MOLLYE: This was a triple homicide.
The victims were a retired mom
and her two sons.
POLICE: All three victims were killed
by blunt force trauma.
Their throats were slit.
BRENDA: Who would wanna murder a family
that's never done anything to anybody?
WAYNE: The way the bodies were found
gave a reasonable speculation
that this may have something to do with the occult.
MOLLYE: But is this a ritualistic killing
or did something else happen?
MATT: Richard was an employee
with the Department of Homeland Security.
MOLLYE: Was he involved in something that perhaps led him
and his family to be murdered in such a violent fashion?
FAYE: One of the hardest things to find out
was that my aunt was tortured.
BRENDA: And that part really shocked me.
[ominous music playing]
[phone ringing]
911 OPERATOR: 911, what's your emergency?
MAN [on phone]:
[sirens wailing]
MATT: On July 31st, 2015,
Richard Smith's boss called the sheriff's office
for us to come by and do a welfare check.
[ominous music playing]
MATT: When the deputy arrived at Richard's address,
he walked around the house,
doesn't see anything out of the ordinary,
there was no answer to the door.
WAYNE: At that point, they conducted a search
of computer databases
and found that a relative of Richard Smith,
Donald Hartung, lived in town.
They contacted him and Donald came to the scene.
He did give permission for the sheriff's office
to go into the home.
[ominous music playing]
And that's when the deputy discovered
three deceased individuals.
WAYNE: He secured the scene and called for investigations.
[sirens wailing]
WAYNE: When I arrived on the scene,
we did a walkthrough.
We entered through a backdoor.
MATT: And we walked into like a den
and there was two large mounds of clothing,
one of them on the couch itself
and then another on the floor.
WAYNE: The pile on the floor,
I could see just a small portion of a human body
sticking off from underneath this mound
of clothing and blankets.
And with the other body,
you could not see that somebody
was actually seated on that sofa
because of all the clothing and blankets
which was definitely odd.
MATT: And then there's a hallway that went down
to the bedrooms
and there was another large pile of clothing,
and there was a body underneath it as well.
It's very unusual.
I've never seen anything like that.
WAYNE: Once the Medical Examiner Investigators
arrived on scene, we pulled the blankets off
and you could tell that they had been there
for at least a couple of days.
The victim in the bedroom,
she had numerous injuries to the top of her head.
She also had a fairly deep cut
on the side of her neck.
And there was some defensive wounds on her hands,
most notably the end
of one of her little fingers was missing.
In the den, the victim that we found seated
on the sofa also had a cut to his neck
and multiple strike marks
to the top of his head.
The last victim who was found on the floor in the den
had injuries to the top of his head
and a cut on his neck.
There also appeared to be a, uh, gunshot wound
to the back of his head just behind his right ear.
The very back of his belt
had been pulled out from the belt loops.
It kind of had a little arch to it.
And it would certainly seem logical
that if someone was going to move an individual,
he would have needed something to grab onto.
They appear to have been hit with some type of heavy object.
And in the kitchen,
one of the crime scene technicians
did locate a hammer
that appeared to have blood on it.
We also found the, uh, trashcan.
And inside the trashcan was discarded food,
but also there were paper towels with blood on it,
a purse, and cigarette butts.
The victim in the bedroom
was identified by Donald Hartung
as his mother, Ms. Voncile Smith,
the matriarch of the family.
In the den,
the victim was John Smith.
Richard Smith was on the floor
in that same den where John was found.
Richard and John were Donald's half-brothers.
In any investigation, of course
some of the first people you wanna talk to
are family members.
So arrangements were made for Donald Hartung
to be transported down to the sheriff's office
where investigator Infinger conducted an interview.
MATT: Donald told me he was close with his family
and he wanted us to find whoever killed his family
and that he would help us in any way he could.
He told me that the last time he saw 'em
was three days earlier when he cooked dinner
for his mom and John.
And that he made Richard a plate
and put it in the oven
so Richard would have some food when he got home.
Donald stated that he left around 6:00,
went home, and just sat around and kind of watched TV.
