- I'm Kate Snow.
And this is "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered".
- I did not kill him.
I did not have anything to do
with killing him.
- It felt shocking
and devastating.
I mean, it was
not in our minds.
We really never believed
that she was capable of this.
- They seemed
the ultimate power couple.
- He had all the medals;
Silver Star, Purple Heart.
- She told me she would be
traveling on secret missions.
- Flying on
Air Force Two.
- Right,
with the Vice President.
- But it took
a hidden camera
to detect
their real secret mission.
- We started
doing surveillance.
We'd observe them
outside their home.
- Dark schemes
and a deadly secret.
- I'm thinking to myself,
"This can't be true".
- What had happened
to her last husband?
- She's screaming
and she's like,
"Bob's dead!"
It was horrible.
- We were just, like,
in disbelief.
- Whoever did this
was very evil.
- Her son suspected
the truth.
Would he reveal it?
- She looked at me with
the most hate I've ever seen.
It felt like a betrayal.
- Mother against son.
- It makes you
question everybody.
- Everything's at stake.
- Hardest thing
you ever did?
- That was
the hardest thing.
**
- Hello, and welcome to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
Bob McClancy
was a caring husband
and decorated war veteran.
When he died, suddenly,
his loved ones felt
something was just
not right.
But what happened
after his death
left them even more
suspicious.
Before long, investigators
were asking questions.
The answers would tear
a family apart
and reveal a secret
so sinister,
it was hard to believe.
Here's Keith Morrison
with "Secrets
in the Smoky Mountains".
**
- It seems alive, somehow,
here in the foothills
of Tennessee's
Appalachians.
**
The creeping tendrils
of mountain mist
that snake and swirl,
like lies.
There's gold in there
somewhere,
so they say.
The sort of place where
you could strike it rich...
or maybe
get away with murder.
- Very scary.
- Shocking
and devastating.
- So, after that
mysterious death here,
who could anyone trust?
Dearest friends?
- The word betrayal
come to mind?
- Oh, absolutely.
- Brothers in arms?
- It's beyond disturbing.
- Closest family?
- She looked at me as if
she wished I was dead.
- Maybe no one.
- We were always looking
over our shoulder.
- Might still be
had it not been for him.
- Pretty shocking stuff.
- I don't think I'll work
anything like this again
in my career,
just because of the different
twists and turns.
- Yes, in that toxic swamp
of secret identities,
of heroes and villains
driven by greed
and lust, power.
- Whoever set this up
and whoever did this
was very evil.
- Oh, so many lies.
- Everything that you were
taught as a kid was a lie.
- This place
where the story begins
seems created not for lies,
but for love.
The tranquil waters
and soft sunsets
of Bradenton, Florida.
And though the local
sheriff's office
may seem an unlikely place
to find love,
here's where it struck
a county detective
named Bob McClancy.
- You got anything
to say, Bobby?
- I have a lot to say.
- Yes.
- How many hours do we have
left on the tape?
- A funny man...
- Welcome to
Pasquale's kitchen.
- ...and very kind,
said his nieces.
Not just to people.
- We'd be so excited
to go over there to see,
like, what new animal he got
or, you know, like,
he would be like,
"Oh, I got a new bird.
"Come over and see it."
- Give me a kiss.
- He had got us, um,
little turtles
as, um, kids.
- He was a real animal guy,
wasn't he?
- He was. Yes.
- Loved animals.
- Say hi, Kristen.
- Hi.
- Loved his nieces, too.
- He used to take us out
on the boat.
He just always
took care of us.
- Just like he took care
of his sister, Kathy,
when they were kids.
- It was always, like,
the two of us doing everything,
you know.
- Causing havoc?
- As a sheriff's deputy,
said his sister, Kathy,
he once faced down
a violent gang.
- They had knocked him
to the ground
and took his gun
and everything
and beat him up.
As a matter of fact,
I believe
that they fired a shot,
but it missed.
- So he barely made it
through that one?
- Yeah.
- His marriage
couldn't take it.
And Bob McClancy
sought love elsewhere.
And then, a southern belle
at the sheriff's department,
an aloof secretary
known as the office whiz,
caught his eye.
Her name was Martha Ann.
- Was he crazy
about Martha Ann?
- Yes, he was. Yeah.
- He was really smitten?
How close were
the two of them?
Could you tell that?
- Very.
- They seemed very close.
- Very much in love.
- Martha Ann had two sons.
- I always respected
my mom.
- She, um, was very charming,
highly intelligent.
- Sean was adopted as a baby,
met Jen as a teenager,
and she became his wife.
Where Sean was from
was not discussed at home.
But then, he had Martha Ann,
the only mother he'd ever known.
- A mother is the-the sun
and the moon and the stars
to a little kid.
Did it feel like she was?
- I was always told
since a young age
that the only people
you can trust completely
are your parents.
- In the mid-90s,
Sean's mom, Martha Ann,
was going through
a painful divorce
and then fell for
the detective, Bob.
- Bob was
very down to earth,
and he taught me
a lot of things.
- Like what?
- How to be a man.
How to be a real person.
- Sounds like you liked Bob.
- I liked Bob a lot.
- In 1995, Bob and Martha Ann
got married.
And on holidays,
Bob's sister, Cathy
got closer to Martha Ann.
- We'd go out shopping.
That was our big
Thanksgiving.
You know,
Bobby would stay home
and the girls would just
take off and go shopping.
- Bob and Martha Ann
retired in the late '90s,
left Florida, and bought
a big secluded hillside cabin
in Coker Creek,
Eastern Tennessee,
in the shadow
of the Smoky Mountains,
not far from where
Martha Ann grew up.
By then, Sean and Jen
had their own family
and visited
from time to time.
- Bob especially would--
- Oh, yeah.
- ...treat our kids great.
- He was fond of them?
- He was the real deal.
- Martha Ann
went back to work.
A county job,
she loved numbers.
And they made time
for friends, too,
like Debbie Hartman.
- We met at church,
Bob and Martha Ann
just became
very dear friends.
- In Martha Ann,
Debbie found her soulmate.
- She was what
I would refer to as
the quintessential
southern lady.
She was like
a sister to me.
We had the same type
of-of upbringing,
the same type of morals.
We had fun together.
We enjoyed, um,
sharing recipes together.
We just were
very, very close.
- Over the years,
they shared cookouts,
road trips, church events.
- Just like two peas
from the same pod.
- And you could just see,
said Debbie,
how much Bob and Martha Ann
loved each other.
- Never once
did I hear them argue
or have a sour word
against one another.
Never. Just very loving.
The perfect couple.
- And then, May 2006,
when Martha Ann was at work,
a family friend stopped by
to see Bob at home.
And in front of him,
well, he called 911.
- Martha Ann got home,
then called for
her friend, Debbie.
- And she's screaming
and she's like, "Bob's dead!"
And I'm like, "Bob's dead?
- Coming up, what had happened
to Bob McClancy?
- And next thing you know,
the sheriff comes out
and I'm like,
"What in the world's going on?"
And she's like,
"I don't know".
**
- It was
the 15th of May 2006,
in Coker Creek,
Eastern Tennessee, 5PM.
Bob McClancy,
56 years old,
was lying in
his favorite recliner.
The caller, a family friend,
said the body was already cold.
The friend hung up and
waited for first responders.
- I was a detective.
I'd been a detective
for almost a year.
- Travis Jones,
then a detective
with the Monroe County
Sheriff's Department,
was one of the first
to go into the house.
- What'd you see
when you got there?
- I found, um, Robert McClancy,
uh, in a recliner.
He had a pistol in one hand,
an empty bottle of pills
in the other hand.
- Have you ever seen
such a thing before?
- No.
- The gun hadn't been fired,
but there were pills strewn
all over
Bob McClancy's body.
A white foam around his mouth
pointed to an overdose.
And a do not resuscitate order
signed by Bob McClancy
and left in the kitchen,
said he wanted to die.
- Did you see this, uh,
do not resuscitate order?
- I did.
- It looked like suicide.
And Martha Ann had to
spread the dreadful news
to Bob's sister
and nieces in Florida.
When you got the call,
and what does it-- what
does it do to ya to hear that
about somebody you're
so close to?
- We were just, like,
in disbelief.
- It's like a nightmare.
- Yeah.
- Shocking.
