(tense dramatic music)
- Douglas county was known for having several horse farms,
Had good terrain for that.
- We were a small enough community
Where there was little crime.
Then we had received a somewhat frantic phone call
From a person who said his boss
And horse trainer had disappeared.
(chilling music)
- It's just out of his personality.
Something's not right here.
- Had he been kidnapped? Was there foul play?
Has he been murdered?
(chilling music) (dog barking)
- Sheriff says they've located a body.
(chilling music)
- His skull had been caved in by a very heavy, blunt object.
(dramatic music)
- His whole life was this property.
He had the wife. He just wanted some kids.
- Why would you kill a respectful citizen
In douglas county?
Personal relationships
Can be an incredibly motivating factor in a murder.
- Wow, cheating.
That's one of the oldest motives in the history of murder.
- She may have been the match that lit this whole thing up.
(dramatic music)
(tense music)
(police sirens)
(intriguing music)
- [narrator] just 20 miles west of bustling downtown atlanta
Lies the peaceful countryside of douglas county, georgia,
With its scenic nature preserves and storied horse farms.
- Douglas county still has a country feel to it,
But it's grown a great deal over the last decade.
A lot of people relocate here.
There are a lot of wealthy people
That live in douglas county.
- In the early nineties, douglas county was primarily
What I would call rural agricultural land
With a lot of farms.
We had a number of people that raised cattle, horses,
Had small farms that were diverse.
Douglas county had a pretty thriving equestrian community.
- People moved out there because, as they used to say,
They got more bang for their buck.
You know, they could get a nice house, two acres.
Douglas county was also known
For having several horse farms, had good terrain for that.
- You got a lot of people moving into the county
Out of atlanta.
(ominous music)
- [narrator] but the grass isn't always greener
In the peaceful havens of atlanta's bucolic backcountry,
As douglas county authorities discover
With an unusual 911 call from one of the area ranches.
- On March 18th of 1994,
The douglas county sheriff's department received
A somewhat frantic phone call from a person
Who said his boss, charles "chuck" shriner,
Had disappeared.
Chuck shriner ran signature stables in douglas county.
- This was 10:30 in the morning
When the phone call actually came in.
He identified himself as brian whiting.
- Mr. Whiting described himself as being
Sort of second in command at the stables.
He also described himself as being a friend
Of charles "chuck" shriner,
And he lived in the residence with mr. And ms. Shriner.
- Brian said chuck walked out the back door
Around at midnight last night.
(intriguing music)
And then brian said that he went on to bed.
- But when he woke up this morning
And couldn't find chuck, he became alarmed.
He said chuck had a routine of rising very early
In the mornings and go to the stables
After drinking a cup of coffee.
- [narrator] but brian whiting tells police
That this morning he couldn't find his employer anywhere.
- He said it just was out of character for him
To just go and disappear.
- [mcdade] he was asking for assistance
In tracking him down.
(police sirens)
- [narrator] investigators drive out to signature stables
To talk with brian, who meets them at the barn.
- The property consisted of about 70 acres of rural land
Where horses were boarded and trained.
- There was a house, a barn nearby,
All kind of rolling terrain, some forest, some water.
Police started asking questions
And brian was a little bit emotional at the time.
- Brian seemed very agitated, upset, really distraught.
- We tried to get as much detail from him
As we could about what he and mr. Shriner had done
The day before.
He said they had worked at the stables from that day.
- Brian said that him and chuck shriner had went out
That night to a local bar to have a few drinks,
Which would've been st. Patrick's day.
- After they left the bar, they drove through a mcdonald's,
Got food, and then went on home around 11:30 that night.
(suspenseful music)
- Whiting describes that when they got back
To the residence,
That mr. Shriner had received a phone call
From his wife, lori.
- Lori left on the 17th, two days ago,
And she is out of town in ohio
Visiting her grandmother who is sick.
- Brian whiting said chuck was the actual
Boss and horse trainer at the barn,
And the wife lori was the bookkeeper.
