They found a young white male laying on his back,
apparent gunshot wound to his chest.
Jarrod Davidson was a chemistry PhD student.
McKINLEY: Robbery isn't the motive here.
Whoever did it wanted him dead.
There was a note card in the plant that said,
"To my teacher."
McKINLEY: We have drug cases.
We have drug dealers.
Jarrod would have been the perfect guy for that.
ARNTFIELD: We have two people
known to be armed and dangerous.
They're good at reading people, and they're good
at exploiting them to get what they need.
SORENSON: So we search every flower shop within 90 miles.
Bingo. We've got our suspect.
NARRATOR: Every day in North America,
dozens of people are murdered.
The key to solving the toughest of these homicides
lies in the final 24 hours of the victim's life.
To crack the case,
detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline,
the minutes and hours containing evidence that can
help unlock the mystery and catch the killer.
About 100 miles north of Los Angeles
off the Pacific Coast Highway sits the popular
seaside enclave of Santa Barbara, California.
Santa Barbara is a Southern California beach town.
It's beautiful. The weather is fantastic.
OCHOA: It's got a university that's very popular.
It's got some high-tech industries.
It's a beautiful place that people
from around the world vacation in.
Although I refer to it as paradise,
there's crime in paradise.
And we do have homicides.
NARRATOR: Around 11 p.m. on a hot July night,
Detective Greg Sorenson of the Santa Barbara
Sheriff's Department is at home
when he hears a disturbing sound in the distance.
SORENSON: Both my wife and I actually
heard what sounded like a loud gunshot.
And with my training and experience in the military
and being in law enforcement,
I distinctly knew that that was -- that was a rifle shot.
NARRATOR: Minutes later, the Santa Barbara Sheriff's
dispatch is inundated with 911 calls.
There were calls from several residents at the Old Mill Road
apartment complex indicating that there had been a gunshot.
One neighbor said he heard a man yelling, "Help, help.
They've killed me."
Shortly after paramedics arrived on scene,
they found a young white male at the doorstep of an apartment,
and he was laying on his back.
He had an apparent gunshot wound to
his chest, and there was blood around him.
The victim was still alive,
but it was clear that it was an extremely serious wound.
The license that was found by the paramedics
revealed that the person
was Jarrod Davidson, 27 years old,
and who lived at the apartment.
Jarrod Davidson is a chemistry PhD student
at the University of California Santa Barbara.
OCHOA: The emergency responders tried to save Jarrod,
but there was excessive bleeding, and it was clear that
he was bleeding out.
Jarrod Davidson died on his way to the hospital that night
at 11:30.
NARRATOR: Detective Greg Sorenson of the Santa Barbara
Sheriff's Department is assigned to the case.
SORENSON: When I arrived on scene that night,
I observed there was blood splatter on the door
and around the walkway.
It appears that Jarrod was shot
on the doorstep outside of his apartment
and had fallen back at the foot of the doorway.
We had no idea where the murder weapon is.
As we search inside of Jarrod's apartment,
we realize that nothing seems out of place.
It doesn't appear that there was any sort of a struggle.
Nothing of value had been taken from the apartment.
McKINLEY: Robbery isn't the motive here.
Just on its face,
it looks like whoever did it wanted him dead.
SORENSON: I observe a potted plant laying
in front of Jarrod Davidson's apartment.
The paramedics had told the deputies that originally
arrived at the scene that the potted plant
was found between Jarrod's legs as he was laying on the ground.
There was a note card in the plant that said
"To my teacher" and had his name in very infantile
kind of printing, so a child had done it.
The evidence collection team took possession of
the "To my teacher" card and the potted plant
and had those wrapped in evidence and brought back to
the department for forensic analysis.
We had a ballistic expert
look at the gunshot trajectory.
OCHOA: They were able to determine that the shooting
would have occurred at a 45-degree angle
with Mr. Davidson facing out toward the street.