- Can't imagine?
- When she told me
he took an overdose
and killed himself.
- Do you still
remember that moment?
- Yes, I do.
You know, it affected me
quite a while.
- Sean, too,
was grief stricken
when he heard about
his step-dad's death.
- It must come as a shock.
- I think I cried
for ten hours
driving from Florida
to Tennessee.
I couldn't believe we lost
such a great man.
- But shocking as it was,
to those who knew
Bob intimately,
it was not
a complete surprise. Why?
Four letters: PTSD,
post-traumatic stress disorder.
Back when the Vietnam War
was sinking into
its bloody depths,
Bob volunteered to go
as a Marine.
It took its toll,
as did life-threatening
incidents
during his police career.
Bob had been
on heavy medications
but still suffered flashbacks,
nightmares, depression.
- He said to me one day,
"I'm kind of having
a rough time at the moment.
"I've not been sleeping
real well".
And he said,
"So I'll get up
"and I'll sit in the chair
in the hallway.
"And what worries me is if
I fall asleep in the chair
"and-and maybe Martha Ann
will get up
"to go to the restroom,
maybe I'll-I'll attack her".
He said, you know, "I'm having-
I'm having issues".
And he said,
"It kind of worries me".
- Martha Ann told Debbie
she was very troubled.
- She said, "I'm trying.
But, you know,
when I'm at work,
"he'll get in his pills".
She said,
"Bob is abusing it".
- Bob's sister, Kathy,
had also seen warning signs.
- How did you become aware
that PTSD
was really beginning to become
a factor in his life
that had to be dealt with?
- We had been up
for Thanksgiving
and he had explained to me
that right after the holidays
that there was a program
and he was going to enter it.
- When that all came up
that he was going
into that program,
I found it shocking,
you know?
- Shocking?
- Yeah.
I mean, he never--
- 'Cause he never seemed
like that at all?
- He never seemed like that.
He never seemed like
anything bothered him.
- Just a happy, jovial guy?
Yeah.
- Mm-hmm.
- Bob's New Year's resolution
for 2006
was to finally beat PTSD.
And in January,
he set off to Nashville
for an intensive six-week
program run by the VA.
Soon after he got there,
he called his sister, Kathy,
with hope in his voice.
He'd made a new friend,
his roommate
Charles Kaczmarczyk,
went by Chuck.
- He had told me that
he finally found somebody
to talk to that understood
what he went through
in Vietnam
because Chuck was there.
- Yeah, you kinda need
somebody who's been through
the same thing, I guess.
- Yeah, right. Yeah.
So he was-he was happy.
- Bob's new veteran friend,
Chuck was no average grunt.
He was the very model
of a war hero.
Special Forces Airman,
Citations for valor
earned in the most
daring operations.
And such a big shot,
he was invited
to the presidential
inauguration.
- I do solemnly swear.
- Chuck was a sort of tonic
Bob seemed to need.
- This relationship continued
after the program
was over, right?
- Yes.
- After they got out of
the program in February,
Bob spent most of his time
with Chuck.
He lived not far away
in Knoxville.
They did handyman jobs
at each other's homes.
- Bob had, you know,
kind of replaced
everybody else with Chuck.
You know,
Chuck was everything.
- But Bob's PTSD
persisted.
Martha Ann did what she could
to pick up Bob's spirits,
though that seemed to backfire
when she got a makeover.
- She had had her hair cut
short and blond.
- Big change?
- Big change.
And I'm like, "Oh, my God,
you look beautiful".
She says, "well, I'm certainly
glad you like it",
she said, "because
Bob doesn't like it at all.
He had a fit that I had--
that I cut my hair off."
I said, "But then a lot of men
like ladies with long hair.
"So, you know, give him time.
He'll come around."
- When Martha Ann was at work,
Chuck kept an eye on Bob.
- Chuck was right there.
- But Bob was in
a downward spiral.
Martha Ann complained
that Bob was abusing
his antidepressants.
And Martha Ann and Chuck
found themselves
managing one painful scare
after another.
In one episode, they rushed Bob
to the VA hospital
more than three hours away,
passed out in the car.
- Out of it. Out of it.
I understand they had
to stop the car
because they thought they were
gonna have to do CPR on him.
- Bob was stabilized,
and after he was deemed
well enough, sent home.
Two days later
on that Monday in May,
Martha Ann got up early
and went to work as usual.
She'd arranged for Chuck
to check in on Bob
that afternoon.
It was he who found Bob,
called 911.
Debbie arrived later
to find police cars
and ambulances
and a frantic Martha Ann.
- And so, the two of us
just sat there
and just hugged
each other and bawled
and, you know,
just cried our eyes out.
Oh, it was horrible.
Bob was dead.
And the next thing you know,
the sheriff comes out
with Chuck, um,
in a T-shirt.
And I'm like,
what in the world's going on?
And she's like,
"I don't know".
So they drove off
with Chuck.
- Investigators
have some questions
for Bob McClancy's
new best friend.
Was the veteran's death
a suicide
or something more sinister?
Coming up...
- To come in
and find your friend dead...
- He wasn't kind of
rushing around and all upset?
- No, he was calm,
which was kind of suspicious.
- Maybe you've got
a crime here?
- Yes.
**
- Martha Ann was a mess.
Her husband, Bob,
dead of an overdose
of PTSD medications,
and she couldn't even
get back into her own house.
So her best friend, Debbie,
and her husband took her in.
- And, you know,
the three of us just,
you know, "Why?"
What happened?"
You know, crying,
you know, all night long,
just sobbing and in disbelief
that-that Bob was gone.
- To be there for my Mom,
I left immediately
and drove through
the night.
- And Sean was filled
with a flood of sorrow
and guilt that he hadn't been
there for his step-dad, Bob,
as Bob had been there
for him.
- Bob took care of me
every day.
- That'll make you feel close
to a person.
- It did.
- Debbie tried in vain
to ease Martha Ann's grief.
- I would bring up,
you know,
fun things that we had done
with Bob.
- You'd have a cry
about it?
- It it would be, like,
and now we're not gonna
have that anymore.
You know,
and then I'd start bawling,
and of course,
then she'd start
bawling with me.
- And to make it even worse,
Bob's best friend, Chuck,
had been taken away
by sheriff's deputies.
And so Debbie watched
as Martha Ann tried to cope
with her own sorrow
as she planned
her husband's funeral.
Anxious at the same time
for her friend
that those small town cops
had the wrong idea about Chuck.
- And I thought, you know, okay,
this was Bob's best buddy now.
You know,
you're grieving for Bob,
and, you-- now you've gotta
take care of Chuck.
- A tough situation
for her to be in.
- A tough situation.
- Which was about to get
tougher courtesy
of that small town
sheriff's deputy, Travis Jones.
Something strange here,
he thought.
He and the other detectives.
So they held Chuck
for questioning.
For one thing,
why was he so cool?
His best buddy
was lying there dead.
He wasn't kind of
rushing around
and all upset
or anything like that?
- No.
- Calm?
- He was calm, uh,
which was kind of suspicious
in itself
to come in and
find your friend dead
and he was calm.
- As he had been calm and
kind of strange on the 911 call.
- The operator suggested
Chuck might try to revive Bob.
- Chuck didn't seem to want to
save his own best friend.
And to the detective,
that do not resuscitate order
seemed maybe just
a little too convenient.
- Maybe you got a crime here?
- Yes.
- Travis Jones wasn't alone.
Bob's sister, Kathy,
had her doubts, too.
Kathy knew Bob
suffered from PTSD
and took medication,
but she refused to believe
her brother would
kill himself.
- I mean, he could have part of
his finger hanging off,
he would duct tape it up
and keep going, you know?
- Yeah, that's the kind of guy
you talked to, you two?
- Yeah.
- So a pill popping brother
didn't make any sense to you?
- No, did not.
No. No.
- Suspicions deepened
a week later,
when they traveled to
Bob's funeral
in Eastern Tennessee.
Deep in their grief,
they met the friend
who'd reported Bob's death
to the police
and who was back
in the community
as police continued to
look into him.
His name was Chuck Kaczmarczyk.
- How would you
describe the guy?
- He was very creepy.
There was just
something about him.
Like, when he looked at you,
it was almost like
he could just stare
through you.
- Sean and Jen saw the same.
- He seemed like
a-a tough military guy.