- The phone call came in approximately 11:30-ish,
And they talked for a period of time.
When the call ended around at midnight,
Chuck walked out the back door with no shoes on.
(intriguing music) just socks.
- And I asked brian why chuck went and walked to the barn.
He said he didn't really question that
And he didn't go after him at that time.
- As law enforcement officers, when you have information
That somebody just abruptly leaves
And that's out of their character,
Then your suspicions are a little bit raised.
(intriguing music)
- Is this man just missing because he had a bad day?
Maybe had a friend pick him up and take him off
And didn't tell anybody?
Was he maybe injured somewhere on the property?
Or is there a crime?
We learned, by talking to mr. Whiting,
That chuck shriner had bad knees.
His kneecap had been replaced early in his life
And he didn't walk well.
- He felt like, what if chuck fell and slipped
On one of the cliffs and hit his head on a rock
And he's laying out there
And nobody's out there to help him?
I felt like it would be a good thing to search the property
For the k9 supervisor.
(intriguing music)
- I would say within an hour of responding,
They dispatch local dogs that are trained
To detect human scent.
It's a huge horse farm with barns and stables and woods
And creeks and all kinds of nooks and crannies.
We got to search all this property in case this person
Has fallen and had some medical emergency
- [narrator] while the k9 unit searches
The outdoor property, police make their way from the barn
To the shriner home for more information on chuck
And where he might've disappeared to.
- Chuck went missing from the house,
So I wanted to go up to the house.
(intriguing music)
- The house looks lived in.
There's clothes and blankets on the couches
Throughout the living room, dirty dishes in the kitchen.
- But I didn't see any signs
That the house had been broken into
Or there'd been an assault or an attack.
- I asked brian to go and show me chuck and lori's room.
There was a butt impression on the bed
Where someone had sat,
But the covers were not messed up on the bed,
And there were boots sitting there beside the bed.
So now I'm thinking,
"well, brian said he went out in his socked feet,
So that would explain why his boots were upstairs."
- At this point, we're looking for a person.
So we're not looking under every cushion,
And if we see evidence of a crime,
Then we will take it at that point to a different direction.
- [narrator] investigators find no signs
Of foul play inside the home,
So they move outside to inspect chuck's vehicle.
- Chuck shriner's pickup truck
Is still parked in the carport.
The back of the truck was cleaned out.
But I saw no signs of foul play, no evidence of a crime.
- [narrator] the k9 search of the property
Also fails to come up with anything.
Now five hours into the mysterious disappearance,
There's simply no sign of chuck shriner.
(intriguing music)
- The radio operators sent out the teletype
And it was to different agencies
Alerting them of this missing person, to check jails
To see if they had chuck shriner in jail,
All the surrounding counties.
- [narrator] while police open an official
Missing persons investigation, they also get a phone number
From brian and call lori shriner in ohio.
(intriguing music)
- So we get her on the phone to get information
About who her husband is, what his habits are.
- Lori shriner appeared to be appropriately concerned.
- She told us that they had talked the night before.
He'd been out drinking with brian whiting
And he sounded a little bit intoxicated,
But that's out of his character for him to leave.
(soft dramatic music)
- Lori explained to us that she had met mr. Shriner
At her family farm in ohio,
That he was a horse trainer there,
And they had developed into a relationship
And ultimately got married.
Lori described to us that her father passed away
And then her mother passed away,
And she was to inherit a considerable amount of money.
And lori and chuck wanted to start looking for a place
To start their own equestrian center.
Lori painted a picture that they had a up-and-coming
Thriving horse-training business
And that chuck shriner was the heart and soul
Of the business.
- [narrator] lori then tells police one major reason
She believes chuck would never run out on her.
(soft dramatic music)
- She was six months pregnant,
So they were expecting their first child.
- She really didn't have any suggestion to us
As to what might have happened.
And she didn't really lead us to someone
That maybe she was concerned about.