SORENSON: It appears that the bullet
traveled through Jarrod's chest,
through his back, came out,
went through the window of his apartment.
So we went next door to
the apartment adjacent to Jarrod's apartment,
and we found that the bullet had traveled into that
apartment through the wall,
through another wall into the bathroom,
and the round ended up in the bathtub.
OCHOA: According to the ballistic expert,
the bullet that was found in the bathtub in the neighbor's
apartment was consistent with
the bullet that had passed through
Jarrod and was the means of commission of the murder.
SORENSON: We figured that it had to be
a high-powered projectile that was shot.
The ballistic expert came to the conclusion that the shooter
was standing back in the shadows,
about 8 to 16 feet away from where Jarrod's doorstep is.
There was a lot of bushes around that.
So it was a good place for the shooter to be concealed.
Detectives search the area where the shooter was,
and we did not find any other evidence.
NARRATOR: The last words that Jarrod uttered
provide detectives with an important clue.
One of the neighbors heard Jarrod yell, "Help, help.
They've killed me," and, of course,
indicates more than one person is involved.
We asked neighbors if they had seen or heard anything.
We talked to
the neighbor that lived on the other side of the complex.
Prior to the gunshot,
she saw what she described as a woman standing
near the mailboxes who was wearing a baggy sweatshirt.
She estimated that the person was about 5-foot-5.
After the gunshot,
she saw that same woman leaving the area.
However, there was somebody else that joined her,
which she said was a man wearing a jumpsuit,
and he was about 5-foot-7.
The neighbors that did happen to see the male and female
subject saw them walk across
the parking lot away from the apartment complex towards
Old Mill Road, and they simply just disappeared.
NARRATOR: Based on the known evidence,
detectives form a narrative of what
likely occurred when Jarrod Davidson was killed.
It's fairly clear that the plant has been used as
a mechanism to draw Mr. Davidson out of his apartment.
SORENSON: It appeared that
they put a potted plant at the doorway,
either rung the doorbell or knocked on the door.
[distant knocking noises]
Jarrod came to the door,
opened the door, and saw the potted plant,
went outside of his apartment to
look at the plant at his doorstep.
And that's when the other perpetrator standing
back in the bushes shot and killed him.
STOCKDALE: It suggests a personal and targeted attack.
A plant is placed outside his door,
so Jarrod comes out and collects it,
and then he's ambushed.
The people who commit this crime clearly know where
Jarrod lives, so there's some personal connection there,
but it's also very brazen.
This could suggest that this person is
very confident that they won't get caught.
NARRATOR: To solve Jarrod Davidson's murder,
detectives will need to reconstruct
the last 24 hours of his life.
Investigators contact Jarrod's parents, who live in Las Vegas,
to break the terrible news about their son.
SORENSON: Jarrod's parents were obviously very distraught to
find that their son had been murdered.
NARRATOR: His parents say that they last
spoke to their son earlier that day,
just hours before he was killed.
They describe Jarrod as an intelligent,
hard-working, and kind young man.
Jarrod was a teaching assistant
and a graduate student in chemistry.
OCHOA: He was well thought of by
the students and the professors in the department.
He was working on his PhD.
He had one 4-year-old daughter, Miriam,
who he spent a lot of time with.
SORENSON: We made sure to let Jarrod's parents know that
we were going to do everything in our power
to bring their son's killer to justice.
NARRATOR: Detectives now know
that on the night of his murder,
Jarrod's family last heard from him when he called just
before 7 p.m.,
and at 11 p.m., he was shot.
What happened in the four-hour period that led to
the murder of this talented young scientist
and devoted father?
Detectives' first lead comes from a sheriff's deputy
on traffic patrol the same night as the homicide.
Approximately three hours after the murder,
around 2 a.m., a deputy pulled over a car on
the 217 highway, which is approximately four miles away
from the murder scene.
The deputy approached the car from the driver's side
and had the driver roll down
the window in order for him to get his identification
and registration for the vehicle.