- There was a look about him.
- The cold stare.
- Yeah.
- Then Kathy got a copy
of the 911 call,
and what she heard
sounded like
the verbal equivalent
of a thousand yard stare.
- And it didn't make sense,
a couple of things.
First, he said
he didn't touch the body.
Then, he told the 911 operator
when he asked about CPR, uh,
he said
he didn't need it.
He was already gone.
Now, if you didn't
touch the body,
how would you know
he was gone?
- How do you go on after that
when you're full of these doubts
and suspicions?
- You go on.
You don't have a choice,
you know?
But I knew
I would not let it drop.
- But in the end,
even though Chuck
was questioned at length,
everything he did
put under a microscope,
the suspicion appeared
to be unfounded.
- The coroner actually
ruled it a-a suicide.
- And then in the weeks
and months after Bob's death,
as suspicions dissipated
like the mist
in the surrounding hills,
Chuck could once again walk with
his head held high.
- When we did the veterans
parade in Knoxville,
they put him on the top
because he was the most
highly decorated.
- After the awful tragedy
of Bob's death,
Chuck got on
with his life again,
said goodbye
to his dear friend,
and comforted Bob's widow,
Martha Ann.
Oh, boy.
- Coming up...
- I looked at her and I said,
"Are you and Chuck together?"
**
- Welcome back to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
I'm Kate Snow.
The coroner ruled Bob McClancy's
sudden death a suicide,
a conclusion some
in his family
refused to believe.
That wasn't the only news
they'd find hard to take.
A stunning secret
was about to be revealed,
raising eyebrows and questions
about two people close to Bob.
Back now to Keith Morrison with
"Secrets in
the Smoky Mountains".
- In the wake of Bob's death
in May 2006,
it was only natural,
said Debbie,
that Martha Ann stayed in touch
with Chuck.
They shared a
tremendous loss.
- He's lost his best friend.
She's lost her husband.
- They're commiserating.
You know, they're helping
each other through this grief.
- And there was
something else.
- Chuck said that Martha Ann
was not feeling good.
She was having issues
with her back.
- So it made sense Martha Ann
would reduce her chores at home.
Bob, remember, loved animals,
but the menagerie was too much
for Martha Ann.
So her son, Sean,
helped her downsize.
- Bob had an animal rescue
that he ran out of his home.
He had seven dogs and--
- Wow.
- He had a couple cats
and chickens and some goats
and, uh, she started
to get rid of all these animals
as soon as
he had passed away.
Then there were
other changes.
Weeks after Bob's death,
Martha Ann invited Debbie
and her husband
to celebrate Chuck's birthday;
dinner at Chuck's place.
- When we got there,
Martha Ann's dining room set
was in Chuck's dining room.
- What did you think
when you saw that?
- I said,
"Your furniture's up here".
And she said,
"Well, it certainly
suits his house
a whole lot better than mine".
- But they're just friends?
- They're friends.
They're friends.
- Still, how close
were they getting?
- I called her one day
and I said,
"Jim and I
are gonna take a cruise".
- Debbie and her husband
had gotten an incredible deal
from a friend on
a week-long Caribbean cruise.
- And, um, she said,
"Well do you think Chuck and I
could go on that cruise?"
And it was like somebody
just dropped a bomb on my head.
- "Chuck and I"?
- And I said, "If there's
still spaces available,
I'm sure she'll be glad
to accommodate you".
- It turned out,
there was still space.
And Martha Ann and Chuck
shared a cabin.
- And so we're on
this cruise ship,
and every event, you know,
they're all dressed,
matchy, matchy.
- And now at mealtimes,
when the waiter took orders,
Chuck spoke for Martha Ann.
- Chuck would speak up and say,
"The lady will have..."
and then he would
order for her.
- When guests around the table
rolled their eyes,
said Debbie,
Martha Ann stiffened.
- She said,
"My mother taught etiquette,
and a waiter would never have
the nerve to speak to a lady".
- Oh, my goodness.
- We were just
all speechless.
We were like, hello?
Do you know what century
we're living in?
You heard of women's lib?
We're allowed to
order for ourselves.
I was just absolutely floored
that she would
make a statement like that.
- Debbie, at last,
confronted her good friend,
and that's when
the other shoe dropped.
- And I looked at her
and I said,
"Are you and Chuck together?"
And she said, "Yeah".
And I said,
"Are you gonna get married?"
And she goes,
"Oh, heavens, no".
- Though she was surprised,
Debbie wanted her good friend
to be happy.
And when the ship
docked in Cozumel, Mexico,
the group disembarked,
went shopping,
and then returned to the liner
and compared their treasures.
- And I said,
"So what did you guys get?"
And, uh, Martha Ann's like,
"You'll just have to
wait and see".
Very, very mysterious.
And, you know,
it was-it was kind of fun.
A few weeks after the cruise
and months after Bob's death,
Martha Ann invited Debbie
and her husband to lunch.
- She said,
"I have something to show you".
And I said to her,
"Is this our Cozumel surprise?"
And she pulls out a ring box
that has the most gorgeous
wedding set
you'd ever wanna lay eyes on.
It was breathtaking.
- Rings?
- And I'm like,
oh, my God, this is ex--
I can't believe it!
- They weren't getting
married immediately.
But when that time came,
Martha Ann assured Debbie
she would play
the supporting role.
She said, "And I want you
to be my maid of honor".
And I'm like,
"Oh, yeah, I'm excited.
Absolutely.
I would love to be--
You know,
and I'm ecstatic for you.
And I would be very honored
to be your maid of honor."
- Big deal to be asked?
- Big deal.
- So in spite of
the apparent sneaking around,
thought Debbie,
there was something
almost poetic
about the romance between
Martha Ann and Chuck.
And maybe dear old Bob
would approve.
- I'm just so happy that
the two of you, you know,
have found one another.
You know, I know we've-we've
lost somebody dear to us,
but-but something good
has come out of this,
so congratulations.
- And besides romance,
there was so much more
to celebrate.
Martha Ann and Chuck
were going places.
They were about to be
transformed
from local Tennessee
romantic partners
into a sophisticated
Washington, D.C. power couple.
Only in America.
- Coming up...
- She met a man from the FBI,
and she would be traveling
on secret missions--
- Flying on Air Force Two
or something?
- Right,
with the Vice President.
**
- It was five months or so
after Bob's death, late 2006,
Martha Ann and Chuck
were about to move up
in the world.
Martha Ann broke the news
to Bob's sister, Kathy.
She had parlayed
her office wizardry
into a big, new,
high-profile adventure
with the federal government,
would be spending time
in Washington, D.C.
- She told me one day that
she met a man from the FBI,
and he offered her a job
as a secretary.
She was getting
a security clearance,
and she would be traveling
out of the country
on secret missions--
- As a secretary?
- Yeah. Yeah.
- It wasn't long before
Martha Ann was promoted.
As she told Kathy,
she was transferred
to the State Department.
Very hush hush.
She had a limo at her disposal,
two passports,
and with a government pension,
would never have
any money worries again.
Her schedule
filled up fast.
She was apparently moving
in the very highest circles.
She was already working for,
or flying on Air Force Two--
- Right, yeah.
Yeah, with
the vice president.
- Including travel to
undisclosed locations.
- She's kind of
hard to get hold of?
- Oh, yeah.
There was no way of
getting a hold of her.
- Sean,
though he moved to Tennessee
with Jen and the kids
and became a bridge inspector,
couldn't reach his mom either.
- I would call my Mom
to check in on her
and she would go missing
for a month at a time,
two months at a time.
And you couldn't reach her
by cell phone or home phone.
And as we find out,
she's out traveling the country.
- And though she was
clearly very busy,
Martha Ann,
along with Chuck,
carved out time to give back,
to volunteer.
Together, they traveled
the country
visiting military facilities.
They presided over dedications
and ceremonies honoring troops.
And Chuck handed flags
to war widows at cemeteries.
- Chuck would go out
with all these medals
and he'd go to
the local high school
and to veterans parades.
- He also reconnected
with the guys
he'd served with way back when.
They recalled old times.
- When I first met Chuck,
he had just started
his training.
He just fit in
like all the other guys.
He was just one of us.
- He seemed to be a nice guy.