WAYNE: That was on Tuesday night.
Richard and John did not show up for work
or their scheduled appointments on Wednesday or Thursday,
and then we found them on Friday.
So at that point, to our knowledge,
the last person that would have seen them alive
would have been Donald Hartung.
MATT: Donald agreed to give us a DNA sample.
He had no criminal record
and he has been cooperative.
So--and I really had no reason not to believe him.
He was not a suspect.
WAYNE: We knew we had to start building in
and really getting some background on this family
and finding out more about who they were
and how they live their lives.
FAYE: My aunt, Voncile,
was my favorite aunt.
She was outgoing, fun to be around.
She had a beautiful southern draw to her voice.
She never met a stranger
and she treated everyone equally.
She met uncle Richard.
And then a year or so after they were married,
they had Richard and John.
Richard was very shy,
but he was very intellectual,
he loved learning.
John was special needs,
but he did not let his disability stop him.
BRENDA: John and I start working back
in 1990 at Walmart.
He worked so hard.
He was a gentle giant.
Everybody loved John.
He's just a good, good man.
FAYE: Donald was my aunt's first son,
her oldest son from a previous marriage.
He was Richard and John's half-brother.
Voncile, she was a great mom.
She's very protective of her sons.
When she got older,
she was physically unable to walk.
So after my uncle passed,
Richard was the caregiver
for my aunt and for John.
He never complained
about having to take care of his family.
It was just something he did.
The way I found out
that they had been murdered,
I was watching the news.
Voncile and Richard and John were dead.
It was their house.
BRENDA: I found out John and his family were murdered.
I said, no, no.
Not my John.
I'm like why would somebody do that?
Who would wanna murder a family
that's never done anything
to anybody a day in their life?
[ominous music playing]
MATT: When I was at the crime scene
and we discovered the bodies,
we discovered them under large mounds of clothes,
which was very unusual.
I've never seen that before on any homicide scene.
The following day, one of the investigators
that was assisting me on the case
searched on the internet and found that sometimes,
during a cult or ritualistic killings,
clothing is placed on top of the bodies
to keep the bodies' temperature warm.
Searching on the internet,
the investigators also found
that there was a blue moon that occurred
around the time of these killings.
WAYNE: A blue moon is the second full moon
within a calendar month,
and apparently, this only happens
once every two to three years.
And we learned that there are certain followers of Wiccan
or a Pagan religion that would use a blue moon
to conduct rituals.
As it so happened, the family was murdered
just days before a blue moon.
There was some speculation that maybe the bodies
were to be kept warm
until the actual blue moon occurred
which would have been in a few days.
So we really don't know what we got at this point
but if there's a crazed occult murderer
running around Florida,
we got a problem on our hands.
Of the three victims, the only one
that had a gunshot wound was Richard.
He definitely appeared to be targeted.
MATT: We got a search warrant based on the Wicca
and witchcraft information.
WOMAN: There were some books about witchcraft,
figurines, and candles.
MATT: But we still had nothing to connect them to the murders.
WAYNE: We received a letter
from an inmate and what that inmate told us
WAYNE: On July 31st, 2015,
we found three bodies.
An entire family killed in their home.
MATT: The house wasn't broken into,
nothing's missing.
Why would somebody want to kill an entire family
in an upper middleclass neighborhood like this?
Good afternoon, everyone. Is everyone ready?
Three deceased victims of homicide were discovered
and it was determined that the three victims
were all family members.
Voncile Smith, son victim Richard Smith,
and son victim John Smith.
All three victims were killed by blunt force trauma.
Their throats were slit.
Richard Smith also suffered a gunshot wound.
The method, uh, of the murder,
positions of bodies led us to believe
that there's a potential that was a ritualistic killing.
In the midst of this press conference, he drops a bomb.
Essentially this family murder was witchcraft
and that there may have been a ritualistic element
to this killing, so it went from,
"Oh, my gosh, this is a triple homicide,"
to, "What? We have a witchcraft murderer on our hands?"
What did these people do to be the target
of witchcraft killings?