- [narrator] lori tells detectives
She's made immediate plans to fly back to atlanta from ohio.
After hanging up, investigators are still at a loss
For what could have happened to her husband.
- In a missing persons report, you gotta kind of
Keep all the options open, an open mind.
There's a potential motive for something to have happened
To mr. Shriner and we're going to explore everything.
- Was it a guy that had a bad knee walking out
In his stocking feet into the middle of the night
After drinking, or was there something else going on?
Had he been kidnapped? Was there foul play?
Has he been murdered?
(thrilling music)
- It did put questions and doubts in my mind
About chuck and the person that he may be.
Was there an affair going on?
Was chuck maybe doing things he shouldn't have been doing?
- There was an altercation over some pay, money owed.
It just escalated.
Right then and there I knew I had a homicide.
(tense music)
(thrilling music)
- [narrator] douglas county authorities are perplexed
As to what might have happened
To horse trainer chuck shriner after he walked out
Of his house at midnight wearing no shoes,
And seemed to vanish into thin air.
(suspenseful music)
- When you have information
That somebody just abruptly leaves
And that's out of their character
And there's no underlying issue of why they left,
I found that a little bit unusual.
But it's not a crime to be missing.
- [narrator] now, 15 hours after chuck was last seen,
With word spreading through his social circle,
Friends of the shriners converge on the farm.
(intriguing music)
- A small crowd had gathered.
Ultimately, we identified them as being friends
Or workers at the stables.
They said chuck was well liked, charismatic, personable,
Friendly, the kind of person that a lot of people
Just sort of gravitated towards.
- They said this is unlike him to leave the house,
So this is out of his character,
So that raises suspicion of why he's not there
When the sun comes up the next morning.
- One of chuck's friends volunteered to help out,
So I gave them the numbers to have them call the hospitals
To check and see if there were any patients by that name.
There was nothing.
- [narrator] police next talked to the shriner's friends
And next-door neighbors
To get some background on chuck and lori.
- The day he turned up missing, it was a dark day,
It was a terrible thing.
It's just out of his personality.
It's just not something that's normal.
His whole life was this property and he wanted a family.
He had the wife. He just wanted some kids.
- I don't guess I'd ever met anybody like chuck. Really.
He made everybody feel good.
(somber music)
- [narrator] chuck looked to parlay his love
Of horses into a golden opportunity
With the upcoming summer olympics in atlanta.
- Everything centered around the 1996 olympics.
In his mind, he could rent the stables to a country
And make a lot of money to help pay for the place.
- They came in and put a lot of time and money into it
And fixed it up, made it look beautiful.
You know, lots of plants, trees. Great neighbors.
He loved lori, his dogs, the horses.
He would not have left on his own.
(suspenseful music)
- Lori came back immediately from ohio, on Saturday.
- Police started talking to lori at the farm
When she returned, and just tried to glean details
Of the couple's life
Because she's the closest person to him, obviously.
Here was their dream farm, they're having a child,
And things seem to be rolling along.
But during this time, lori is obviously very worried.
Her husband is missing, she's pregnant.
- [narrator] lori suggests police next talk to the person
Who probably knows chuck the best, jim mattingly.
- Lori had described mr. Mattingly
As being one of mr. Shriner's best friends,
So obviously we want to talk to him.
- [narrator] detectives seek out jim
At the home address lori gives them.
(suspenseful music)
- Jim said chuck was committed to his farm,
That they had a baby coming.
It just was out of character for him
To just go and disappear
- And then you start asking the questions, well,
Was chuck maybe doing things he shouldn't have been doing?
Was there an affair going on?
Mr. Mattingly said, no, chuck wouldn't do that.
- So we asked him, was there anybody
That he thought might have reason to harm mr. Shriner?
- [narrator] that's when jim mattingly drops a bombshell.
He gave us the name of a former worker there
By the name of charlie hartman.
(intriguing music)
- Mattingly told police charlie just didn't work out.
He didn't work hard enough and chuck told him he had to go.