- Bill Walter and P.J. Cook
are combat veterans
who, with Chuck, were gunners
on some of the most powerful
gun ships in the U.S. Arsenal
back in Vietnam.
They lost touch,
easy to do
in such a sprawling military.
But decades later,
P.J. ran into Chuck
at a reunion of his gunship unit
called the Spectre Association.
- So it was kind of just
good to see the guy
'cause he was just a guy
we served with.
I just assumed that
he completed his career
like I did.
And, uh, I served 22 years,
Bill served 30,
and we gave our whole life
to this unit.
- Back in the old days,
said Bill,
Chuck's nickname was Kaz.
But now Kaz had come up
in the world
from the lowest ranks
to the highest.
- So I go up there
and I talk to him
and I said,
"Hey, Kaz, what's up, man?
How you been doin'?"
He says, "Oh, I retired here
a couple of years ago".
Really?
Wow.
And I said, "Well,
what-what was your rank?"
"I retired as a chief".
I'm like, "really?"
- As the former airmen
caught up on
more than 25 years,
Chuck flashed his medals.
And Chuck says,
"You guys should
check your classified records.
The VA checked
my classified records,
and I found out
I got a whole bunch of
really high medals from
my operations in Vietnam."
- Chuck invited P.J. to his home
in Knoxville, Tennessee.
- And I personally
saw these awards
on the wall in his house up
in Tennessee.
- What'd you think
when you saw 'em?
- Oh, I was floored.
And I said,
"Well, that's-that's really
great you got this".
He goes, "Oh, yeah, you know,
they finally released these
from classification
and here they are."
- Then Chuck had an idea.
He figured
the Spectre Association
could benefit from
Martha Ann's high wattage
political and business savvy.
- Wow.
Hey, anybody that
volunteers to help is great.
- And as the months went by,
Martha Ann carved out time
from her schedule
to become association secretary.
- She was our recorder.
Yes.
She was really good
at taking down notes
and making paper
and so forth.
- Association members were
so impressed with the couple
that Chuck was promoted
to the board.
He and Martha Ann
traveled internationally
representing Spectre,
carrying the unit's mascot.
And there was
time for fun, too.
They reveled in
their newfound happiness,
enjoyed their
new responsibilities,
of course, but also decided
to live a little.
- Just out of nowhere
they said that,
"Boy, we'd certainly
like to have an RV".
And my wife says,
"Well, you know,
my boss is selling
a beautiful RV".
Well, of course,
they went and looked at the RV
and liked it a lot,
so they made him an offer.
- Right next to the RV,
Chuck noticed
a garaged anniversary
edition Corvette.
Tempting, even though
he already had
a Mercedes convertible.
- He said,
"Well, I like Corvettes too.
Show me that."
Next thing you know,
they bought the Corvette, too.
- And pretty soon
they were parading
their new toys for
their old friend Debbie.
- I hear a knock
on the front door.
And I opened the door,
and sitting in front of my house
is this gorgeous,
like $350,000 motor home bus.
- Wow.
- And it was to die for.
This is what the wealthiest
of the wealthiest drive.
It had been custom made.
- To Debbie and others.
Martha Ann and Chuck
had made it.
They put Bob's painful death
behind them and
were now a high powered couple
doing good things
and living well.
The sort of success
a person wants to share.
In early 2008,
Chuck relished the opportunity
to share with
a group of young people
stories about
his many combat exploits.
And what do you know,
when he made his speech
there was a reporter
in the room
writing it all down
for the local paper.
Oops.
- Coming up...
Chuck and Martha Ann were in for
a very rude awakening.
- The B.S. alarms
are going off in my head
like you wouldn't believe.
**
- Amazing, isn't it?
A life could change on a dime.
In the spring of 2006,
Martha Ann
was burying her husband
and great love,
Bob McClancy.
But by the end of the year,
she had rebuilt her life
and had a new partner, Chuck.
In the meantime,
Bob's sister, Kathy,
had questions for Martha Ann
about Chuck,
but couldn't reach her,
what with the State Department
travel schedule
and Air Force Two duties.
- I wanted to give her
the benefit of the doubt,
but at that time,
when I told my oldest sister
what was going on,
she said,
"Oh, there's more
to this story".
- Kathy still wanted answers
about her brother's death,
but you know how people
can start to sound
like broken records?
- I think my family, friends,
probably everybody
was tired of listening to me
saying, "This isn't right.
"I know something had to,
you know, had to have happened."
- When Martha Ann found
the time to respond to Kathy,
she told her she was
imagining things.
- Did she accuse
you of meddling?
- Right, yeah. Yeah.
She said, "Your brother always
said that you always had
"to get in
people's business.
"You could never just
let things-- let things lie."
And I guess that was true.
I don't stop
'til I find out.
- Then, she said Martha Ann
got even more snippy.
- She literally told me that
I needed psychiatric help.
I need to get over the fact
that my brother killed himself.
And I said,
"I will never.
"I will never
believe that."
- But Kathy wasn't the only one
getting the brush off
from Martha Ann.
Remember how
Martha Ann promised
that when she
eventually got married,
her best friend, Debbie,
would be maid of honor?
At the monthly meeting
of the Corvette Club
in Knoxville,
Debbie got a surprise
when the chairperson asked
new members to stand,
and...
- All of a sudden
I hear this,
"Hi, my name's
Chuck Kaczmarczyk,
"and this is my wife,
Martha Ann, and we've bought
"an anniversary
edition Corvette."
- Hang on just a second.
When he got up at the back
of the room that day and said,
"This is-- I'm Chuck
and this is my wife",
this is the first you knew
they were married?
- This is how I found out.
- You must have
been asleep that day
when you're
a maid of honor.
- I guess
I must have been.
So I said, Chuck,
you know, I was--
actually, I was kind of hurt--
- Well, not surprised.
- And, uh, and I said,
"You know,
"when did you all
get married?"
"Oh, we went on a cruise
and we got married on the beach
"down in some island."
And I said, "Wow, you know
that I'm happy for you.
"I'm still hurt,
but I'm happy for you."
- Rude awakening.
But nothing compared to
the morning early in 2008,
soon after Chuck gave his speech
to a group of students
eager to hear about his many
and heroic combat exploits.
And a story about Chuck's talk
appeared in the newspaper.
Vets who read it reacted
with outrage.
At the same time, Bill Walter
was hearing about Chuck
from another
veterans group.
- He was telling all
of his war stories to them,
and these guys were like,
"We never even heard
about you before.
"We've had these reunions
for thirty-some odd years,
"and this is the first one.
"Your name isn't
anywhere on here."
- Special Forces guys
like Bill and P.J.
didn't brag about
their service.
- I'm like, "Eh, it's just
some guy spoutin' off,
"talking trash, trying to
impress his buddies."
- People want to aggrandize
their service, right?
- Yeah, some-some guys do,
but it's very rare
around our people to do that,
especially when you're doing it
in front of
our own people.
- The veterans
called Chuck out.
- Well, Chuck went home all mad
because they challenged him.
"Doggone it, they cannot
challenge me."
- No.
And Chuck sent the group
his official military records,
just to prove he was
telling the truth.
He also told them,
due to an emergency,
he'd be dropping out
of circulation for a while.
Wouldn't be able to attend
any more reunions any time soon.
- And the B.S. alarms
are going off in my head
like you wouldn't believe.
- Bill and the others
informed the Air Force,
and then the Air Force contacted
the Veterans Administration,
asked him to check
this guy out.
The job fell to former Marine
and investigator
for the VA's Office
of Inspector General
in Nashville,
Special Agent Nate Landkammer.
- This is definitely
the case of a career.
I don't think I'll work
anything like this again
just because of
the different twists and turns.
- Twists and turns
that would end up
leading to
a chilling conclusion.
And right away,
here's what Nate heard.
- The people who had served
with him were very emphatic
that he had not participated
in these missions.
He specifically talked about
the Iran Hostage Rescue,
being a part of that,
being at the fall
of Saigon in Vietnam.
- He said he was there
for all the big-the big stuff?
- Yes.
- Naturally,
Nate's first step
was to check Chuck's
service records.
So he went back
to the Air Force
and was surprised by what
he found in Chuck's file,
not what he expected.
- His records did contain
items substantiating, um,
significant combat service
in Vietnam
and-and after Vietnam.
- Did he have a Silver Star
or something?
