- I'm ana garcia, and this is beyond the headlines
Shattered families.
- There was a suicide note
Confessing to my father's murder,
My stepfather's murder and my own suicide.
- My goal is to find jody's killer.
There's nothing that's gonna stop me
Because I've been doing it for 20 years.
- [ana] heartbreaking stories of families torn apart
By crime.
- I'm begging you place my daughter under arrest
To try to save her life.
- [ana] from shocking betrayals.
- I never thought that my own mother would try
To take my life.
- Getting rid of her sister for good seemed
To be the perfect solution to all of her life's problems.
- [ana] to the struggle of family members left behind.
- Trying to find my sister's killer has destroyed me.
- [ana] and the long hard road to healing.
- She tried to take my life, but she didn't win.
She tried to win, but I won
Because I'm sitting here talking to you.
- For the majority of us,
Our families are the most important relationships we have.
They shape us, they support us, and ideally provide us
With a source of unconditional love throughout our lives.
There are many reasons
Why family relationships might fall apart,
But when the reason is a criminal act,
The emotional toll can be uniquely devastating.
In the next hour, we'll hear from family members
Who experienced the unthinkable, a daughter who was framed
And almost killed by her own mother.
A woman whose endless search
For her sister's killer consumed her life.
Another woman whose identical twin plotted her murder,
And a narcotics officer whose daughter fell victim
To the war on drugs, a war he himself waged.
Through the telling of their stories we'll see what it means
To live a life beyond the trauma and beyond the headlines.
(intense music)
The last person you'd expect to betray you
Is your own parent, but that's exactly what happened
To ashley wallace when her mother, stacey castor tried
To kill her and frame her for the suspected murders
Of both her father and stepfather.
- In 2000, my dad passed away
From what we were told was a heart attack.
I always kind of felt responsible for his death
Because I was home alone with him for a half an hour
When he died, and I didn't know.
When my dad passed away I became the parent
Because I had to make sure that my sister was taken care of
Because stacey just did not do the things as a mother
That she should do.
She wanted to do the fun things,
But she didn't wanna do the parent things.
For the first six months of 2003 we actually didn't know
She had a boyfriend and at the point when she introduced us,
David and stacey were getting engaged.
So it was like, oh, by the way I have a boyfriend
And now we're getting married.
She kind of forced him on us and forced us onto him
And was like, okay, so we're gonna make it work now.
I graduated high school in June of 2005,
It was david's idea to throw me a graduation party
Where all of my friends could come together.
He never showed initiative before that and he never showed
That he wanted to be in our lives.
So like for him to say, well, let's have a graduation party
It was a good feeling and it was a good time,
And then 2005 is when david passed away.
We had just started having a relationship
Where it was more of a friendship that we were forming.
He was starting to warm up to the idea
That me and my sister were there
And that we weren't really going anywhere,
It was just heartbreaking.
I felt betrayed.
All I kept thinking was, how could you leave me alone
With her again?
How could I be left alone with stacey again?
It was September, 2007, I had just started college
And detectives come to my school and actually talk to me
And tell me that they exhumed my father and that they think
That somebody murdered him and that they thought
That somebody had murdered my stepfather, david.
It was very nerve wracking, so I called stacey from school
And told her, she picks me up and she says to me,
I really think that we should have some drinks.
I'm drinking with her and I tell her
That my drink tastes funny.
So I was like, I'm gonna go lay down,
And the next thing I know
I'm waking up in the hospital.
I remember waking up to a detective saying to me
That I tried to commit suicide
And that there was a suicide note,
Confessing to my father's murder,
My stepfather's murder, and my own suicide.
My sister was able to come see me.
I remember talking to her like, you believe me
That I didn't do this and if I didn't do this,
There's only one other person that could have done it,
And it was stacey.
Mothers are supposed to protect their children,
They're not supposed to kill their children.
They're supposed to love them.
They're supposed to take care of them.
They're supposed to do anything in their power
To make it so their children aren't hurt
And they're not scared and they're not alone,
But she tried to take my life to protect her own life.