MATT: After the press conference,
the murders were dubbed the Blue Moon Killings.
Suddenly, this was making headlines
not just in Pensacola in Florida
but throughout the world.
People were talking about it everywhere
from the water cooler to the gas stations,
to the tire store. Every single day,
everybody was trying to find that next bit of information
to figure out who killed this mother and her two sons,
and was there really an occult angle.
WAYNE: The vast majority of people
practicing Wiccan religion
do not subscribe to any violence
or any rituals or anything like that.
But as is the case with any following,
you can have radicalized members.
MATT: We were hoping that someone
who was involved in Wiccan
might shed any light on this situation,
but there's really not a Wicca community here
in Pensacola that we could locate to talk to anyone.
[suspenseful music playing]
BRIDGETTE: The burning question is who would have had
the motive to murder these three family members?
From what we gathered from neighbors
and other family members,
this family stayed to themselves.
They didn't have friends over very often.
FAYE: When people say they were reclusive,
I don't believe they were reclusive
because, you know, they were anti-social or anything.
But I think it was because of the medical reasons.
My aunt, she was physically unable
to get out and do things,
and because John and Richard had jobs,
they worked all day.
FAYE: Richard's job was in the tech part
of Homeland Security.
His job meant a lot to him.
I don't know a lot about what he did,
I just knew that he worked there
and it was a secret, you know.
It was Homeland Security.
MATT: We discovered the Richard was an employee
with the Department of Homeland Security.
The thought crossed my mind,
was there anything that he was working on
that might've endangered him or his family?
MOLLYE: He had high-rated security clearance.
Was he involved in something that perhaps led him
and his family to be murdered in such a violent fashion?
MATT: So, investigators
from the Department of Homeland Security
actually came down to investigate.
WAYNE: His work computers were property of Federal Government
so it would only be proper to have
the Department of Homeland Security employees
examine their computers
and, uh, do that portion of the investigation
on our behalf.
MATT: We sent his phone to be examined
to see if there was any text messages
between people, emails, that sort of thing
that might shed any light on the situation.
And Department of Homeland Security told me
that if they found anyone using his logins or codes at work,
they would let me know.
WAYNE: Right around the same timeframe
we're getting the autopsy reports.
MATT: The medical examiner wasn't really able to give us
a specific time of death due to the amount of clothing
on the bodies that slowed down
the decaying process.
So it was very hard for the medical examiner
to tell us when the Smith family was murdered.
Also in the medical examiner's report,
it was noted that Richard's stomach
did not contain the wide steak fries
that Donald had cooked for the family Tuesday night.
Therefore it appeared he had been killed
before he had a chance to eat the plate of food
that Donald Hartung said he had prepared for Richard.
Also, of the three victims,
the only one that had a gunshot wound was Richard.
There's no signs of forced entry,
there's no signs of a struggle inside,
no signs of resistance.
As we looked at it, I think we could fairly quickly
rule out that it was a random attack.
I mean, it definitely appeared to be targeted.
MOLLYE: Richard Smith worked for the Department
of Homeland Security in IT.
Not many people knew much about what he did,
but they do a lot of work investigating a number
of international and national crimes including terrorism.
And so it naturally led people to speculate
that perhaps it was his work which was top secret
that played a role in the murder of his family.
en it comes to crime in Pensacola,
it's not unusual to have violent crime
that's related to either drugs
or domestic violence or an argument.
But in this particular case, this was a triple homicide.
And entire family was murdered.
And the media was very interested in this
because the victims were a retired mom
and her two sons, one of them was disabled
and another one worked for Homeland Security.
No one could imagine why anyone would wanna hurt them like this
in such a brutal way.
This was a really scary event that happened
and people wanted answers.
There were definitely some anomalies with this scene.
The way the bodies were positioned,
the inference of an occult
or Wiccan type religion being involved
that Richard worked
for the Department of Homeland Security.
So we really don't know what we've got at this point,
but it's really important to keep your mind open
to all possibilities.
One of the worst things an investigator can do
is get tunnel vision.
So, we're going to consider everything,
leave no stone unturned.