When he leaned in to collect that information,
the deputy noticed in the back seat of the car,
there was a lot of firearms.
Knowing that Jarrod had just been shot three hours prior,
the deputy held the car at
gunpoint while he radioed for backup.
ARNTFIELD: We have two armed people, and, at that point,
reasonably believed to be willing to use violence
to escape.
It's all hands on deck, and it's a highly
volatile situation.
NARRATOR: Santa Barbara sheriff's deputies rush
to back up their fellow officer,
who is alone on a dark highway with two armed suspects
just three hours after killers gun
down a young man on his stoop.
NARRATOR: Just hours after the shooting murder
of 27-year-old Jarrod Davidson,
a Santa Barbara sheriff's deputy calls for backup after pulling
over two people with a car full of weapons.
When backup arrived, they removed the people from
the vehicle and placed them into handcuffs.
The driver and passenger were arrested
and brought up to the sheriff's station.
It was found that they were running guns
from the Los Angeles area up to Santa Maria.
NARRATOR: Deputies caught two criminals, but not
the ones who fled after the shooting.
They were nowhere near the crime scene
when Jarrod was murdered.
They were not involved in the homicide of Jarrod Davidson.
NARRATOR: Jarrod's parents arrive at the Santa Barbara
Sheriff's Office.
Detectives ask if they know anyone
who might want to harm their son.
Right away, they point the finger
at Jarrod's ex-wife, Kelee Davidson.
Jarrod and his ex-wife, Kelee, had
a daughter in common, and her name is Miriam.
They had a custody issue between them.
NARRATOR: Four years earlier,
they were students at the same university.
OCHOA: Jarrod and Kelee met in a class.
They moved in together,
and at the time that they were married,
Kelee was pregnant with Miriam.
SORENSON: Six months later, Miriam was born.
Shortly before Miriam's first birthday,
Jarrod filed for a divorce and moved out.
NARRATOR: The marriage broke up,
but Jarrod still wanted to be a father
to their daughter, Miriam.
After a ruling by a Santa Barbara judge,
Jarrod and Kelee came to a custody agreement.
Kelee had physical custody.
Jarrod had visitation rights.
NARRATOR: Their custody dispute was settled,
but according to Jarrod's parents,
Kelee may have withheld Miriam from Jarrod on the day
he was killed.
On the day of the homicide,
Jarrod left work at approximately 5 p.m.
and drove up from Santa Barbara to Oceano.
He was going to pick up
his daughter to exercise his visitation rights.
SORENSON: Jarrod arrived in Oceano at approximately
6:30 p.m. to pick up Miriam,
but she was not at home.
Kelee wasn't there.
NARRATOR: Frustrated, Jarrod is convinced his ex-wife
is intentionally keeping him from his daughter.
At approximately 7 p.m.,
Jarrod Davidson then went to the San Luis Obispo County
Sheriff's Office substation
to file a child custody order dispute, because he was unable
to pick up his daughter.
It's a crime to fail to
comply with court-ordered visitation and custody.
He made that report, turned right around and drove home.
Four hours later,
Jarrod was back home in Santa Barbara when he was murdered.
Jarrod's parents are convinced that Kelee had a hand
in the murder because of the child custody dispute.
Kelee wanted the daughter all to herself.
NARRATOR: Did Kelee go to her ex-husband Jarrod's house,
armed with a high-powered rifle,
and shoot him?
SORENSON: We bring Kelee into the San Luis Obispo
County Sheriff's Office in Oceano for an interview.
When we reveal to her that Jarrod had been murdered,
she started crying.
As we're interviewing Kelee,
we're trying to determine where she was during the time
of the homicide, if she had any knowledge,
if she was near the area, or had any contact with Jarrod
around that time.
Kelee tells us that she was at a restaurant in Avila Beach
an hour and a half away from Santa Barbara
on the night of the murder.
NARRATOR: According to Kelee, she and her daughter,
Miriam, were having dinner with a friend,
a man named Michael Valdrez.