(intriguing music)
And he had a beef with that.
- One day before chuck become missing,
There was an altercation between mr. Hartman
And chuck shriner over some pay.
It was money related.
It just escalated.
(ominous music)
- We certainly tracked down mr. Hartman that day.
(ominous music)
Mr. Hartman said he had worked at the stables
For two or three weeks when he had gotten
Into a dispute with mr. Shriner.
- And he said that all it was over was he had asked
That tax deductions start coming out of his payroll
To show that he was legitly working
So that he could properly file his income tax,
And chuck didn't want to do that.
- Charlie and chuck had a very loud argument
When he was being fired.
- [narrator] hartman tells investigators that something
Then happened to elevate the already charged argument.
- Mr. Hartman said this crazy man, brian whiting,
Intervenes and starts chasing him with an ax.
(thrilling music)
Whiting seemed to be violent.
He's the person that reported mr. Shriner
As being lost or missing.
- Why was brian even in the middle
Of what they were arguing about?
It did put questions and doubts in my mind about brian.
(thrilling music)
(tense music)
(soft upbeat music)
(police siren)
- [narrator] douglas county detectives
Investigating the disappearance
Of horse trainer chuck shriner just learned
That a former employee of chuck's named charlie hartman
Was recently involved in a confrontation over money
With chuck and his right-hand man, brian whiting.
(ominous music)
- Brian jumps in and grabbing an ax, threatening him.
(ominous music)
- And he forced mr. Hartman to flee in his vehicle.
(suspenseful music)
- [narrator] while he acknowledges the fight,
Hartman is adamant he had nothing to do
With chuck shriner's disappearance.
- So we asked where he had been during the timeframe
That chuck went missing
And he said that he had been with his wife at home,
And she verified and said all that was true.
- [narrator] with hartman's alibi confirmed
And still no sign of chuck, investigators are at a loss.
In addition to brian whiting's hair-trigger temper,
Detectives also note the reported dispute
Involving chuck and money.
- You're not wanting to let an employee claim their taxes.
It did put questions in doubts in my mind about chuck
And the person that he may be.
- What kind of life insurance does he have?
What's his financial situation?
Who's got a motive to do something to him?
- There was subpoenas and different actions taken
To get bank statements from the shriners.
- We found them.
There were no life insurance policies
Involving chuck shriner or his wife lori.
- Lori really had no money motive in chuck's disappearance.
- As police investigated,
They found chuck wasn't good with money.
Police fairly quickly determined that one of the motives,
Money, didn't seem to be right
Because lori is the one bringing the money
Into the equation.
(suspenseful music)
- [narrator] by day three of the investigation,
Word of chuck's disappearance
Has spread throughout douglas county
And the tight-knit equestrian community.
- People were alarmed in this area
Because it was high profile.
It was in the local news, local papers.
(intriguing music)
- When this case broke
And when it became subject to media coverage,
Obviously it was sort of the talk of the town initially.
What happened to mr. Shriner?
Was he dead? Was he missing?
If he was missing and murdered, who murdered him?
They want to know, are we in danger?
- [narrator] desperate for a break in the case,
Police launch a more thorough search of the shriner farm.
- We woke up to helicopters, you know,
And the georgia bloodhounds, cadaver dogs.
And then they even had some scuba divers
That were searching the ponds.
(chilling music)
- They did not find anything.
(chilling music)
- We were convinced that mr. Shriner
Was not on the property.
- [narrator] during their search of the property,
Detectives speak to stable workers
Who were employed by chuck,
And one of them reveals a potential new lead.
- The police found a couple weeks earlier
That there had been a car roaming around
On chuck's property with some teenagers.
- At that time, brian went after them in the truck.
- There was a confrontation.
(intriguing music)
- [narrator] investigators track down the teenagers
And interview them about the alleged incident at the farm.
- We did speak to two or three teenagers.
They were there drinking and partying and hanging out.
Brian was like irate with them, yelling,
"y'all are going to see chuck right now."