To be honest with you,
I don't know how I would've defended myself.
I had no proof that I was actually innocent,
But I met district attorney fitzpatrick and I knew
That he was going to be able to get me justice.
- The first time I met ashley I wanted to reassure her
That a, I knew that she didn't do anything wrong
And that b, we were going to prosecute her mother.
- I needed district attorney fitzpatrick to be on my side
To prove that I was innocent.
- Ashley evolved by getting literally stronger every day.
She knows who she is, she's a survivor.
- I knew I had to be strong.
There was a reason why I was alive and it was to make sure
That stacey could never hurt another person again.
- I wanted her to know that I was her champion
And that we were gonna see that justice was done
In this case.
- I only had to worry about whether or not the jurors
And the judge were going to believe me.
- This is not a whodunnit in the classic sense,
This was either stacey did it or ashley did it,
There's nobody else involved.
Ashley wallace's mother, stacey, tried to kill her
And then frame her for the suspected murders
Of her father and stepfather.
For justice to be served, ashley had to testify against
Her own mother in court.
- The difficulty with this case
Was convincing 12 ordinary good people
That a mother is actually capable of doing this.
- When I sat down in the chair to be examined,
I was scared,
Scared that they weren't going to believe me
And they were gonna believe her.
If one person thought she was innocent, it would've thrown
Everything that we worked for away.
So we get the call that they have a verdict.
All I remember is dropping to my knees and crying.
At that point, it didn't matter if it was guilty,
It didn't matter if it was not guilty,
It just mattered that it was over.
- The people of the state of new york
Versus stacey r. Castor as to count number one,
Murder in the second degree, what is the verdict?
- And the lady says guilty.
(gavel pounding)
In my heart, just, I can't explain the feeling
That was lifted off my shoulders.
It felt like a thousand pounds had just come off of me.
Everything that I've ever done since that day
Was in spite of her.
Everything that I've done since then was to prove to her
That I was going to survive and that I did survive.
- She lost her dad, she lost her stepfather
And I didn't presume to take on that role myself,
But we kind of have that relationship
Almost like father, daughter.
I love her.
- Mr. Fitzpatrick, he gave me the reassurance
That everything was okay, that I was safe,
That I didn't have to be afraid anymore.
She tried to take my life,
But I overcame everything that she tried to do to me.
I have somebody who I love.
I went to college.
She didn't win, she tried to win,
But I won because I'm sitting here talking to you.
- Ashley's innocence was proven.
The black widow as stacey became known was convicted
Of poisoning her second husband, david castor,
And the attempted murder of her daughter.
She was sentenced to 50 years to life.
Seven years later in 2016,
Stacey died of a heart attack in prison.
With the trial behind her, ashley was finally able
To move on from the family drama.
But for jenny carrieri, a woman whose twin sister was shot
And killed, gaining closure would be almost impossible.
- Jody was my identical twin,
We were born two minutes apart.
She was born first, she was the older sister.
She was definitely the stronger, more outgoing,
I was the more shy, quiet one.
Since we were born we were pretty much inseparable.
You're never alone.
We both started with drinking at an early age
And smoking cigarettes
And started getting involved with drugs.
And my parents put us in a catholic school
'cause they thought that would straighten us out,
But it only got worse.
Jody and I were in rehab when we were 17.
It was a two year program, but they separated us
And that was the first time we'd ever been separated.
She ended up in baltimore after the treatment program
And my parents ended up taking me back to wyoming
To work on a dude ranch.
So jody and I were separated.
Then I decided that I would stay away,
I didn't feel strong enough to come back to our town.
When I look back at the pictures how bloated
And puffy in her face, she was working in a bar.
She was drinking during the day,
I knew that she was really struggling
And couldn't stop, I mean she would try.
The night of jody's murder, she went to this bar,
The mount washington tavern after work.
She ended up staying there until closing time
Where she stopped by a liquor store and bought a six pack
Of beer and then went and sat in this parking lot,
White bmw pulled up to her vehicle.