She said they went to dinner, and then they
went back to her place and watched a movie.
We asked Kelee what her relationship is
with Michael Valdrez,
and she told us that they were just friends.
We asked Kelee if she was somehow involved with
the murder of Jarrod, and she denied
being involved in any way.
NARRATOR: Kelee repeats that she was more than 80 miles
away from Jarrod's apartment at the time of his murder.
According to Kelee,
she had dinner with Miriam and Michael Valdrez
between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Then they went back to her house in Oceano to
put four-year-old Miriam to bed at 8:30.
Afterwards, she and Michael watched a movie,
and then Michael went home around midnight.
Investigators call in the man
Kelee says she was with that night to see
if his story matches.
SORENSON: We talk to Michael Valdrez about
his relationship with Kelee and what he was doing
on the night of the murder.
Michael Valdrez is a ranch hand and a construction worker.
He lives with his mother on a ranch in San Luis Obispo.
Michael told us that he was in a relationship with Kelee
and can confirm that on the night of the murder,
they were having dinner and then they went back
to her place and watched a movie.
NARRATOR: Michael's story about what he
and Kelee did that night matches hers.
But for detectives, his version differs
in one significant way.
SORENSON: Michael thought that he was
in a romantic relationship with Kelee.
Kelee articulated that they were just friends.
This raised a few flags with us and caused us
to believe that there was more to the story.
The relationship to us was very odd.
Michael was at least 10 years older than Kelee,
and he had a complete different lifestyle
and interest than she had.
They were the most unlikely couple.
There was a reason behind them being together.
When investigators begin digging into
Michael's background,
they determine that he's in some kind of a relationship
with Kelee, and they're unclear
as to what value she's deriving from this relationship.
Investigators have to wonder,
could Kelee have emotionally and romantically manipulated
Michael to harm Jarrod?
SORENSON: Looking into Michael's background,
he has no criminal record,
but we did a search warrant at his ranch where he lived,
and we found that Michael had numerous amounts of firearms,
a few of which were high-powered rifles.
So we felt that we needed to seize those firearms
and bring them in and have them analyzed
to see if there was a comparison for
the ballistics that were found at the crime scene.
NARRATOR: It's possible that Kelee and Michael
are working together. -[knocking noises]
Did Kelee lure Jarrod out of his apartment?
And did Michael Valdrez pull the trigger?
NARRATOR: When Jarrod Davidson is shot dead in
the doorway of his Santa Barbara home,
crime scene analysis suggests
the shooter fired from the bushes outside.
Investigators seize guns belonging to Michael Valdrez,
who's a friend of Jarrod's ex-wife, Kelee.
They want to know if any of his guns
are a ballistic match to the high-powered round
that pierced Jarrod's chest and killed him.
SORENSON: Michael fit the description of the male that
was seen at the scene of the crime who committed the murder.
He fit that he had rifles, and he,
in his mind, was romantically involved with Kelee.
NARRATOR: Investigators anticipate positive results
from ballistics.
The analysis of Michael's firearms came back
and were found that they were not a match
with the ballistics found at the crime scene.
NARRATOR: Not only are Michael's guns not connected
to the crime scene,
detectives also confirm Michael and Kelee's
mutual alibi.
The restaurant confirms they were eating dinner,
and Kelee's phone records
place her at home at the same time the shooting happened.
Michael Valdrez isn't the shooter,
and neither is Jarrod's ex-wife, Kelee.
But Jarrod's parents add that the source of
their son's marital friction didn't stem from Kelee alone.
SORENSON: Jarrod's parents told us Kelee's relationship
with her mother became a dividing point
in their marriage.
She was like the third person in the marriage.
Kelee couldn't make any sort of
decision without getting her mother involved.
And from Jarrod's perspective, his mother-in-law being
so involved in decision-making plans for their marriage,
I don't think that that was
something that any marriage could survive.
NARRATOR: According to Jarrod's parents,
after the divorce, Kelee's mom only made matters worse.
