.
I believe over a long period of time,
Marshall started collecting different pistols.
[Jimmy] Him and I actually went hunting together.
[Jimmy speaking]
Shooting rabbits and pheasants and quails
and squirrels,
and, um, you know, take them home and eat them.
And it was an enjoyable part of my life
to go out and do that kind of stuff with him.
[Ann speaking]
-[Marshall speaking] -[Ann speaking]
[Jimmy] Mom loved documenting stuff
on a video camera,
and it was the size of a suitcase.
[Ann speaking]
Ann didn't want anything to go on
without being on film
or in a picture.
She wanted to have a record of everything.
I mean, you couldn't move
without her videoing you somewhere, somehow.
[Ramona] When she got that video camera, I mean,
she was in hog's heaven, so to speak.
[Ann speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[narrator] While Ann is lost in the viewfinder,
other family members notice a darker side to Marshall.
[Jimmy] Marshall seemed to be a decent man,
but as time went on,
you would see more of
the sides
that he was trying to keep a secret from everybody.
[Kathy] He liked to play tricks on people.
[tool whirring]
[Ann speaking]
And a lot of the things that he thought was funny
wasn't so funny to everyone.
[Ramona] There was something in me that said,
"Something's just not right with him."
He was very possessive with Ann.
He was always there.
When we went shopping, he had to go.
And Ann wouldn't say anything about that.
To me, that was the beginning of,
I don't know, what is this man really like?
And I really
was concerned about what was happening.
[Kathy] I always thought that
he considered himself a ladies man.
[Ramona] He would say some inappropriate things,
some derogatory things...
about women.
"Oh, that one's got a good body.
She would be a nice one to get into bed."
Then I would just kind of sit there like,
"Why'd he say that?"
[Marshall speaking]
[Ann speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
There was absolutely no doubt in my mind
he was unfaithful to Mom over the years.
Mom just didn't see it.
He came home from work one day,
and he said that he had stopped
to help this lady change a tire.
And he was bragging to me
about having sex with this lady.
I was like, "Why are you telling me this stuff?"
You know, I don't even know what to say, didn't know who to tell.
You know, abuse isn't always coming in with a black eye.
Abuse is, um,
a lot of different things.
And he was a very abusive person.
[Ramona] Sometimes he would bring
his children down to the house,
and he would make them
literally fight in front of us.
And I'm talking physically fight.
Even when they would start crying,
he would push them back together,
and he would laugh about it.
And that's kind of when we started thinkin',
"This is just not right."
[Jimmy] He was very bad
when it came to threatening people.
You know, he told my sister,
I would take you out back and bury you
if you told anybody about the things that he did.
She ran away multiple times.
She was sleeping on the street somewhere.
Mom didn't understand what was going on.
And I guess, at that point,
I wasn't man enough to tell her.
I think Mom was just naive.
It's almost like he had a double life
that Mom was not aware of.
[Ann speaking]
[narrator] In the spring of 1986,
Ann and Marshall Metz
buy a new house in the suburbs.
[Ann speaking]
[narrator] Ann's son Jimmy,
sister Ramona, and best friend Kathy
stopped by regularly to lend a helping hand.
[Kathy] They were very happy with that house,
and oh, my, they took such good care of it.
[Ann speaking]
[Kathy] Marshall made the outside look so good,
and Ann was
such a stickler.
Nothing looked out of place.
[Ann laughing]
[Ramona] It just felt
great to go there. Very homey.
Very family-oriented.
Their relationship, at that time,
in front of me and my husband
was very good.
I thought they seemed to be happy, normal.
But then,
as you think back on things,
you realize that
some of the things weren't what you thought they were.
[Jimmy] You know, there were so many bad things
that he did over the years.
Um, cheating on Mom, abusing people.
All I wanted to do was get out.
Cindy came into my life at a very young age.
We were together right out of high school,
and I felt like
I was kind of safe.
And it's one of those things like,
"Jeez, I just want to forget all this crap ever happened."
Cindy and I purchased a house
up in Yellow Springs,
and we were preparing to move in.
[Cindy speaking]
[Ann speaking]
[Jimmy] Marshall, he's up helping me work, yeah.