- Purple Hearts,
the Distinguished Flying Cross,
some very, very high--
- This is big deal stuff.
- Very high awards.
And they were substantiated
by names and socials
and names of missions and dates
that these missions took place.
- So as far as
the Air Force knew,
he was on
the up and up?
- Yes.
- Which presented a dilemma
for the VA investigator.
- So you've got really
good looking documents,
but you're sitting in
somebody's living room
and he's saying to you,
"That's all B.S."?
- Yes.
From the Air Force Service
members that I talked to
that served with him,
every one of 'em was emphatic
that he did not participate
in any combat.
- At all?
- At all.
- So Nate went back
to the Air Force,
asked them to
double check.
- The Air Force really started
poring over these documents
of the missions
and the order numbers
and rather quickly determined
that these were all,
um, forged documents.
They were not legitimate.
- Yes, Chuck had been
in the Air Force,
but no act of heroism.
Chuck had doctored
old mission records,
inserting his name and some
official looking stamps.
All of it convincing enough
he was able to get
the forged documents entered
into his own Air Force record.
- So he'd gone to
an awful lot of trouble
to lie about his service?
- Yes, he did.
- And if he lied
about his service,
Nate wondered what else
the phony war hero
might be hiding.
So he kept digging,
because down deep
where it really gets mucky,
evil lives.
And quite possibly evidence
of an unimaginable crime.
- Coming up, Nate Landkammer
would launch a special operation
to learn the truth.
- We start doing surveillance
on Charles and Martha Ann.
- Chuck in a wheelchair?
When "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered" continues.
- Welcome back to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
I'm Kate Snow.
Questions lingered about
the death of Bob McClancy.
His wife, Martha Ann
and his best friend Chuck
had moved on to new lives
as a glamorous military couple.
But were they
camouflaging a secret?
Investigators thought so,
but even they had no idea
just how diabolical the truth
would turn out to be.
Here's Keith Morrison
with more
of "Secrets in
the Smoky Mountains".
- Chuck Kaczmarczyk
didn't know it,
but he was
under investigation.
While, his military record
engraved him into the pages
of American history, borne out
by a chest full of ribbons,
the combat veterans
who knew him
were saying this guy
was a fake.
After a close inspection,
Air Force officials
were inclined to agree.
They determined
the documents
chronicling Chuck's heroics
were forgeries.
And that was no joke
to VA investigator
and former Marine,
Nate Landkammer.
- It's very offensive.
Very offensive to me.
- Personally?
- Yes.
- Wasn't he, uh, like,
appearing at Arlington Cemetery
to give flags
to widows and so on?
- He was appearing at funerals,
wearing his Purple Heart
and comforting widows
of servicemen
who had died in combat.
- Oh, but it got worse.
As Nate kept digging,
he discovered something
about Martha Ann.
Martha Ann, who'd never donned
a military uniform in her life,
showed up at a veterans retreat
and claimed that she, too,
had rank and medals
and combat experience.
She showed off
a Purple Heart.
- Several of the attendees
at this retreat, um,
specifically remember her
talking all about working
at the Pentagon,
being at the Pentagon
during the 9/11 attacks.
And, uh, Charles was also
telling people that, yeah,
she's a full bird colonel
in the Marine Corps, retired.
- And nobody
questioned her then?
- No.
They believed her.
- But Nate discovered
that military glory,
that big time government career,
didn't exist.
Any of it.
There was no high profile
State Department job
in Washington, D.C.,
no travel aboard Air Force Two
with the Vice President,
no undisclosed locations.
They were all
the fantastic stories
of two sophisticated
con artists.
The con that wasn't just
about social prestige either,
it was about cash.
Chuck and his documents.
- I knew we had a very
substantial fraud case,
because those documents
in particular were used
to get benefit money from
the VA and Social Security,
as-as source documents that gave
legitimacy to his claim.
- Chuck was claiming thousands
of dollars a month
in disability payments.
And then, look at this.
It looked like Martha
Ann was helping Chuck.
For example, on statements
she signed supporting
Chuck's claim for
100% disability.
- She claimed that
he was homebound
and he could not
take care of himself.
He would not be able
to feed himself,
he-he wouldn't bathe,
he would just be wandering
around the house aimlessly.
- The guy's in bad shape?
- Really bad shape.
He should be getting
more money from the VA
than what they're
paying him.
- It looked to Nate like
he had uncovered a major scam.
And if Chuck was
scamming the V.A.,
what was Martha Ann
up to?
Nate ran her name,
and what do you know,
Martha Ann was getting
Social Security disability
payments herself.
- Because of, uh, she
claimed to have, uh,
back issues where
she couldn't walk,
she was wheelchair bound.
- And he found out,
that while Martha Ann
was entitled to some
of her dead husband's benefits,
she was claiming
a lot more.
Together, Martha Ann
and Chuck were bilking
the government for
about $10,000 a month.
Nate wanted
Martha Ann and Chuck,
or Charles as his name
appeared in the records,
to be charged with fraud.
But first,
he needed proof
they were lying about
being disabled.
So...
- We started doing surveillance
on-on Charles and Martha Ann.
- Nate and fellow investigators
got into the back
of a surveillance van
with their video camera.
And they waited.
- We had several agents all
participating in surveillance.
- And it wasn't long
before Martha Ann and Chuck
appeared outside
their home.
Here they are,
supposedly disabled people,
but by the look of it,
perfectly fit.
- Uh, we'd observe them doing
hours and hours of yard work
outside their home.
We would--
- Strenuous stuff?
- Yes, very strenuous stuff
for hours at a time
at their Knoxville house.
Uh, watched them pressure
washing their driveway
and their house
and clearing brush.
- Bending over.
No sign of back trouble.
Lifting heavy objects.
But look at this.
Here they are, arriving
at the VA for one
of Chuck's
regular assessments.
You assume that their demeanor
was gonna change anyway?
- Well, we quickly found out
that that was the case.
- Martha Ann lifts
a heavy wheelchair
out of the car.
Chuck gets in.
She wheels him into
the VA center,
a picture that might wring pity
from even the hardest heart.
Sometimes when they
followed Martha Ann.
- She was moving out
pretty good to where you would
almost break a sweat trying
to keep up with her.
- And when Martha Ann
had her appointments,
she and Chuck would
switch positions.
- So it actually got
to be kind of humorous.
- But the couple had
only one wheelchair.
So Nate got
to thinking, and...
- Here's how Dr. Seuss
would write it:
And then Nate
got an idea.
A wonderful, devious idea.
That's true in
a way, isn't it?
- Yes.
- What if Nate
arranged the schedules
so that Martha Ann and Chuck
had their appointments
at the very same time?
Who would get
in the wheelchair then,
he wondered.
What happened?
- A conniving couple
caught in a trap.
- This can't be true.
- VA investigator,
Nate Landkammer,
had set a trap.
He knew Martha Ann and Chuck
had just one wheelchair
as they faked disability.
So he set up
appointments for them
at the Social Security facility
at the same time.
- So they arrived at
the facility, um, and then,
as we suspected, they only
had one wheelchair.
So, Charles, instead
of using a wheelchair,
he had a walker,
uh, and a cane.
- A walker and a cane?
- A walker
and a cane both.
- And a knee brace.
- Stilt leg?
- Stilt legged.
And then he was toting
an oxygen tank, as well.
- As Chuck fumbled
his way inside,
Nate and his agents
were waiting.
Busted.
- I interviewed Charles.
Um, we pulled him
into an office.
And then Martha Ann
was being questioned
by another VA OIG agent
and a Social Security
Administration OIG agent.
- Martha Ann
and Chuck Kaczmarczyk
had been found out.
Chuck was no decorated hero
and never once seen combat.
No Silver Stars,
no Purple Hearts.
Those ribbons, all fake.
And Martha Ann had never walked
the hallways of the Pentagon
as a marine colonel, much less
been in the 9/11 attack
or flown on
Air Force Two.
Confronted with the evidence,
they confessed to perpetuating
a complex and massive fraud
and fake disability claims.
- Had you or your partners
in the investigation
ever encountered the people
who were so
complexly fraudulent?
- I don't think I'll work
a case like this again
in my career.
- But the really sinister
stuff was yet to unfold,
because family and friends
were only just finding out
about the fraud.