Her window was rolled down
And there was some sort of conversation.
(gunshot)
(intense music)
(camera lens shuttering)
He shot her from behind.
The bullet went in the back of the car into her seat
And severed her spine.
(windows shattering)
(siren wailing)
- [narrator] jody's fiance says she spent Friday night
With friends at a local bar,
Nobody can explain her presence
In the early morning hours in the parking lot.
Police have released no toxicology reports,
The family releases now its grief.
- It just didn't seem real
Because it's just something you feel like you hear
In a movie, I mean I just went numb, just completely numb.
So many times I think about (cries)
Like the decision I made to go, you know.
So I think about like if I had come back,
You know how, what life would've been like.
- [narrator] jody lecornu died in a snowy parking lot
Two weeks ago, shot in the back.
Police investigate robbery as a motive,
But don't know for sure.
They have no suspects, the family no answers.
- We've been hearing from jenny carrieri whose life
Was shattered the night her twin sister jody was killed.
Devastated by the loss of her twin
And the mystery surrounding her unsolved murder,
Jenny tried her best to pick up the pieces.
- I couldn't be by myself,
I don't know if that's like a twin thing.
I mean, I literally couldn't even be in a room by myself.
I just was terrified.
I didn't know how to handle it.
- [narrator] baltimore county investigators know
The trigger man followed jody,
Taking something from her car before driving off.
In the two decades since the chilling crime,
The reason for jody's murder and the name
Of her killer has puzzled police and tormented jenny.
- I decided to reach out to the police
And try to get information.
They basically told us her case
Is sitting in a closet collecting dust.
I was just getting more and more frustrated,
Just feel so powerless.
I first just started reaching out
To every media person asking for help
If they would share jody's story.
Once I got a story in one place,
Then more people would get to hear about it.
(indistinct chatter)
- [narrator] for jenny, it's a never ending nightmare,
One that's caused her to lose sleep
On what's now a personal mission to invest her time, energy,
And resources on finding who took her twin sister away.
- I decided to do the billboard
And the first one we did was in baltimore.
We decided to put it right near where she was killed.
So it was find my killer with the reward amount,
And a big picture of jody and I felt really good.
I was feeling very upbeat about doing the billboards
And it just kept getting more people
To wanna share her story.
I was going into baltimore,
I was going in to talk to people.
I'd talk to this person, talk to this person.
They'd say, go talk to this person.
You know, I have this family with three kids,
And this marriage and we were already struggling.
My husband said to me, don't let the bullet
That took her take you.
He said, if you do one more interview, don't come home.
So I just started lying to him about what I was doing,
'cause I couldn't stop.
That was just like a huge strain on the marriage
And he was very angry and resentful.
(soft music)
When people say, why are you doing this?
It makes me angry.
How can I not do this?
How can I keep living my life and not figuring out
What happened to her, not finding this person?
I just have to do what I have to do to help me.
You know, I struggle and I have a therapist.
I go to 12 step meetings, but it's like being open
And sharing everything that I'm going through
Has really been healing for me
And being able to grieve more
'cause I don't feel like I truly have grieved her death
Because I just couldn't, wouldn't think about it.
I've kind of let go some
Just to kind of get myself together.
I mean, I feel guilt about it,
But I also feel like I need to try to live my life too,
But I'm never gonna give up on anything.
My goal is to find jody's killer,
And there's nothing that's gonna stop me
From doing something to get to that goal.
My goal is never to stop.
- Jenny's investigation has led to over a dozen leads.
Her billboards have resulted in numerous tips
And have been publicized all over the world.
To date, jody's killer has not been found.
If you have any information about jody's case
Please contact the baltimore tips line at 443-902-4824
Jenny's dedication to her twin sister's memory
Is a testament to their unbreakable bond,
But what happens when your twin sister is the one
Who turns on you?
Sunny han, one half of the infamous han sisters knows
That answer all too well.
(upbeat music)
Dr. Judy ho, a forensic psychologist will walk us
Through this unbelievable story.
- The han twins were born in south korea in April of 1974.