[Ann speaking]
[Jimmy] In my mind, I was like, "Okay,
I want this to be good for my wife.
So let me figure out the best way to do this."
And it was just to
be at arm's length,
but still have a father, if you will.
[Ann speaking]
Two years after we had got married,
Cindy was pregnant.
February 2nd, 1988,
Shannon was born.
She was our little groundhog baby.
Let's go for a ride.
My youngest daughter, Franki, was born
September 15th, 1990.
[Ann speaking]
And Mom, she was just on cloud nine.
[Ann speaking]
Everything to do with my children,
my mom had a piece of it.
[Ann speaking]
-Huh? -[Shannon giggling]
She was the most amazing grandmother
that anyone could ever have.
Gram is holding
Franki and myself,
and we're sitting on her lap.
She leans over and she gives me
a really aggressive, adorable kiss,
which is something that
I'm realizing now I do to my own daughter.
[Kathy speaking]
You're not abusing your grandma, are you?
[Ann speaking]
[Shannon speaking]
[Ann speaking]
[Shannon] She fell in love with box turtles
when she found one in her driveway.
[Ann speaking]
[Shannon speaking]
[Ann speaking]
I distinctly remember that being
such fun time with Gram
because we would be, you know,
in the backyard together,
playing with the turtles, talking.
[Ann speaking]
[Shannon speaking]
[Ann speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[Ann speaking]
[Shannon] Granddad,
he really was just there.
And he's not a definitive point of my childhood.
We just weren't aware
that he had a history of
not being a great person.
[baby fussing]
I would say that I loved him,
but it was never the same relationship
that I had with Gram.
And he usually, you know, came to events
and he did things, but, um,
just not with that same level of impact.
Seeing Marshall sitting back in the corner like that,
kind of behind, uh,
not necessarily up in the action,
was usually what he did
when we had functions like this.
It's almost like you would look at him
and you would think,
he can't wait for us to just leave.
[Ramona] He would use his mood
or a sickness, as he would call it, or whatever,
to be manipulative towards
what we wanted to do.
[Jimmy] There would be times
when we would be over at the house,
then all of a sudden, he's got to go upstairs
and take a nap and take some aspirin
because he's got a headache.
And that's an indication to us that,
you know, he wants us to leave
so he can be alone with Mom and control her.
[Cindy speaking]
[Ann speaking]
[Kathy] With Marshall, at first, I thought that
he wanted to take care of her.
But as I think back,
I realize he just wanted to control.
And that just drove us nuts,
because Cindy and I could see this stuff.
And Mom never seemed to see it.
[Ann speaking]
[narrator] To Marshall's annoyance,
by 1995,
Ann spends an increasing amount of time
caring for her family members.
[Jimmy] Grandma Young,
which is Mom's mom,
the big thing that affected her
was the Alzheimer's disease.
[Kathy] Ann took care of keeping track of
all of her medicines and making sure
that she got to stay
in the assisted living.
Then her brother got sick, Pat,
and, um, he had multiple myeloma cancer.
And he needed so much care.
And Ann was there for him
through all of that.
[Jimmy] Marshall couldn't stand the fact
that Mom spent time
taking care of another human being.
Didn't matter who it was.
He hated it.
[Ramona] Marshall did not
have compassion, I don't think, for anybody.
Her focus had to be on him and only him.
[narrator] The only time Ann gets any respite
from Marshall's deteriorating mood
is when he's at his job.
[Ramona] At that time, he worked on the roads
for Montgomery County.
I believe Marshall did like laying asphalt.
[Jimmy] Unfortunately for Mom,
one day he was called
into the office
and basically given an ultimatum.
"You either quit or we're gonna fire you."
I believe
when Marshall lost his job in Montgomery County,
people were starting to put two and two together
about his lifestyle,
about his controlling aspects,
about his abusiveness.
Even my mom was starting to get smart
and figure things out.
[Shannon speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[Shannon speaking]
[Jimmy] I felt like
he was starting to see
the walls crashing.
[Ann speaking]
[Jimmy] And in my mind, he's thinkin',
"I have to do something to put a halt on this."
And he told Mom
he was having mental issues.
Most of us close to him
realized that it was all baloney.