In the summer of 2012 over
early morning coffee,
Martha Ann's best friend,
Debbie Hartman,
was reading her newspaper.
- And I'm thinking to myself,
"This can't be true.
"This can't be true."
So I start yelling at the top
of my lungs, "Jim, get up!
"You've got to
come see this!"
Debbie's husband, Jim,
is a Marine veteran.
Neither he nor Debbie could
believe what they were reading.
- Fooled
the federal government,
stole money
from our veterans.
- Is it the money
that mattered, or the--
- Oh, no.
It was the fact that they
took it out of veterans' pockets
that need it.
That's-that just sticks
in my craw.
That hurts.
- It must be quite something
to know that this woman,
who was your best friend,
hid herself from you
and conned you
all these years.
- Absolutely.
Took me for
a complete sucker.
- Chuck, too.
- He would go and present
the flags to a widow of a--
of a veteran
that lost his life.
That's-that's cruel.
The people that he took in
under that don't deserve that.
- And it wasn't long before
Sean and Jen were reading online
in disbelief about
Sean's own mother, Martha Ann,
caught in an outrageous
fraud with Chuck.
- And we found out that
they were arrested
on eight federal indictments.
- That's how
you found out?
- That is how
we found out.
We had no idea.
- It made your heart stop.
It was heart wrenching.
- Very overwhelming.
- Martha Ann stole
her dead husband's valor.
- My Mom never served
a single day
in any armed services unit.
She assumed Bob's Purple Heart.
- Yeah, she did.
- And told these veterans groups
that that was her Purple Heart
that she received in
the 9/11 Pentagon attack.
- By early 2013, Martha Ann
and Chuck were sentenced.
- Charles got
thirty months federal,
and then Martha Ann
got twenty.
- They'd spent most
of their ill gotten gains,
of course.
So before she began
her prison sentence,
Martha Ann prepared to sell
the house for restitution.
- She, um, started, you know,
boxing up all of her belongings
and selling things
and closing up the house.
- But Martha Ann was
a notorious pack rat.
She had kept everything.
Trunks full of clothes,
thousands of pages
of receipts,
contracts, documents.
So what did she do?
She gave them
to her son, Sean,
and his wife, Jen,
for safekeeping.
- If she asked me
to do something, I will do it.
- Well, and in a way, I suppose
if she gave things to you,
then the feds or
the other investigative agencies
maybe wouldn't
have access to them?
- Well, yes.
- Right.
- But when those boxes
of records arrived,
Sean and Jen dived in ravenously
to see what they could uncover.
- Who keeps all
those documents?
- Thirty thousand.
- Thirty Thousand?
- Thirty thousand.
- That must've been
some job going through
all of this stuff?
- It was overwhelming.
Um, it was.
- I did feel conflicted
about digging into
my Mom's affairs,
but I had to
know the truth.
- Then, Sean turned on
one of the computers
his mom had sent
for safekeeping.
He intended their kids
to use it,
so he wanted to be sure
it was clean.
He checked the trash bin
and couldn't believe
what he saw.
- And there were photos
of my stepdad,
Bob, deceased.
- Dead?
- Dead.
There were many photos
in there.
- They were photos of
Bob McClancy lying dead
in his recliner in 2006.
- What was it like
to see those pictures?
- Disturbing.
- Here were the pictures
that told
an entirely different story
to what Sean and Jen knew.
- In one picture, Bob would
have a pistol in one hand
and a bottle
of pills in the other.
In another picture,
Bob would just have
a bottle of pills
and nothing
in the other hand.
- And it was odd the way
he was in the chair.
The way his leg was placed,
looking back at that,
I think you could tell
that was body manipulation.
- The pictures didn't
appear to be police photos
because they were all
apparently taken
before any police
arrived on the scene.
- So you call the cops?
- Right away.
- Sean, conflicted, was suddenly
faced with the prospect
he may be implicating
his own mom.
And so torn, he called
Nate, the VA investigator,
and began to tell him
all about Bob McClancy's
death in 2006.
- He said, "I just wanna
talk to you guys about this
and get it off my chest,
'cause it's really
been bothering me.
And if there's
nothing to it, great.
But if there is, I think
it needs to be investigated."
- It's like pulling
a string, isn't it?
- Yes.
- And now the string
led back in time,
six years back to
that dismal afternoon
in the Tennessee Hills
when Chuck called 911
to report a suicide.
- It was just part of
a very complex, evil scheme.
You know, that was
the sense that I got
when I first saw
the photographs.
- So maybe this wasn't,
after all, just a fraud case.
Maybe, he thought, someone
had gotten away with murder.
- Coming up...
the old suspicions
about Chuck.
What had happened
to the investigation
all those years ago?
- It was devastating.
I felt guilty about it.
- Like you'd blown it?
- Yes.
- VA special agent
Nate Landkammer
had Martha Ann McClancy
and Chuck Kaczmarczyk
for fraud,
but his investigation
was about to take
a sudden turn...
to evil.
He had learned about
the suspicious photos
Sean and Jen found
in the computer
Martha Ann had given him.
Pictures of Bob
lying dead.
- Sean contacted
the US Attorney and said,
"I have some information
that you might wanna know
"that may be helpful
to the investigation."
- There were a lot of
phone conversations
between Sean and Nate
and Nate and I.
- Nate learned there had
been an investigation
into Bob McClancy's death
six years earlier in 2006.
Remember, Detective Travis Jones
had been called to the house
after a 911 call
placed by Chuck?
- Back then, the detective
thought Chuck
was acting way too calm,
was avoiding CPR
on his best friend,
and was staging
that perhaps too convenient
do not resuscitate order.
And it turned out
the detective had good reason
to want to question Chuck
after he discovered
a digital camera
inside a backpack.
- Who found the camera?
- I did.
- Did you, like, assume
anything about its ownership
or anything like that?
- No, I just assumed
it belonged
to the residents there,
Mr. McClancy.
- Did you think
as you're opening it up,
"Hey, wait a minute,
maybe I shouldn't be
doing this", or...
- No, it never crossed
my mind at the time,
uh, because that was
standard practice.
- Hmm, on the assumption
that what?
That there's no need
to get a search warrant
for a dead guy's camera.
- Right.
- On the camera were pictures
of the deceased Bob McClancy.
His body positioned
differently
than the way
the police found him.
They were the same pictures Sean
later found on the computer,
some showing Bob McClancy
holding a revolver,
others the revolver
and the pill bottle.
- What did you think
when you saw that?
- Uh, that we had
a staged scene.
- Maybe you have
a staged scene,
maybe you've got
a crime here.
- Yes.
- That's when the detective
decided to question Chuck.
- We took him down to
the sheriff's office.
- At the sheriff's office,
confronted with
the photo evidence,
Chuck's story changed
dramatically.
His first statement
to the police had been
he arrived at the house
after Bob died and called 911.
Now, he was telling them
that when he arrived,
Bob wasn't quite dead
but was taking
his last gasps.
- He had come home,
uh, found Mr. McClancy,
said he was still alive
and he was
barely breathing.
- Chuck said
he was the one
who staged the scene
and took the photos
because he didn't know
Bob was going to die
and hoped that photos
of his friend's suffering
might help Bob leverage
more benefits from the VA.
- Did you suspect that he
killed his friend, Bob?
- That was a possibility.
- At the time,
Detective Jones believed
he had at least
a case of negligence.
- His negligence
caused his death.
That was the evidence
we had at the time.
- If he had,
uh, moved quicker
or called 911 sooner
or tried to do CPR
or something,
his friend would
still be alive?
- He, um, let him die
before he call-called 911.
- Chuck was charged with
tampering with evidence
and criminal negligence.
- So it must have
seemed like
you kind of had him
on that.
- That's what we thought.
- But that's not
what happened.
Before the case
could go to trial,
a judge ruled the photos
taken by Chuck
were not admissible
in a court of law.
Why?
The camera belonged
to Chuck, not Bob.
And Detective Jones had
gathered the photos
without a search warrant.
In the courtroom,
that was it.
The case against
Chuck Kaczmarczyk collapsed.
- Go back to that time
when you got that ruling
and it was basically
thrown out
and you weren't gonna
get the case at all.
What was that like
for you?
- It was devastating.
- Did you feel as if
you were responsible, or...
- I did, I did.
I felt guilty about.
- Like you'd blown it?
- Yes.