She pushed Kelee to sue Jarrod
for sole custody of their daughter.
The knowledge that Kelee's mom is very controlling means
that investigators do need to consider her as a suspect.
Is this somebody who is so used to getting her own
way that, when thwarted,
she is going to resort to violence to get what she wants?
There was a male and female seen at the crime scene.
Well, Kelee's parents, Phil and Mindy, somewhat fit
the description of the people that were seen there.
Jarrod's parents tell us Mindy is the matriarch of the family,
and she makes the decisions,
and Phil just does what she says.
NARRATOR: Detectives question whether Jarrod's in-laws
could really be killers.
Perhaps Jarrod's parents are
just expressing their lingering animosity.
Detectives go and speak with Phil and Mindy at their home.
NARRATOR: 50-year-old Phil Jones is a retired carpenter.
49-year-old Mindy Jones is a homemaker.
They live in Grover Beach just
five minutes away from their daughter, Kelee.
Where were they at the time of the murder?
McKINLEY: Phil and Mindy gave the detectives an alibi.
They were in Grover Beach, California,
at the time of the murder -- they couldn't have been in
Santa Barbara, because it's hours away.
[phone ringing]
They said they spoke to their daughter,
Kelee, on the phone from there.
NARRATOR: And their daughter confirms their story.
McKINLEY: Kelee said, "I was talking to them on the phone.
"They were in Grover Beach.
I could hear the waves crashing."
During the course of the interview,
Philip Jones articulated that he was in a debilitating car
accident back in the 1980s,
which left him with some limited ability to use his right arm.
He appeared very frail and was shaky when he stood up
from his chair.
NARRATOR: With Phil Jones infirm
and he and his wife more than 80 miles away
when Jarrod was killed,
detectives' doubts about the Jones being suspects
are confirmed.
They ask if the couple know anyone
who might want Jarrod dead.
Their answer surprises detectives.
Phil and Mindy tell them that Jarrod didn't deserve to
get killed, but they were very reluctant
to leave their granddaughter with him.
Phil tells investigators that he thinks that Jarrod was
involved in cooking drugs or sales of drugs
in some way, and somehow, this involvement
eventually got him killed.
NARRATOR: It's a stunning new possibility -- was the talented
young chemistry PhD candidate breaking bad,
turning to cooking and selling drugs?
He was a chemist, and he worked in a chemical lab.
McKINLEY: We have drug cases,
we have drug dealers -- during this time,
heroin and meth were our big drugs, some LSD.
Jarrod, with his field of study,
would have been the perfect guy for that
if you think about it.
ARNTFIELD: Investigators have to question was Jarrod
either making or selling drugs,
and did that bring someone very dangerous into his world?
NARRATOR: Was Jarrod Davidson targeted to be killed
because of a drug deal gone bad?
NARRATOR: Santa Barbara Sheriff's investigators check on
whether PhD chemistry student Jarrod Davidson
was making drugs and was then killed
by rivals in the drug trade.
SORENSON: Jarrod's co-workers and students at
the university that he affiliated with,
when we questioned them about Jarrod's potential of using,
manufacturing, distributing drugs,
they all explained to us that that was completely
preposterous and unlike any sort of thing
that Jarrod Davidson would get involved with.
NARRATOR: If Jarrod's friends and co-workers insist there's
no way he was involved in drugs,
then why might his ex-wife's parents say so?
SORENSON: It appears that Kelee's parents just wanted us
to believe that Jarrod
is a type of person that he's really not.
They basically are doing a character assassination of him
and his name because Phil and Mindy believe
that Jarrod didn't care for the well being of Kelee
during the time that they were married.
NARRATOR: So detectives' suspicions return to
Kelee wanting her husband dead.
The Santa Barbara Sheriff's detectives requested their
counterparts in San Luis Obispo County to conduct surveillance
of Kelee, to note her whereabouts,
her comings and goings.