And that was what I felt
was another one of his manipulating ways
to control Mom,
because it required Mom,
you know, to be there to take care of him.
[Ramona] That's when I really kind of thought,
he's showing his dark side now.
Something's wrong now.
[Jimmy] He was abusing her mentally
like he did us
and everybody else he was associated with.
[Ann speaking]
Marshall was acting more strange than usual.
He was becoming
very reclusive.
[Kathy] Ann told me that she would go home after dark
and he'd be sitting in the living room
with no lights on,
laying back in the recliner.
[Jimmy] I didn't even care,
to be honest with you.
You know, that's a sorry statement
to say that about your father,
but that's the truth.
In 2004, Cindy and I decided
to start our own business
called Allcool Refrigerant Reclaim.
Mom, she was so proud of us for doing that.
One of the things I needed
was a large processing tank.
It cost $12,500.
Never
ever
had
the intention of asking Mom for money.
But she says to me, "I want to buy you that tank."
Marshall was just furious about that.
I believe that it caused a really big rift
between Marshall and Ann.
He never really let it go.
[narrator] Despite her relationship problems,
Ann finds solace in her love for her granddaughters.
[Shannon] Franki graduated high school in 2008.
Uncle Pat couldn't come up on the bleachers
because, um, of his cancer.
And so he needed to sit down on the floor level.
And Gram was gonna sit down there with him.
And I remember Granddad getting really irritated.
[Jimmy] He just acted like a child.
And he was just mad, and he left.
He left them there.
This was something that
he had never done before.
He had never
put Mom in a situation
to where she had to choose,
um, between him and or her grandchildren,
and she was furious about that.
Everything started going really downhill
after Franki's graduation.
[line ringing]
[Ramona] Ann would call me crying.
And, uh... But she wouldn't really get into the reason,
just that her and Marshall were
having problems.
I started to really
worry about her.
[Kathy] The following week, Marshall
called Pat and left a message
telling him that he was
the reason for all of his and Ann's problems.
[Jimmy] Then it turned into more threats
to where he's calling the shop
and threatening my life.
He said he was gonna shoot me and kill me.
[Marshall speaking]
[Ann speaking]
[Shannon] I remember being scared
and confused
because this was new information to me.
I did not know this part of his personality.
So it was suddenly like
trying to put
two completely different people together.
You know, this granddad that I'd always had,
and then this, essentially, monster.
[Jimmy] Things were getting bad.
So I had called Mom the next day
and talked to her. And I said,
"Mom, you need to get out of there, and you need to stay away."
Ann was afraid
with him having guns
that he would hurt her or some of her family.
She told me she was gonna go
and search
and find all the guns in the house
and get them out of there.
I was afraid that he might catch her.
[Jimmy] She was more concerned about the handguns
versus the long rifle.
I want to say it was five handguns.
She threw them out the back window
while he was sleepin'.
She brought them up to me.
I told her that she missed one.
And she argued with me, and she said,
"No, I got them all." I said, "Nope, you missed one."
[Kathy] Ann came to stay with me.
I live in a secured building,
so I knew he couldn't get in.
But...
it was frightening to go out the door,
because he knew where I lived.
He'd been there several times.
[phone ringing]
[Kathy] Marshall would call and leave
all kinds of nasty messages
and threaten us both.
He wanted his money and his guns.
If they weren't threatening calls,
they were calling, apologizing, saying,
"Please forgive me, come back."
And unfortunately for Mom,
every time that,
you know, you got the apology call,
she fell into it.
[Kathy] She was
concerned for him
and felt bad for him
that he was by hisself.
She went and took him to the doctor
because he didn't have any other way to get there.
She wasn't making the best decisions for herself
because of his control over her
and his pull over her.
[narrator] Ann returns to the house several times.
Including on September 29th, 2009.
[Ann speaking]
[Shannon] Gram was going back to the house for turtles.
They're pretty self-sufficient but they still need to be...
Their water needs to be changed,
and they still need to be fed every few days.
[Ann speaking]
[Kathy] I told her I was scared for her
to go back.
I worried about her the whole time.
As she told me,
she said, "I've got my phone right on my side,
um,
and I leave it on all the time."
We had coffee together.
And I left to go to work. [chuckles softly]
And told her I'd see her later.