And when they finally were confronted by chuck,
He told them that he didn't need that on the property.
- That could end up being something significant.
Chuck shriner could have walked out of the house
And then got accosted by some teenagers
That he had had a confrontation with some days before.
- They told us that the confrontation scared them,
And they were never going back on the property.
- Police fairly quickly ruled them out.
- [narrator] with no evidence linking the teenagers
To chuck's disappearance and still no signs of foul play,
Detectives are striking out.
Though a common thread seems to be emerging.
- What that did show is brian whiting can be violent.
(intriguing music)
He has a history of violence against other people.
- We had to consider, was brian whiting involved
In chuck's disappearance?
- Brian was the last person to see chuck alive,
And brian first called to report him as a missing person.
(thrilling music)
- [narrator] among chuck's friends,
The fear that something bad had happened to him
Begins to settle in.
- It was a kind of a shock.
I mean, it really had an impact on you.
On me and my wife. He was a good guy.
- It was crazy, the whole thing was. It's just a nightmare.
You can't do anything. You don't know anything.
- [narrator] three days into the investigation,
Detectives have reached a dead end
In their search for chuck.
Now strongly suspecting foul play,
They use the media to ask the public for information.
- There were investigators thinking,
Is it possible that chuck's not just a missing person,
That someone has done something to chuck?
- They do a story.
(intriguing music)
Chuck shriner is missing. Here is his picture.
- [narrator] the media blast pays off.
The following day, police get a tip
That turns the case on its head.
- We did receive a call from a man by the name
Of perkel was his last name,
And he said that he had worked at the barn
That prior December.
Perkel said he had walked in and saw brian
And lori kissing in the barn.
(thrilling music)
- He said there was an affair between lori and brian
That had been going on for weeks, if not months.
Brian being, of course, the last person
To have seen chuck was the link to the case right there.
- Could lori and had something to do with his disappearance?
- Is she working in tandem with him?
Are they somehow trying to get chuck out of the picture?
- [mcdade] she had left to go to ohio,
Leaving her husband alone
With a man that she had been having an affair with.
(thrilling music)
- Police immediately shifted gears in their investigation.
- She wasn't honest with us from the very beginning.
- When the agents cut the carpet back,
There was a lot of blood on the subfloor.
That's the million-dollar bomb I'm looking for.
(thrilling music)
(tense music)
(intriguing music)
- [narrator] douglas county detectives
Investigating the disappearance
Of atlanta-area horse farmer chuck shriner have just learned
That his wife lori may have been having an affair
With his ranch hand, brian whiting.
(suspenseful music)
- So police get the phone call about the kissing in the barn
And they then immediately shifted gears
In their investigation.
Once they started going down that route, all of it changed.
- When we're looking at the motive for a crime,
Lust can be an incredibly motivating factor.
(intriguing music)
When we begin to hear rumors
That there's something on between brian whiting
And lori shriner, it draws us to the conclusion
That she wasn't honest with us from the very beginning.
And that's concerning.
And so we have to confront lori, and we do.
- [narrator] with this new information
About an alleged affair, detectives bring lori shriner
Into headquarters for questioning.
- She admitted to having sex with brian one time.
- She tried to break it off.
And she did.
(intriguing music)
- Lori said whiting was obsessed with her.
He didn't want to let it go,
So he continued to pursue her.
- Lori explained to us that brian whiting insists
It's his baby.
He did at the time, he insisted it.
- It was September when lori said she told brian
That she was sure it was chuck's baby.
(dramatic music)
- [narrator] investigators note a discrepancy
In lori's story, however,
As the tipster allegedly saw her kissing brian
Three months later, in December.
(dramatic music)
- Red flags started going off then
That the timeline she told me she had sex with brian
Was not matching what this perkel had said.
So I told her that maybe she and brian
Were a lot more involved in their relationship
Than what I had originally been told.
She broke down and admitted to having
Like a several-week sexual relationship with him.
(dramatic music)
She was upset.