In 1986 when the twins were 12 years old,
Their single mother boo kim took them
To orange county, california.
- Mother was trying her best, she was working a lot,
But she also had a very severe gambling problem.
It got to the point where she wasn't really able to sustain
Their lifestyle and even keep a roof over their head.
It was said that mom was also sometimes abusive aside
From her gambling problem.
And so during this entire time
The twins were very close-knit
Because they really only had each other.
Unable to take care of them, boo kim then sent them to live
With an uncle and aunt in 1990 in campo, california.
When they went to live with their aunt and uncle,
They finally for the first time in their life
Had some stability and under that stability
And that close family environment,
They thrived for some time in school.
Both of 'em worked very hard
And actually graduated as co-valedictorians.
But despite outward appearances,
The sisters often fought in private.
When they were 15, one fight ended with sunny stabbing jeen
In the left eye.
There was always a thread of competitiveness
Between the twins.
Sunny was always thought to be essentially the golden child
Of the two.
Mom's favoritism towards sunny was probably the first thing
That caused a rift between sunny and jeen.
Sunny was born first and in many asian cultures
That first born status confers that authority
And essentially sometimes the favorite status
Because they're sort of the leader of the siblings,
And I think jeen probably often brewed in her own mind
About this favoritism, and why was that she did not receive
The kind of love from their mother that sunny always had.
After years of growing up in an unstable homel
And competing for their mother's attention,
Identical twin sisters, jeen and sunny han faced
An uncertain future.
- I think the fact that they saw how chaotic their mother's
Life was, their mother was a gambling addict
And constantly was needing and begging for money
From people around her.
That probably imprinted to them in a very early age
That the more they could accumulate in terms of wealth,
The more they could feel good about who they were.
Jeen worked at the barona resort and casino
In lakeside, california as a blackjack dealer
And became a gambling addict just like her mother.
Perhaps there was some genetic predisposition
To have impulse control problems and to seek sensation,
Which is what happens oftentimes when people are addicted
To gambling, but also environmentally she was exposed
To her mother being a gambling addict
And having to piece together money
In whatever way she could.
That likely also set up a role model situation
For her to say, maybe it's okay for me to start swindling
From other people just so that I can survive.
Jeen's uncle who had taken her and her sister
In through high school realized she had stolen $10,000
From him and he contacted the police.
The police tracked her down and arrested her.
She was sentenced to 10 days in jail
And three years probation in order to pay restitution
To her victims.
In 1996, the police arrested sunny on an outstanding warrant
For credit card theft.
Sunny reportedly has stolen a friend's card
And then went on a shopping spree.
There's a possible cascading effect here between the twins
Because as one person is committing a crime
So is the other.
A lot of the crimes were quite similar
In that they were financial frauds
And they may even be trying to one up each other
Because there's sort of that inherent competition
Of who's going to have more money and more wealth,
And who's going to appear like they were
The more together twin.
In the summer of 1996, while sunny was in jail,
Jeen stole sunny's car, credit cards, id and savings.
After release, sunny pressed charges
And jeen was sentenced to six months in jail.
On October 27th, 1996, jeen is given a five hour pass
From las colinas jail to find a job and never returned.
Immediately after escaping from jail, jeen then started
To hatch this idea to murder her sister,
Getting rid of sunny for good,
So that that competition would be no longer there,
She wouldn't ever have to feel inferior again seemed to be
The perfect solution to all of her life's problems.
In the end, she actually ended up recruiting two teenagers,
Who could be her accomplices.
She probably felt like these teenagers were easier
To prey upon, they were easier to influence.
They had less to lose
And maybe even looked up to her in some way.
On November 6th, 1996, john sayarth
And archie bryant pretended to be selling magazines
And then barged into sunny's apartment,
Forcing her roommate to the floor and tying her up.
Hearing the noise from the bathroom, sunny then called
The police who were located less than two minutes away.
After the police came, bryant was arrested.
Jeen and sayarth fled the scene.
Both jeen and sayarath were arrested that night
Just a half hour from the mexican border.