[line ringing]
[officer speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Marshall speaking]
[officer speaking]
[man] When officers arrived on scene,
uh, they located Marshall Metz on the front porch.
He told the uniformed officers
that his wife had been shot accidentally
and that she was inside.
When the uniformed officers entered the residence,
they found a rifle that was
laying on the couch to the right.
Also, a semi-automatic handgun
with the magazine removed laying on the table.
As they proceeded further into the residence,
they saw the victim.
She had a blanket covering her.
They removed the blanket and saw two bullet holes,
one on each side of her chest.
[narrator] While Marshall Metz is questioned,
Ann is rushed to the hospital.
[Mark] Unfortunately, Ann was pronounced dead shortly after,
um, we arrived at the hospital.
[Jimmy] I was actually in the shop, um,
pumping disposables.
I can see myself doing it right now.
And Cindy called me
and said, "Hey, um,
your mom's in the hospital and you need to come in."
I could feel it in my heart
that something bad had happened.
And we got the girls in there.
We had Phyllis come in.
Uh, Kathy came in.
[Shannon] My dad and my mom are there
with a police officer.
And they told me
that Gram
was dead, that she was gone.
I also remember asking where Granddad was,
and that's when I found out that he shot her.
I started screaming.
I started talking about how I was going to kill him.
I remember them, like, trying to ground me
and me stopping,
but still being, you know, hysterical.
[Jimmy] Mom was a good lady.
She would do anything to help people.
She would do anything to help a neighbor.
And, uh,
it just breaks my heart
that she's not here.
[narrator] Having complained of chest pains,
Marshall is also taken to the hospital
under police guard.
[Mark] Marshall stated that him and Ann
had been married for some time.
They are currently separated,
but that she had come over to feed her box turtles.
While they were speaking,
they got into an argument.
The argument became heated.
Marshall said that Ann had pulled a handgun from a drawer
and that Marshall then tried to get
the gun away from Ann.
The gun went off.
Ann grabbed the rifle.
They then struggled over the rifle,
and Ann had fallen to the ground at that point.
He then, uh, covered her with a blanket
and then waited an hour to call 911.
To wait an hour when literally seconds and minutes
matter for someone's survival
is exceedingly suspicious.
It makes it much more look like a homicide
than it would an accidental shooting.
[Ann speaking]
[Kathy] I knew when he said,
you know, they wrestled over the gun,
it was a bunch of...
malarkey.
It was all his story made up to make him
look like he was
defending hisself.
It's just hard to believe that
he would do that to Ann,
as cold as he did it,
and then covering her up...
and waiting for her to die.
It's nothing but evil.
[Ramona] He lets her lay on the floor
for an hour?
It was just horrible.
How could you let her lay there?
How could you let her...
just lay there?
[voice shaking] I'm sorry.
[narrator] The following morning,
detectives review the forensics report.
[Mark] When a firearm is discharged,
a round comes out.
But behind that round is gases,
um, unburned gunpowder.
So at close contact,
those gases and particles go out
and will burn the human skin,
it will burn clothing.
Marshall indicated that
the rounds struck Ann during their struggle,
but Ann did not have any of those
powder burns on her clothing or on her skin.
That would indicate
that Marshall was several feet away, at least,
when the rounds were discharged.
Marshall's version of events
was simply, was not true.
We obtained an arrest warrant
for Marshall
for first-degree murder, second-degree murder,
and the warrant was served on Marshall.
It was difficult to not look at the facts of the case
and not reach the conclusion that it was a purposeful act,
but there wasn't really a lot of
known information as far as this being a premeditated act or not.
[narrator] The lack of proof of premeditation
could mean the difference between a life sentence
and as little as 15 years imprisonment.
There's no doubt in my mind
he knew what he was gonna do, period.
And he was not gonna get away with that.
[Mark] I believe that when Ann arrived at the house
that Marshall had every intention of
shooting her and killing her that day.
But we needed evidence.
[phone ringing]
[Mark] A few days after the incident, there was
an unexpected turn of events.
Detectives received a phone call
from Marshall's financial advisor.
He stated that Marshall called him
the day before the homicide
and wanted his 401k cashed out.
So the financial advisor
closed the account and a check was
put in the mail for
around $14,000.