At one point she even asked me,
"what do you think happened to chuck?"
And my response to her was,
"what do you think happened to chuck?"
Right then, she said, "I don't know."
- She made it clear to us that chuck was her life,
Her world, and that she would do anything she could
To find him.
(dramatic music)
- [narrator] with chuck shriner now missing for three days,
The team reaches back out to the man
Who may have wanted chuck out of the picture.
- Everything's coming back to brian whiting.
(suspenseful music)
Now it's time to be a little more aggressive.
(intriguing music)
- So we make a decision
To take brian to the sheriff's office
For a more official statement.
- Brian insists he has nothing to do
With chuck's disappearance.
Yes, he had had an affair with lori,
But that's got nothing to do with chuck going missing.
(intriguing music)
- He told us he wanted a lawyer,
And that's as far as it went with brian at that time.
(intriguing music)
- Before we let him go as protocol,
We make sure he's not wanted by any other jurisdiction.
So we do a criminal background check on him
And we discover there is a warrant for him
For violation of probation.
(suspenseful music)
He was charged with criminal damage to property
So he's arrested and transported to paulding county jail
For the violation of probation
- [narrator] with brian whiting temporarily behind bars,
Detectives secure a search warrant for the shriner home.
But unlike their initial search for a missing person,
This time they're looking for evidence of foul play.
- We are doing a much deeper dive into the residence itself,
Forensic examination,
Which means we basically look real carefully at everything.
(intriguing music)
- There was a vacuum cleaner in the den
Where brian told us chuck actually laid down
And fell asleep on the couch
Before he supposedly walked out the sliding door,
And there was a white powder on the carpet
That could have been borax or carpet fresh that people use.
(intriguing music)
- Someone had attempted to clean up.
- [narrator] with the carpet cleaner piquing suspicions,
The team zeroes in on what it may be covering up.
- So then they lead me over to the couch area.
(dramatic music)
And the fabric off the side of the arm of the couch
Covered in blood.
(dramatic music)
Soaked in the cushion, soaked down the side of the cushion,
Down the side of the couch, onto the floor,
Pours out into the floor.
(dramatic music)
So when the agents cut the carpet back,
There was a lot of blood that was in the carpet
Underneath the padding and on the subfloor.
Right then and there, I knew chuck shriner did not walk out
Of this house in his sock feet in the middle of the night.
I knew I had a homicide.
(thrilling music)
(tense music)
(thrilling music)
- [narrator] investigators in douglas county,
The rural hamlet just outside atlanta,
Are searching for chuck shriner,
Last seen at his horse farm.
The team has just uncovered a trail of blood
Inside his home,
And it appears that someone tried to cover it up.
(thrilling music)
- We decide to use luminol, the chemical that reacts
To the proteins in the blood and will give off a glow.
And in this case, it told us a lot.
(suspenseful music)
- You can see speckled blood all over the couch,
All over the floor, down the living room,
Out the door, down the hallway.
(thrilling music)
- There was a track pattern out the door
Into the carport area near chuck shriner's truck.
- [narrator] detectives had noted on the first day
Of the investigation
That chuck's truck appeared newly cleaned.
And when they now apply luminol to it,
They get a sense of why.
- Parts of the bed of the truck lit up where the blood was.
I was amazed.
I mean, just seeing this lit up like that
Where it had been scrubbed down.
(dramatic music)
- We searched the garage area,
Where it appears that the blood ended.
(dramatic music)
- And there's an ax
Just leaning up against the side of the garage.
- And we see evidence of blood on the ax.
(dramatic music)
- It was easily something that, logically,
We would think was involved in the case.
We hadn't found mr. Shriner's body,
And so we didn't know for sure.
But mr. Whiting had used an ax in his attack on mr. Hartman.
(dramatic music)
- [narrator] as investigators examine the blood trail
That leads from the living room to the truck,
They concoct a theory as to what may have happened
To chuck shriner.