MATT: Working with the DHS investigators,
uh, they were able to provide me with video footage
of Richard leaving work on Tuesday
at 6:36 PM.
The video shows him wearing the same clothing
that he was found in when he was murdered.
WAYNE: I eventually drove the same route
that he would've taken home
at about the same time of day and found
that it would've taken approximately 20 minutes,
which would put him at home at roughly 7:00 PM.
MATT: We got Richard's phone records back.
His last phone call was at 6:46 PM
to his mother's home where he also lived
and there was no answer.
We believed his family was deceased
in the home at this point.
WAYNE: Certainly be logical to believe
that Voncile and John had been killed first
and that the killer had waited for Richard
to come home and then attempted to mitigate
the threat that Richard reposed to him
by shooting him as soon as he came in the door.
At this point in the investigation,
there's no external threats that we can find.
And given the fact that it appeared that the killer
had waited for Richard,
that would also tend to indicate
that whoever did this was known to the family
and knew their routines.
As we did interviews and we've learned more about the family,
I didn't ever locate anybody
that had actually been inside the home
to go and visit them at their residence.
The only one was Donald Hartung.
He was the last person to see them alive on Tuesday night
and he was the only known family member in the area.
MATT: So we conducted another interview with Donald Hartung
and during the interviews with Donald,
I had learned that he practiced Wicca
and this came up in our conversation.
So this was a red flag because we believed
that the murders might be related to witchcraft.
So, we didn't know
if Donald had anything to do
with the murders or not.
MOLLYE: Did this really play a role?
Was this guy such a believer in his occultic beliefs
that he would kill his own family
on a ritualistic night like a blue moon?
It was all very strange, it was very odd,
and it took what was already a crazy and salacious homicide
of three deaths and just sky rocketed it
into a whole another stratosphere.
WAYNE: At this point, when we look at Donald's motive,
I just didn't know what to think.
I was trying to figure out
why would somebody want to kill their own mother
and two half-brothers?
[siren wailing]
MATT: We got a search warrant based on the Wicca
and witchcraft information
to see if there was anything
used in this crime in his home.
They came across a prayer room.
There were some books about witchcraft.
There were some figurines
and candles on tables and dressers.
[ominous music playing]
Just because somebody has an alternative belief system
doesn't necessarily mean
that they're doing anything wrong.
Just the fact that
he's got a Ouija board in his house
doesn't necessarily tell us that
Donald Hartung murdered his family.
But most noticeably was what wasn't there.
They didn't find a gun, they didn't find any weapon
that may have been used in this crime.
At this point, yeah, we thought
Donald was a good suspect
but there's still no evidence linking him to it.
The Department of Homeland Security,
they were there to assist us in our investigation
in, uh, Richard's work.
We gave them several pieces of electronics.
They checked his computer at work
to see if anybody had used his logins
but no one had.
They were able to tell us that nothing with Richard's job
had anything to do with his murder
where this would be a terrorist act
or something of that nature.
At this point, there were no other leads.
We've exhausted everything else.
And it all keeps pointing back
to Donald Hartung.
Investigator Infinger and I wanted to find out
more about Donald Hartung.
We spoke with a co-worker of Donald Hartung
and he indicated to law enforcement
that Donald had often bragged about much money his family had.
He would be rich and that he was going to retire.
Within three weeks
of the murders of the Smith family,
Donald Hartung submitted his letter of resignation.
WAYNE: This was somewhat surprising,
you know, for someone to be talking about retiring,
uh, and not just taking a break or taking vacation
but actually retiring from work,
seemed pretty drastic
and just after someone murdered his family.
Now we think we may have a motive involved in this.
But we still had nothing to connect them
MOLLYE: People were clamoring for information
once that Wiccan genie was out of the bottle.
Not only were the crimes incredibly brutal and violent
when the bodies had been covered
with layers of blankets and clothes,
there were different weapons used in the attack
and the mom was even missing a part of her little finger.
But is this evidence really pointing
towards a ritualistic killing
or did something else happen?