After nearly a year in jail awaiting trial,
Jeen han was tried in 1997 for conspiracy to commit murder,
Two counts of burglary, possession of a firearm
And two counts of false imprisonment.
The two teenagers were also tried as co-conspirators.
Jeen's defense argued that she never wanted to kill sunny,
But only to scare her and get her things back.
Sunny testified that she still loved her sister
Despite their fights.
It seemed that sunny had some conflictual feelings
About prosecuting her own sister,
And there was a part of her that didn't believe
That her sister could do such a heinous thing towards her.
- [reporter] continue on with your support of your sister?
- Oh yeah, definitely.
- In November, 1997, jeen was found guilty.
Sunny and their mother both asked the court for leniency,
But jeen received the maximum sentence
Of 26 years to life in prison.
Sibling rivalries are so common
To many sibling relationships,
And certainly this is an extreme form of it.
I think part of this is also the genetic and
Environmental predispositions both of these twins had
Towards a life of criminality, of aggression
And of doing whatever it takes to survive
That caused them to go as far as they did in terms
Of their criminal intent.
Jeen served nearly 20 years
In the central california women's facility in chowchilla
And was granted parole on may 24th, 2018.
There is still a possibility that the twins can heal
From this and perhaps have a positive relationship
For the remainder of their lives.
Now that jeen has served her time, perhaps sunny can see
That as almost a type of payment for what she did,
And maybe they can put their past behind them
And start thinking back to those times
When they were younger when they really had that strong bond
And protected one another when they had no one else.
Narcotics officer, kevin simmers dedicated his entire career
To the war on drugs.
But when his own daughter brooke became an addictl
At just 18 years old he soon realized it was a battle
He might not win.
- My daughter, brooke and I were exceptionally close,
Especially through her elementary, middle school years.
I coached her in soccer, I coached her in basketball.
She was exceptionally athletic,
But by the time she got to high school you could see
That there was a storm brewing inside of her.
She withdrew from all of her friends.
Ninth grade finding cigarettes, finding vodka,
10th grade, finding marijuana.
In August, 2013, I got a call from brooke,
She had something she wanted to tell me.
I'm thinking, my daughter's 18 years old,
She wants to meet me and tell me that she's pregnant
Which hindsight I wish that was what she was there
To tell me.
When I sat down with her,
She said she'd been doing something
That was horrible and needed my help.
She told me she was taking percocets.
She said she was taking 'em every morning
And after she took the pills the only thing she thought
About is how she would be able to get the percocets
The next day.
The only drug treatment available for her
At that time would be outpatient counseling.
Christmas dinner in 2013, that's where she told me her life
Was spinning outta control.
She could no longer afford the percocet,
She could no longer afford to buy the pills on the street.
So she was now using heroin and she was shooting up
With heroin every morning,
And I felt like my heart was totally ripped out.
So we started calling around
To different drug treatment facilities,
And it was so difficult to check
Into a drug treatment facility.
It's much easier to go out
And get heroin than it is to get into drug treatment.
I'm the father, I'm a police officer,
And I am unable to find that help.
I am unable to provide her the treatment
That I know that is needed.
Here I had been locking people up my entire career,
Telling them go get help, and all I do is close the case,
Go on to the next case, go on to the next person.
Little did I know I'm telling people
To go get help, to go get treatment,
And there's no treatment available.
But brooke wanted to succeed, she wanted to beat this,
She did not want to be a drug addict.
We checked brooke into a long-term facility
In the baltimore area.
Within two to three weeks, we get a call from the facility
That brooke had left to now she is working the streets
Of baltimore city as a prostitute,
Supporting her habit as a heroin addict.
This is truly, truly a father's worst nightmare.
I said, I've got to save her life,
I've got to get her incarcerated to get her sober,
So I can talk to her.
I sent out an email to all my law enforcement brothers
In our community saying, my daughter is in a bad way.
She cannot help herself, so I'm begging you
If you come in contact with my daughter,
Place her under arrest to try to save her life.