- Six years later in 2012,
Chuck was a convicted con man.
And investigator,
Nate Landkammer was looking
at the very same images
on the computer.
- I knew that the local,
um, sheriff's department
had some suspicions
that Chuck had done something
but really weren't able
to substantiate anything
through, you know,
charges being able to stick.
- But to Nate,
maybe Chuck was
up to his lying eyeballs
in Bob McClancy's death.
- It just really, really
gave you the sense of,
you know, whoever set this up
and whoever did this
and whoever took
these pictures was very evil.
- Chuck had taken
the pictures,
but what were they doing
on the computer
Sean got from
his mother, Martha Ann?
Then, Nate and the state
investigators who joined him,
came up with a plan.
They'd put Sean and Jen
on the spot.
They'd get Sean
to spy on his mom.
Sean was about to become
an undercover agent.
- A once loyal son
secretly records his mother
as he fishes for details
about Bob's death.
But what Martha Ann
would reveal
remained anyone's guess.
Coming up...
- I asked her
why the pictures were there.
- And she said,
"Photos of Bob?"
- Welcome back.
Martha Ann Kaczmarczyk
pleaded guilty to fraud
after stealing money
from the government
meant for military veterans.
But was she capable of
something even more depraved?
When photos of
her first husband's body
were found on her computer,
investigators wondered
if Martha Ann
knew more about
Bob McClancy's death
than she let on.
Now, they turned
to the one person
they believed
could find out.
Back to Keith Morrison
with "Secrets in
the Smoky Mountains".
- It should be noted
that Sean's relationship
with his mother, Martha Ann,
was never particularly warm.
Martha Ann wasn't exactly
the cuddly, protective type.
- I think I was more scared
of my Mom looking back.
- Remember, Sean
had been adopted
as an infant
by Martha Ann
and her first husband
in Florida.
He said his mom was strict
and quick to punish
if Sean crossed
her red lines.
- You knew that was it.
Your life was not
going to be as pleasant
for a period of time.
- What did you, um, think
when you saw her
treating Sean that way?
- It made me angry.
- Even so, Sean tried to
stay loyal to his mom.
But now he was about
to go against her
in a way he never
could have imagined.
He'd seen the photos
of Bob's dead body,
contacted the investigator,
Nate Landkammer,
and now he and Jen
were turning up
more evidence for
Nate's investigation.
- We were coming across
all of these,
what we would call
crazy, crazy documents.
We couldn't wrap
our brain around 'em.
- And one of those
mind boggling documents
was Bob McClancy's will.
Bob had been married
before he met Martha Ann
and had a daughter.
The daughter hadn't
seen Bob in years
and she was cut out
of Bob's will.
- He wanted nothing
to do with her.
And, "I don't want you
to know about my death.
"And I'm leaving you $1
of-of my estate."
- The wording seemed
especially harsh.
- I didn't know
Bob McClancy.
Most fathers would not write
something this cruel
to their-to their
only daughter.
I just realized that
this is just not adding up,
and it just was
very, very suspicious.
- Bob's sister, Kathy,
thought it was fishy, too.
- I know this wasn't
Bobby's will.
I even said that
to my daughters.
"Uncle Bobby would have
never put this in here."
- No.
- Never.
- Nate concluded
that Martha Ann,
the sole beneficiary,
had forged the will.
- It came from Martha Ann,
not from Bob.
- Came from--
came from Martha Ann.
The will in particular
ended up being
a major part of
the investigation.
- And then, Nate discovered
a curious date, or dates:
Martha Ann's wedding
to Chuck.
- If you wait until
after you turn 57
and remarry then,
you can keep the benefits
for the rest of your life.
And she ended up marrying
Chuck in Las Vegas, Nevada,
one day after
her 57th birthday,
which allowed her
to keep the-the VA benefits
associated with Bob
for the rest of her life.
- Martha Ann used
the same formula
to claim her husband's
Social Security
disability benefits.
- There was a stipulation under
her Social Security benefits
that she could
not remarry prior
to her 60th birthday.
So, of course--
- There's a little dancing
that had to be in there.
- Yes, so they then
got married again
three years to the date
after their first marriage.
So, yeah, they had essentially
two marriage dates.
- With so much
compelling evidence
against Martha Ann
and Chuck,
Nate figured it was
more than a coincidence
that Martha Ann
had married the man
who was last known to be
with her husband, Bob.
If Chuck had murdered Bob,
and Martha Ann
who'd married Chuck
just five months
after Bob's death
must have known something.
- We really never believed
that she could be
capable of killing Bob.
- Just who would do
such a thing?
- Well, and we knew
that Chuck was
the last person with Bob.
So we really didn't think
Martha was the one
that had killed Bob.
I think we both believed
that it was Chuck.
- But they wanted
to be sure.
If there was
a murder conspiracy,
maybe a son could find out
from his mother.
They decided to recruit Sean,
get him to wear a wire
and place a call
to his mom, Martha Ann,
and ask her what she knew
about the photos.
Sean agreed.
- So he was willing
to make the phone call
and we gave him
a, you know, recording device.
- What's it like to phone
your mother knowing that
you're going to be putting
her on the spot that way
on tape with
somebody listening?
- Well, it had to be done.
- You nervous?
- I was nervous,
but at the same time...
- You gotta know?
- --you have to know.
- Nate and Sean's wife, Jen,
were listening
as the call began.
- We talked for
about an hour,
for about 45 minutes
to an hour.
- He's like,
"Hey, Mom, the kids were
on the computer
over the weekend,
and when I got
in the trash,
I found, like, over
a hundred photographs
in there of Bob dead."
- I asked her why
the pictures were there--
- And she said,
"Photos of Bob?"
- She started saying,
"I think those are
police photos, Sean".
And he was like,
"Mom, these photographs
are not police photos".
- And then he said,
"He has a pill bottle
and a pistol,
and then he doesn't,
and he's-he's dead.
Why are these pictures
in here?"
- Her spontaneous reaction
to this being
posed to her was,
"For God sake, Sean,
delete those photographs",
you know?
And that was kind of
what we were looking for.
- What did you think when you
got off that phone call?
Did you think this woman
was part of it?
- I really started thinking
that she's guilty.
She has more of
a role in Bob's death
than she put on.
- Nate agreed.
With the suspicious will,
the wedding dates,
and the photos
of Bob's death scene,
Nate and his investigators
believed they were dealing
with a murder conspiracy,
that Bob had not
killed himself
with an overdose
of anti-depressants,
but had been
deliberately poisoned.
And as they confronted
their two suspects,
one of them was about
to sing like a canary.
- Coming up,
a dramatic courtroom showdown,
Chuck versus Martha Ann.
- It was a cold night
in December 2012.
VA Special Agent
Nate Landkammer waited
outside a jail cell
in Tennessee.
Nervous, uncertain.
Inside, investigators
were trying to persuade
Chuck Kaczmarczyk
to reveal, finally,
the real story of
that deadly Monday in 2006.
Who did what, and why?
And then out came
the investigators,
smiles on their faces.
Chuck talked.
- That was kind of, like,
the culmination of everything,
knowing that what we had
suspected was correct.
- Nate understood
full well.
The stage was set for
an epic he said, she said battle
between two major league
con artists.
He couldn't know
whose story would win,
but Nate was pretty sure
the one finally telling
the truth was Chuck.
- We didn't suspect it
anymore.
Now we know.
- In November 2015
in Madisonville, Tennessee,
Martha Ann McClancy
went on trial.
- She was charged with, uh,
first degree premeditated murder
and conspiracy to commit
first degree murder.
- Attorney Matthew Rogers
was appointed
to defend Martha Ann,
accused of poisoning Bob
with his PTSD medications
and conspiring
with her lover, Chuck,
to make Bob's death
look like a suicide,
and then stealing
Bob's assets and benefits.
A guilty verdict could mean
the death penalty.
But Martha Ann was fully
ready to defend herself
with an absolute
blanket denial.
- She maintained her innocence
from the very beginning.
She made it very clear
that she wanted to speak
with the jury
and, uh, to, uh, tell
her side of the story.
- There were no cameras
in the courtroom,
but microphones
were allowed.
- And besides,
she testified,
she didn't need
to kill her husband.
- Martha Ann did not
benefit from the death
of Bob McClancy.