WAYNE: We end up talking to Faye Haas
who was a relative of the murdered family
and she painted a little bit different picture for us
than what we had initially been told by Donald Hartung.
Donald Hartung may sound like
the family was all happy together.
Faye said that,
uh, Donald was kind of the black sheep of the family.
[dramatic music playing]
FAYE: I think, Donald rubbed people the wrong way
because of the way he treated other people.
He was mean.
If he saw a weakness in you as a child or something,
he would pick on that weakness.
He was a bully.
And the problem with Donald and his family dynamics
is I know that when we were little,
he didn't like it
when he wasn't the center of the attention.
If you're a jealous person like he was,
you don't change overnight.
I know what Donald did to us
when the adults' backs were turned.
I don't imagine that stopped with Richard or John.
He was jealous of Richard.
He was jealous of his success
and his job of what Richard had.
Donald was getting in a lot of trouble
all his teenage years, his marriage years,
when he got a divorce and each and every time
my aunt and uncle helped him financially.
I think, my Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Richard
bailed him out too many times
and it was never enough.
It was never-ending.
WAYNE: The Smiths were very well off.
Just their bank accounts and their investments
totaled more than a million dollars.
When we looked at the will, it was very apparent
that Donald had been excluded from the will.
The entire estate was to be left to Richard and John.
When we see that the estate is being left
to the two brothers
and that Donald had been excluded
if Donald knew about that,
that'd be huge motivation for him to commit this crime
because simply killing his mother wouldn't be enough
to get him any money,
he would have to take out both brothers as well.
FAYE: He knew they were well off.
My aunt told him about the will that he was out
and he never shed a tear in the funeral home.
At the gravesite, he never cried.
Never a tear.
So I wasn't surprised
he was their suspect.
MATT: Throughout the case,
the more and more interviews we did,
I felt like Donald was probably gonna be our guy.
But other than, yeah, he's got a good motive,
there's still no evidence linking him
to the murders of this family.
We went back and did some follow up interviews
with some of the neighbors.
WAYNE: We located one neighbor in particular
that lived directly next door to the Smith family.
He was very in tune
with who was coming and going from his neighborhood.
He told us that he remembered on the night in question,
this neighbor recalled seeing, uh, Mr. Hartung's car leave
and he remembered it being right around sunset,
twilight hours.
Uh, Mr. Hartung had told us he left between 5:30 and 6:00.
And that was notable
because sunset was a little bit later now.
MATT: The neighbor said he distinctively remembered
Donald leaving after Richard got home.
And that when Donald left, his headlights were off,
kind of like he didn't wanna anybody to see,
you know, him leaving the home.
The significance of those timestamps,
it helped us with our timeline of when Donald actually left
versus when he told me he left.
Why was Donald lying about all that?
WAYNE: The investigation is becoming
quite focused, you know.
We've got a motive and we are ruling out,
uh, a lot of other possible theories.
But the one thing we don't have
is any direct physical evidence
tying Donald Hartung to the murder of his family.
So we've still got a problem on our hands.
[suspenseful music playing]
The only thing we had at this point
was DNA evidence.
I was really anxious waiting to see
what these results were gonna be
from the crime lab.
Unfortunately, DNA results don't come back
as fast as investigators would always like
but when we got the results,
there was some DNA in some very surprising areas.
[suspenseful music playing]
WAYNE: We received a letter from an inmate
and he had information he wished to share with us
about the murder and what that inmate told us
was very shocking to me.
This case was almost completely circumstantial.
TREY: One of the largest issues was that
we didn't have, you know, the "smoking gun."
BRIDGETTE: There was some anxiety and anticipation
because we never know what a jury is gonna do.
BRIDGETTE: The initial investigation
into the murders of the Smith family
seemed to stall simply
because there was no forensic evidence
linking anyone to the homicides.
[suspenseful music playing]
BRIDGETTE: A DNA report was received
indicated a cigarette butt
had Donald Hartung's DNA on it.
The reason that was important is because
the cigarette butt was found in a trashcan
and the way the items in the trashcan were layered,
it was unusual for that cigarette butt
to be where it was.