We're hoping that the surveillance will show who
else she might be meeting with, talking with, and who
and where she may be going that could give us further
leads into the investigation.
We got a warrant for Kelee's cell phone information
to isolate who she might have been calling during
the time of Jarrod's murder.
We found that she had a few different phone calls
that she had made on
the night of the murder, and one of them came back to
a subject known as Dale Harrison.
We found that Dale was a tow truck driver,
somebody that she had met at a local church.
NARRATOR: Sheriff's investigators call Dale in
to ask why he spoke to Kelee on the same night
her ex-husband was murdered.
Dale says that he and Kelee only recently started dating,
yet, like Kelee's parents, Dale believed Jarrod was
dealing drugs and posed a threat to Kelee
and her young daughter.
SORENSON: Dale had just heard bad things
about Jarrod through Kelee.
I mean, he almost hated Jarrod,
and he never met the guy.
STOCKDALE: When Kelee has a new romantic partner,
the question is then, is it possible that they want
to proceed with their own relationship without being
encumbered by Jarrod?
Or is Kelee being a negative advocate to this person
who then takes matters into his own hands
to solve a problem for her.
NARRATOR: Detectives consider if the desire to protect Kelee
and her daughter is enough
to motivate her new boyfriend, Dale Harrison,
to kill Jarrod.
SORENSON: When we ask where he was during the night of
Jarrod's murder, Dale said that he was
in class at a local community college
90 miles away from Santa Barbara,
and being that he was as far away as he was,
he would not have been able to get down here in the timeframe
that would have allowed him to
be here to kill Jarrod Davidson at 11 o'clock at night.
NARRATOR: Investigators confirm Dale's alibi with his school,
and he's ruled out as a suspect.
Back at square one,
Detectives pore over crime scene evidence
for anything overlooked.
That's when one of them is struck by the broken plant
they found.
A detective happened to live somewhere close by
and would routinely shop at the Vons Market.
He recognized that plant as a type of plant
that was sold at this Vons on Turnpike Avenue.
NARRATOR: The store is just
a six-minute drive from where Jarrod was murdered.
That led them to ask for the security
camera footage from the night of the murder.
NARRATOR: Investigators scan the video
and spot something that may be relevant.
It's at 10:40 p.m.,
just 20 minutes before the homicide occurred.
OCHOA: So surveillance footage showed the person who purchased
the plant wearing a baseball cap,
a baggy sweatshirt.
It was a cash transaction.
No credit card was used that they could use to
identify who had made the purchase of the plant.
Bingo. We've got our suspect.
By her build, her stature, and the way that she walked,
it caused us to believe that that was indeed
Kelee Davidson that was going through the checkout line
buying the plant.
NARRATOR: What should be definitive proof
for detectives also poses a problem.
At the exact time this plant is purchased,
detectives had previously confirmed that
Kelee was 80 miles away.
They said, how did she fool us on the fake alibi?
They thought it was her in the video,
but we couldn't see the face.
NARRATOR: Detectives return to Vons with
a photo array that includes Kelee.
Perhaps someone at the store
remembers the face of this customer.
No one does.
Nor does the store sell the exact
gift card found at the crime scene.
The grocery store didn't have any
cards that were "To my teacher" cards.
So we took it upon ourselves to search every flower shop,
grocery store, within 90 miles from where
the homicide happened.
NARRATOR: After days of searching,
investigators' efforts pay off.
We track down the "To my teacher" card as coming from
Five Cities Florist in Oceano, California.
NARRATOR: The store is nowhere near the crime scene,
but it's just minutes away from where Kelee lives.
SORENSON: The cashier at Five Cities Florist
is shown a photographic lineup of
potential suspects.
One of those suspects is Kelee.
That cashier identified Kelee as potentially, possibly
being the person that came through the line.
NARRATOR: Even though the cashier isn't
100 percent on her ID of Kelee,
if the lab finds Kelee's prints or DNA on the card
or pot at the crime scene,
it will confirm detectives' suspicions that Kelee was
involved in the murder.