She would have received,
uh, benefits
through the government
for his military service,
whether he had remained alive
or whether he had passed.
- Chuck was the villain,
said Attorney Rogers.
Chuck played Martha Ann
like a fiddle.
- Mrs. McClancy
was snowed
by Mr. Kaczmarczyk's
cons and manipulations,
just as the government
had been
in numerous occasions
in the past.
Mrs. McClancy was another victim
of Mr. Kaczmarczyk.
- Lying Chuck,
said attorney Rogers,
would say anything
to avoid the blame.
- What did-what did Chuck
not lie about?
He's a habitual liar,
and that's proven
and documented.
Um, I was in a position
to attack his credibility,
and that wasn't
very hard.
- It was Chuck
who forged Bob's will,
said Martha Ann.
And she went along
with it
because the content
of the will
was what Bob wanted.
- She had no idea, she said,
that Chuck was planning
to take those
awful pictures.
And when questioned about
the flashy government job
she told Bob's sister Kathy
about in Washington D.C.,
Martha Ann
simply scoffed.
Said it was a joke.
- Attorney Rogers took
Martha Ann back
to the day Bob died.
A normal day,
she said.
- And she didn't have a clue
that anything was wrong,
she testified,
until she arrived home
after 6 PM.
- Conspiracy
with Chuck?
Of course not, she said.
- First time she heard
about a murder conspiracy,
she said,
was after she told Chuck
she wanted to divorce him
in 2012.
- And that was
Martha Ann's story.
Every word of it was true,
she swore.
- If Martha Ann believes
that her husband,
Bob McClancy,
was murdered,
um, she would say that
it was Chuck Kaczmarczyk.
He was there
with Bob McClancy
when he died,
by admission.
He was the one that took
photographs of Mr. McClancy
and manipulated the, uh,
scene of the death,
whether it was
a crime scene or not.
- But the battle
of the con artists
was just getting
started,
and the prosecutors believed
they had a strong case.
- What was the most important
piece of evidence,
in your view?
- The most important piece
of evidence, of course,
was the Mirandized
confession
taken from
Chuck Kaczmarczyk.
- And what a dark and devious
story of murder
Chuck was about to tell.
- Powerful testimony
from the star witness.
- The climax was at hand.
The years of fraud,
the money and position
and goodwill stolen
from honest veterans,
were only
background now.
Martha Ann McClancy,
charged with premeditated
first degree murder,
faced the death penalty.
- A lot of work
went into this case,
12,000 pages
of documents.
- Cindy Schemel
and Mack McCoyne,
then assistant
district attorneys,
would prosecute what was
clearly a complex case
using a well-tested
strategy.
- The old KISS method.
- KISS?
- KISS,
Keep It Simple, Stupid.
- They presented the evidence
of Bob McClancy's forged will
and the wedding dates,
but not Chuck's photos,
which had collapsed the case
in 2006.
Instead, they showed the jury
police photos,
while Sean described
the photos he found.
All as he faced
his own mother.
- She looked at me
as if she wished
I was dead.
She looked at me
with the most hate
I've ever seen
from anyone.
- At last, Martha Ann's fate
rested in the hands
of the state's star witness,
her lying husband, Chuck,
now on the stand.
Chuck began at the beginning
when he met Bob
at that PTSD clinic
in 2006.
- Then, Bob introduced him
to Martha Ann, said Chuck,
and they began
an affair.
And she began scheming
to do away with Bob.
- She made all the decisions,
said Chuck.
Investigator
Nate Landkammer agreed.
- I think the investigation
clearly showed
that she was
the mastermind.
- Turns out,
before he died,
that Martha Ann was put
in charge of all of his meds,
that Bob was not
to have any access
to his own medications
whatsoever.
- Wow.
- The days before Bob died,
said Chuck,
Martha Ann
ground up the pills
into something
she called "magic dust".
- The doses got bigger,
and Bob, more disoriented.
It was Martha Ann's idea,
said Chuck,
to rush Bob
to the VA hospital
suffering
apparent overdoses
to reinforce the impression
that Bob was suicidal.
And then two days
after his last trip
to the VA hospital...
- She told him
specifically,
"I'm gonna-I'm gonna load him up
with some magic dust,
you know, before
I leave for work".
She said, "you come
over and find him.
"He should be dead
by then.
I'll be at work.
I'll have an alibi."
- Then, Chuck confessed,
he staged the scene.
- Those photos,
intended as leverage
to try to squeeze more money
out of the V.A..
And the gun?
Chuck claimed it was
to honor the wishes
of a former detective
to die with a gun in his hand.
- I think that
they were evil,
but I think the root
of their evil was their greed.
- There it was.
Martha Ann poisoned Bob,
and Chuck was
her willing servant.
- Match made in hell,
uh, quite frankly.
- The motive?
Chuck and Martha Ann
wanted to be together
and they wanted money.
- How much money
altogether, any idea?
- I'd say close to
a million dollars.
- Close to
a million dollars.
- The prosecution rested
with a scathing indictment
of Martha Ann.
- To have your husband
die in stages,
thinking he's losing
his mind
because you keep overdosing him
with these drugs
until you get to
that fatal dose?
It's hard to comprehend how
some people can be that evil.
- But how would the jury
judge Martha Ann?
- I've waited ten years.
I was just trying to hold myself
together, you know?
- And then it came.
- Not guilty.
A wave of disappointment
washed through the room.
- I wish she would have
gotten the death penalty.
- Both her and Chuck.
- But the jury
wasn't finished.
- We, the jury...
- Martha Ann was found guilty
of attempted murder
and conspiracy
to commit murder.
- It wasn't really
a happy feeling.
I'm glad justice was served,
but I still thought,
"why did you
have to kill him?"
- Do you think
they got it right
that she was the one
primarily responsible?
- Yes, she was
a real conniver.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Chuck had already
made his deal.
He'd already pleaded guilty
to murder conspiracy.
Got 25 years
in prison.
- Does Chuck's sentence
make sense to you?
- He did conspire
and assist her in this.
He was necessary
to be able to prove the case
against her.
So when you look at that,
it makes sense.
- In June 2016,
when it was Martha Ann's turn
to receive her sentence,
she clung to a walker.
Faking disability again?
That's what the prosecutors
believed.
And then the judge
tore into her.
- The slow poisoning
and slipping of life
from an individual
is exceptionally heinous.
- He gave her the max,
50 years.
And although that was
halved on appeal,
Martha Ann may serve the rest
of her life in prison.
- I'm a firm believer
that karma will get ya.
And I think it's got her.
- Absolutely
the epitome of evil.
She was the meanest,
cruelest,
and she didn't
get away with it.
That made me feel
a little bit better about it.
- And for the detective
who believed
nearly ten years earlier
that Chuck was guilty,
it was vindication.
- The fact of the matter is,
if you had not looked
at that camera,
if you had not opened up
those photographs,
we wouldn't be sitting here
talking today.
- No. And justice would have
never gotten served
for the McClancy family.
- So it came out
all right after all.
- It did.
Took a while, but it did.
- Yes, it did.
No small thanks
to Martha Ann's son, Sean.
- No child should ever
have to testify
against their parent.
- That was the hardest thing
you ever did?
- That was
the hardest thing.
- And he hasn't been the same
since finding out
about his mom's
monstrous crimes.
- I think he had
a lot of trouble
wrapping his head
around it
and believing that
she was capable of this.
Bob was a man
of right.
He was a detective.
He was a Marine.
And he would fight
for justice for strangers.
And there was no way that
he was gonna go down like that
and be silenced
that way.
- But there was one more piece
of unfinished business.
Sean, remember,
was adopted.
- I had always been told
that I would never find out
where I was
actually from, um,
or who my birth parents
would be.
- Even after a Florida court
denied him access
to his adoption records,
he was determined to find
his birth parents.
He ended up getting in touch
with ancestry DNA,
and what do you know?
- We basically hit
the bullseye immediately.
- Wow.
- That's just crazy.
- They found his birth father
living in Maine.
- That feels amazing.
Overwhelming.
- Not long after first speaking
with his birth father,
Sean traveled
to meet him
and they now chat regularly
on the phone.
And as they plan to see
each other more often,
Sean is discovering
a whole new life,
a whole new future.
- That's all
for this edition
of "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered".
I'm Kate Snow.
Thank you for watching.