The trashcan had a few cigarette butts
at the very bottom that had Donald's DNA.
However, on top of that, there was Voncile's purse,
some bloody paper towels that had her blood on it.
And then smack dab in the middle
was the cigarette butt with Donald's DNA.
MATT: Very indicative of a chain smoker
smoking all the time, which Donald was,
just smoking cleaning the stuff up
and throwing the cigarette butts in the trashcan.
WAYNE: When Richard had been located in the den,
the very back of his belt had been pulled out
from the belt loops
and Donald's DNA was on the inside
of his brother's belt.
We've also found Donald Hartung's DNA
on his brother's computer bag
that we know had been with Richard's
at his place of employment that day.
There'd be no reason for Donald Hartung
to be touching that.
MATT: So one can say,
"Yeah, his DNA would've been in that house
because it's his mom's and he was there once a week."
Okay. Fine.
Well, why is it on Richard's binder
that he kept with him at work?
This finally was the piece of evidence
that investigators
and the state attorney's office
had been waiting for.
[sirens wailing]
MATT: On October 27th, 2015,
Donald Hartung was arrested
by the Escambia County Sheriff's Department
on three counts of, uh, first degree murder.
[suspenseful music playing]
FAYE: I get the phone call that they had arrested Donald.
I just broke down and started crying,
you know, and said, "Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."
I wish, he would've been arrested
before their funerals, you know.
That was the hardest thing. Having him there
and then to find out later that he was their suspect.
BRENDA: I was very surprised that it was John's half-brother
that would do something like that.
Why do you wanna take the family away?
What did they really do to you, you know?
Was it that bad
you had to destroy every one of them?
[suspenseful music playing]
MOLLYE: When word came out that Donald Hartung was arrested
for the murder of his mother and his brothers,
the media immediately focused their attention on him.
We wanted to know
was witchcraft playing a role in this
or was there another motive?
BRIDGETTE: Because this case was
almost completely circumstantial,
from the time Donald was arrested to the time of trial,
the investigators were still following up on information,
still trying to build the strongest case that we can.
TREY: I have personally never prosecuted a case
where an entire family was so brutally murdered.
In this case, one of the largest issues
was that we didn't have, you know, the "smoking gun."
Well, we did have
circumstantial pieces of evidence.
In each pieces,
it's like putting a puzzle piece together
and each piece is significant
and you may not know it at the time
how significant it is until the picture
is actually put together at the end.
[suspenseful music playing]
WAYNE: As the trial approached, we received a letter
from an inmate that had been housed
with Donald Hartung in the local jail
and that inmate, uh, claimed
that he had been speaking with Mr. Hartung
and he had information he wished to share with us
about the murder.
That inmate tells us
he's managed to get Donald Hartung to talk to him
because he expressed
an interest in, uh, the Wiccan religion
and that brought an open line of communication.
We're usually somewhat skeptical
on any jail informant
and we have to be very careful
to make sure that we're not just regurgitating
something that they've seen on the news.
So, what that inmate told us
was very shocking to me.
He mentioned two things.
The first thing was
Donald said that all of the blankets
and clothes piled on the victims
weren't part of some type of ritual or ceremony.
He said that was an attempt
to throw off investigators
on determining the time of death.
In keeping the bodies warm,
he thought it would make it more difficult
for us to figure out
when the Smith family was killed.
BRIDGETTE: The reason that was so important
is time of death had not even been discussed
in the media,
so there was no reason for anyone
to know anything was unusual about the time of death
unless Donald Hartung had said something.
WAYNE: The second thing the letter mentioned
was Voncile's little finger,
we had assumed up to that point on
it'd been a defensive wound.
He said, it was not a defensive wound.
MATT: Donald told him he had to torture his mother
to get the combination to a safe in the home
that we never even found
during the crime scene investigation.
[suspenseful music playing]
MATT: Investigators went back into the house.
And in fact,
in the back bedroom, in the closet,
there was a safe in the floor.
[suspenseful music playing]
WAYNE: This wasn't public knowledge.