If you look at a plan that he would have,
he'd probably need money.
He needed a lawyer.
So that was our big breakthrough to show that
Marshall did do this on purpose
and that it was premeditated.
[judge speaking]
[prosecutor speaking]
[narrator] The trial of Marshall Metz
begins on September 8th, 2010.
Every single time
he was in the courtroom, we were there.
Um, I think I only missed one day.
[Shannon] Granddad just looked mean,
and he looked angry,
and he just looked completely different
than the person that I remember.
I mean, it almost was like he exuded evil.
[Kathy] He didn't look sorry at all.
He didn't look upset at all.
He didn't care what he had done to Ann.
[Ramona] I wanted to jump over there and just
slap him down, but I knew I couldn't.
[prosecutor speaking]
At the time of the crime,
I was the elected state's attorney for
Frederick County, Maryland.
I was the lead prosecutor.
[Charles speaking]
[tool whirring]
[Charles] We were very confident,
uh, that we could disprove his self-defense claim.
[Charles speaking]
Marshall Metz had no
defensive wounds on him whatsoever,
uh, something that you might see in a struggle.
We called to the stand a ballistics
uh, firearms examiner,
who essentially testified that
the gunshots had to occur from a distance of at least
four feet or more.
Marshall Metz's version of the story
could not have taken place.
[woman] For the first-degree murder,
we have to prove that it was deliberate,
that it was willful, that it was premeditated.
I wanted to start by giving the jury
a little picture of what her life was like.
He was a very jealous man.
Marshall Metz
wanted full control over her.
And if he couldn't have her, then nobody else could.
He got that handgun, and he threatened her with it.
And she probably was trying to leave.
-[gunshot] -[Kirsten] Then he shot her.
I think the gun jammed.
He couldn't shoot her again to finish it.
And he grabbed the rifle.
[gunshot]
[Kirsten] And then he shot her again.
And then he just left her there on the floor to die.
[Charles speaking]
And then finally,
we called to the stand a financial advisor
who testified that Marshall Metz told him
the day before the murder
that he wanted to liquidate this investment account.
You could see the jury
basically just shake their heads.
They knew that Marshall Metz
made the decision to take her life,
and that's exactly what happened.
They did not put him on the stand.
The defense called zero...
zero witnesses.
They had nothing.
[Charles] We brought the jury in.
They had a verdict.
And it was guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt, a first-degree homicide.
The family just...
began crying.
I remember relief at the guilty verdict,
but also just confusion.
I'm sitting on Pawpaw's lap.
[Ann speaking]
[Shannon] You have someone that
does something so horrible,
but they weren't that person for you for so many years.
It's really hard to just
like flip a switch and it's all gone.
[Jimmy] As happy as I was
to know that he was gonna be punished,
it didn't make Mom being gone,
it didn't make it any easier.
[voice shaking] It was tough.
And it still is.
All these years later,
it's still, uh, it's still tough.
[Charles speaking]
[narrator] Just before sentencing,
Jimmy and Shannon
get the chance to read impact statements.
[Jimmy speaking]
[Shannon speaking]
He was shrugging it off,
you know, kind of half smirking,
acting like it was no big deal.
And then the judge gave Marshall
a chance to talk, and...
Such filth
that came from his mouth.
[Marshall speaking]
He was projecting his miserable life onto me
because I was the only target
that he could come after.
[Kathy] The judge finally told him,
"Okay, that's enough, that's enough."
And she sentenced him.
[Jimmy] He got life without the possibility of parole,
and he got an extra 20 years.
And we feel the extra 20 years
was tacked on
simply for him standing up
and projecting his miserable life
onto me.
It just goes to show you that you really don't know
people that you think you know
or you don't know what they can become,
which...
To me, Marshall became evil.
[Jimmy] I think we've done a good job
at continuing to remember her and what a good person she is.
I'd like to think that someday maybe I'll forgive him,
and I want to end up in heaven.
Um, but as of right now,
I don't think that's, um,
possible for me. [sniffles]
And,
you know, he is a true monster.
[woman speaking]
He seemed really easygoing, but he just started to change.
He took so much from so many people.
[woman] It's just proof that the devil's all too real.