SORENSON: The forensics investigators did some analysis
of the potted plant, "To my teacher" card,
and the plastic card holder looking for fingerprints,
which they didn't find,
and they subsequently sent the card and the plastic card
holder to the DOJ for potential DNA analysis
on those items.
NARRATOR: The FBI likewise comes up empty
on the "To my teacher" card,
but they do manage to retrieve
something from the card's plastic holder.
The plastic card holder returned with
a positive DNA strand for female DNA on it.
So we immediately got a search warrant for Kelee's DNA.
We then went to her residence up in Oceano and did a buckle
swab DNA analysis
and returned it back to the crime lab for comparison
with the DNA on the plastic card holder.
NARRATOR: If the DNA is a match,
it could be enough to put Kelee Davidson
in prison for murder.
[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: Santa Barbara detectives investigating
the murder of Jarrod Davidson know if they can
connect DNA belonging to his ex-wife,
Kelee Davidson, to DNA found at the crime scene,
it could be the evidence they need to charge her with murder.
[gunshot blasts]
But when the results come in,
they're not what detectives were expecting.
When we got the DNA result
comparison back from the lab,
it showed that Kelee Davidson's DNA was partly
a match to the DNA on the plastic card holder.
The lab informed us that whoever's DNA is on that plastic
card holder is a relation to Kelee Davidson,
either her mother or her sister.
Investigators secure a DNA warrant for
both Kelee's sister and her mother, Mindy.
SORENSON: We went to Mindy's home
up in Grover Beach, California.
We explained to her that we were there to get DNA from her.
She was a little bit shocked and taken aback,
but ultimately, she said, "Well, if you have a warrant,
I guess you're gonna have to take the DNA."
It came back as a direct match
to Mindy Jones being the person
that had grabbed that plastic card holder.
OCHOA: Once they had the match on the DNA,
that was sufficient information for them to obtain
a warrant for the arrest of Mindy Jones.
NARRATOR: Mindy Jones is charged with the first-degree
murder of her former son-in-law, Jarrod Davidson.
[knocking noises]
Turns out it wasn't her daughter,
Kelee, who bought the plant at the store.
It was Mindy all along.
But the gunman remains unknown.
[gunshot blasts]
SORENSON: We still have to identify who is
the male subject that was accompanying her that night.
Well, to us, it was obvious that
it had to be her husband, Phil.
However, we don't have a gun,
and we have nothing else to corroborate
him being down in Santa Barbara.
Investigators conduct surveillance to see if we could
identify how incapacitated Phil was
going about his daily life.
Was he really disabled in his right arm?
McKINLEY: Surveillance showed activity on Phil's part that was
inconsistent with his original statement that he was
disabled to the extent that he couldn't fire a gun
or hold a weapon.
SORENSON: He left a grocery store and headed home.
He was carrying a large case of wine,
which is far heavier than any firearm.
So he was very able to manipulate his hand.
NARRATOR: Not only does it appear that Phil
had lied to investigators about his physical disabilities,
detectives also find evidence
Phil lied about where he was at the time of the murder.
Philip and Mindy Jones claimed that they were on the beach
at Grover Beach at the time that Kelee had called them at
approximately 9:06 p.m. the same night of the murder.
Through cell site tower analysis,
we found that Phil and Mindy were not at Grover Beach.
They were on the 101 Freeway driving south
through Arroyo Grande, California, headed to
Santa Barbara.
NARRATOR: Two hours later, cell phone records place
Phil and Mindy right near the crime scene.
McKINLEY: About 10 minutes after the 911 call,
where people were calling in about Jarrod,
[phone ringing]
there's a phone call from the parents' phone to Kelee,
pinging off of a cell tower in Santa Barbara.
At this point, we have enough evidence to charge
Philip Jones for murder and have him arrested
for murdering Jarrod Davidson.
Philip and Mindy were charged with first-degree
murder and murder by lying in wait.