Within 24 hours, she was arrested
For having needles in her possession.
We went to court, the judge sentenced her
To four months in jail.
During that times when brook started to get her sense
Of humor back, she started to get her personality back,
To where she was loud and obnoxious and outgoing.
I could see my daughter coming back,
And that's when brook told me
That she wanted to have her own sober living house,
And she wanted to call it brooke's house.
And I told her, I said if you get outta jail and
You stay sober for a year, you continue to take your classes,
I'll get you that house.
I started to see that this whole drug war
Is nothing but (bleep).
And I really felt like I just wasted 20 years
Of our life putting people in jail that serves no purpose,
That does nobody any good
Because what we should be doing
Is we should be opening up rehab space,
And beds in rehab facilities, not beds in jails.
Narcotics officer, kevin simmers had his own daughter
Arrested in order to save her life.
While serving four months in jail for needle possession,
Brooke started to become herself again
And kevin was optimistic about her future.
- When brooke gets outta jail, she's 19 years old,
She's got needles on her record,
Finding a job is nearly impossible.
About two weeks after she got outta jail, she relapsed.
She went to her drug dealer's house
And she shot up with the heroin.
She started to overdose and they threw her out on the street
Just like you'd throw a dog out.
She got in her car and she called her sponsor,
And she told her sponsor that she screwed up
And she relapsed and her sponsor told her,
You need to call your father.
And brooke's response was, I can't call my dad.
I've disappointed him and I've let him down
And I can't call him again.
And she drove to a nearby church
Where she learned to play basketball as a kid,
And she crawled in the backseat of her car,
And she died there from a heroin overdose.
At her funeral service, there were hundreds of people
That showed up, people that I had arrested
Throughout my career, people who were in active addiction,
People who were in rehab with brooke,
Or were in jail with brooke.
They weren't criminals,
They were people just trying to get by, wanting to get well.
After the funeral service, we started to get calls
From people who were suffering from addiction
And asked us if we could help 'em
Because when brooke was in treatment or she was in jail,
She would tell everybody that I could help
And I could fix things.
So my wife and I decided
About a month or two after she passed,
We were gonna try to fulfill brooke's dream
And answer brooke's prayer and build that facility
That she wanted, brooke's house.
In the summer of 2015, we started to raise money.
At end of the year, December, 2015 we formed a nonprofit.
All of a sudden the entire community started
To rally behind us.
And in February of 2019 we did a ribbon cutting
On brooke's house.
It's a 9,000 square foot facility located in hagerstown.
We provide outpatient counseling,
Drug and alcohol counseling,
We provide mental health counseling.
We also do medically assisted treatment,
And we also do job training.
It's exactly what brooke dreamed of,
It's what she prayed for.
It's the most beautiful facility
That I've ever seen in my life.
I can see brooke in almost every girl that comes in there,
Or they're hyper, they're amped up, they're outgoing,
They're loud, they're obnoxious, they're joking.
- I remember being in active addiction,
Just wanting so badly to be a part of this
Because I could just see from the outside
That there was love here and I'm actually starting to love
The person that I am today.
(crowd clapping)
- The person that's a drug addict just remember
That person has a father, has a mother, has a brother,
Has a sister, and they don't want 'em out there.
Nine outta ten times that person out there
Doesn't wanna be out there.
Do something, don't just keep a blind eye, do something.
- If you or someone you know needs help
With substance abuse, call the substance abuse
And mental health services administration
At 1-800-622-4357.
To learn more about brooke's house, go to brookeshouse.Org.
By turning his loss into purpose,
Kevin was able to move on with his life.
But like all these families moving on
From the trauma hasn't been easy.
- What I could have done differently to save my daughter
Is something that I struggle with every single day,
I don't know, I don't know.
- [ana] so they're taking it one day at a time.
- I think that what I've been through,
I'm learning that I'm stronger.
All in all, I've grown a lot.
- It's a struggle every day to wake up sometimes,
It's a struggle every day to put a smile on your face,
But you have to go into it with the mindset
That you're gonna be okay.