This isn't stuff that appears, uh, in a report.
It's not something that's out with the media.
It's not readily available information.
Uh, so when he starts saying things like this,
it's ringing true in my mind.
Although it was initially believed
that perhaps Mr. Hartung's religion
had some role in the murder of his family,
some sort of blue moon killer.
Based on the detailed information from the inmate,
we believed that it was really based
on a financial motive and financial gain.
However, this inmate came with baggage.
He was in jail.
He had a number of felony convictions.
Our concern was
whether the jury was going to believe him or not.
WAYNE: There was a lot about this case
that was unique.
But by far, the most surprising was
the fact that we had a, uh, jail informant
that really kind of tied everything together for us.
We believe beyond all reasonable doubt
that Donald Hartung murdered his family.
It just solidified what we already knew.
[suspenseful music playing]
WOMAN: Voncile Smith,
Richard Smith,
and John Smith.
They are the mother and the two half-brothers
of this defendant, Donald Hartung.
The evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen,
that he did it all for their money.
He is the only person that stood
to benefit from all three of their deaths
because if all three of his family members died,
he was the sole heir.
So, any of their assets would automatically go to Donald,
whether his mother had excluded him
from her will or not.
[suspenseful music playing]
MOLLYE: Day four of the trial,
they bring to the stand Donald Hartung, Sr.'s cellmate.
And he starts.
He's talking about how Donald Hartung remitted to him
the terrible violent way
that he killed his mom and his two brothers,
beating them with the claw hammer over the head,
torturing his own mother, slitting their throats,
all well after making dinner for them.
All these salacious details that basically matched
what the police knew about the crime.
FAYE: One of the hardest things to find out
from his testimony, was that my aunt was tortured
and that she was beaten with a hammer.
They didn't deserve to die like this.
I was angry. I hated him.
I wanted revenge just like any normal person.
[suspenseful music playing]
MOLLYE: There's this little bit of skepticism
that you might have when you listen to someone
who has been in the jail cell with the defendant.
"Well, he's only testifying against Donald Hartung, Sr.
because he wants to get a more lenient sentence,
he's working with the prosecutors
to save his own skin,"
and he says, "No, that's not the case at all.
He gave me all these details and I believed him
when he said he killed his mom and his brothers."
MAN: All right. Our jury is back.
Please be seated.
TREY: The biggest moment of anticipation
is when the verdict is about to be read.
In this verdict,
the deliberations could've gone on for days, hours,
weeks, um, you know, we never know.
JUDGE: All right. Members of jury,
it's my understanding, has reached a verdict.
Have you reached a verdict?
After four and a half hours,
the jury returned the verdict.
There was some anxiety and anticipation
because you never know what a jury is gonna do.
MAN: As for the charge in count one, Voncile Smith,
we the jury found the defendant Donald Hartung
guilty of first degree murder as charged in indictment.
As for the charge in count two, John Smith,
guilty of first degree murder as charged in indictment.
We have one guilty verdict after another after another.
MAN: As for the charge in count three, Richard Smith,
guilty of first degree murder as charged in indictment.
FAYE: When I heard the verdict read,
I was so happy.
It was justice.
The jury recommended
that Donald receive life imprison without parole
instead of the death penalty.
I just prayed, God, whatever Your will be done.
And His will,
is that he will spend the rest of his life in prison
and that's fine with me.
MOLLYE: At the end of the day,
it had nothing to do with witchcraft.
It had nothing to do with his Wiccan beliefs,
and it had everything to do with the fact
that he wanted their money in his pocket
and he took their lives to get it.
[dramatic music playing]
BRENDA: I'm glad we finally have closure.
I think we all felt a little bit better
after he got convicted.
It's like, we can move on now,
you know.
And I mean, it's still hard, it is.
But I am glad John is with his mom
and his brother
because that's where you should be,
is with them.
[dramatic music playing]
FAYE: It was hard to know that it was her son
that murdered her and her sons.
It's hard to handle when it's a murder.
But it's even harder
when it's a family member that murders a family member.
It's harder to forget.
[dramatic music playing]