In California,
a lying-in-wait murder means that the killer
engaged in a period of watchful waiting
followed by an immediate attack on an unsuspecting victim.
You can be eligible for the death penalty if
you're found guilty of a lying-in-wait murder.
NARRATOR: As for Kelee, investigators
have no physical evidence to
connect her to the murder of her ex-husband.
Both her parents claim she wasn't involved.
Still, Kelee's prior statements don't
jive with cell phone evidence.
McKINLEY: During the grand jury proceedings,
Kelee confirmed that the parents spoke
to her on the phone.
She testified that she could even hear the waves crash in
Grover Beach -- that turned out to
be incriminating, because at the time of the call,
it was made by the cell phone tower close to Jarrod's house,
and there's no area around
there where anyone could hear waves crashing.
SORENSON: She was making that up.
She knew exactly where Mindy and Phil were.
Kelee was taken into custody for lying to the grand jury.
NARRATOR: Detectives finally know exactly what happened
the night Jarrod Davidson was murdered,
a cold-blooded plot that involved his ex-wife,
Kelee, and her parents, Phil and Mindy.
SORENSON: At 5 p.m., Jarrod left Santa Barbara
and drove to Oceano to pick up his daughter, Miriam.
At approximately 6:30 p.m.,
Jarrod arrived at Kelee Davidson's residence.
However, nobody answered the door.
At approximately 7 p.m.,
Jarrod went to report the violation of the custody
order for not being able to pick up his daughter.
At 9:06 p.m.,
Kelee calls her mother, Mindy.
NARRATOR: Kelee alerts her parents that Jarrod is
on his way home, and their daughter, Miriam,
who he was supposed to pick up, is now safely with her.
SORENSON: Jarrod arrives back home in Santa Barbara from Oceano.
At about 10:40 p.m.,
the Vons surveillance video
shows Mindy buying the potted plant.
Mindy writes the card
with childlike writing of Jarrod's name.
SORENSON: At 11 p.m., Mindy places the plant in front of
Jarrod Davidson's door and knocks on the door
and walks away.
At the same time, Phil is hiding in
the shadows in the bushes with a loaded rifle.
Jarrod opens the door, walks out into the light
to see the plant on the ground,
and is shot in the chest by Philip.
Philip and Mindy walk out of
the area and left Santa Barbara, back towards Oceano.
NARRATOR: Soon after, Phil and Mindy dispose of the murder weapon.
It's never recovered by police.
SORENSON: Meanwhile, Jarrod Davidson lies
on the ground in a pool of blood, gasping for his life,
screaming for somebody to help him.
NARRATOR: 27-year-old Jarrod Davidson dies in
the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
On February 10th of 2006,
Philip was sentenced to the California State Prison for
a term of life with no possibility of parole following
his plea to murder and murder by lying in wait.
SORENSON: Mindy is sentenced to life in prison without
the possibility of parole for the murder of Jarrod Davidson.
Kelee was sentenced to four years in state prison
pursuant to the plea agreement for perjury and for accessory.
Kelee was released after two years in prison.
After Kelee got out of prison,
she tried to gain custody of Miriam but was never able to
gain custody of her.
NARRATOR: As for the little girl at the center of it all,
four-year-old Miriam lost both her parents, but soon
after, she was lucky to be adopted by a loving family.
Jarrod's parents, Sandra and Robert, maintain full custody
of Miriam and live in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Miriam is now 22 years old.
I think the daughter going to Jarrod's parents was probably
the best outcome that could possibly have occurred
for that child.
ARNTFIELD: This is yet another tragic case of a custody dispute
escalating into an act of homicide,
all stemming from the misguided idea that people
see their children as property.
They're obsessed with winning over compromising,
and it becomes a zero sum game to the point
that they're prepared to commit an act of murder.
Jarrod's parents said that he was a kind, loving,
compassionate person.
He was ambitious, he was smart,
and he loved his daughter more than anything.