- Mr. Shriner was obviously attacked and killed,
Most likely while he slept on a loveseat
In the downstairs area of the house.
(chilling music)
- In our opinion, he was drug through the living room,
Down the hallway, out into the garage,
And then into the back of the pickup truck.
- Since mr. Whiting himself told us
He was the only person there with chuck that night
And learning about this bizarre
Off-and-on relationship with lori shriner,
We became convinced he had murdered mr. Shriner.
(thrilling music)
- [narrator] while lori had initially lied to police
About the affair, detectives find no evidence
Tying her to chuck's murder,
And she is not considered a person of interest.
While brian whiting sits in jail on unrelated charges,
The team starts to build their case,
Which at this point is no sure thing.
- We didn't have direct evidence, I.E., fingerprints
Or dna that would've connected whiting to the crime scene.
You don't have a body
And you need the remains to establish,
"hey, we definitely have a murder."
(intriguing music)
- So we start doing extensive searches of douglas county.
(intriguing music)
We have more k9s to search river banks.
(intriguing music)
We use helicopters to search the river.
So we're doing everything we can to try to find chuck.
(intriguing music)
(chopper whirring)
Chuck's nowhere. We can't find him.
- [narrator] days turn into weeks,
And weeks turn into months,
And there's still no sign of chuck.
- Lori's trying to maintain a household
And shuttling horses and having a baby now.
She gotta look forward to that,
And I can't imagine, I couldn't have handled it.
- [narrator] then three months into the investigation,
Police get news of a grisly discovery.
- On June the 11th, 1994, I get a phone call from a sheriff
That says they've located a body in cobb county, georgia,
On a farm, nine miles away from my crime scene.
(intriguing music)
- We all converge on the scene.
(chopper whirring) (dog barking)
- We meet with a local farmer and he says,
While checking on his cattle,
He saw something that appeared to be a human body,
(suspenseful music)
Wrapped in a tarp, lodged in the river.
(suspenseful music)
It had baling wire and ropes tied around it.
- The question is,
Who is it?
(thrilling music)
- Talking to the farmer that found the body,
On scene, we learned that brian whiting worked on that farm
Prior to coming to signature stables.
(thrilling music)
That's the million-dollar bomb I'm looking for.
(intriguing music)
- I called cobb county dive team,
Because I wanted the dive team to go into the water
And to retrieve the body.
- We were real delicate now,
'cause you're dealing with evidence.
There can be things on it, fibers.
You got to be careful.
(intriguing music)
- The body would be transported back
To the cobb medical examiner's office.
- The body is extremely decomposed.
(intriguing music)
It's determined that the body has a severe head injury.
- His skull had been caved in by a very heavy blunt object.
- [narrator] later that day, positive confirmation arrives
Courtesy of chuck shriner's dentist.
- Through dental records, we learned it was chuck shriner.
(thrilling music)
- This is not a missing persons case, it was a homicide.
(thrilling music)
(tense music)
(intriguing music)
- [narrator] cobb county authorities have just identified
The badly decomposed body found in a rain-swollen creek
As that of missing horse trainer chuck shriner.
And they have a theory on how he got there.
- We believe that brian whiting had killed chuck shriner.
(thrilling music)
Then wrapped him up with a tarp, baling wire,
And corded it, put him in the back of the truck,
And then drove him to the location and
Put him in the creek.
When you have a married woman having an affair
With the number one hired hand on the farm,
Who was insisting that he was a father of her child,
That's an incredibly dangerous, volatile situation.
(suspenseful music)
- At the time that chuck shriner's body was found,
Brian whiting was already in jail on a probation violation.
And once the body was found,
We secured an arrest warrant for felony murder.
- [narrator] now investigators must relay
The devastating news to chuck's widow, lori.
- We talked to lori
And confirmed that her husband was, in fact, dead.
No one wants to hear that message.
No one wants to have to deliver that message.
- Lori is still pregnant.
The timing of us finding chuck
And her birth of her child was in a few weeks.
(somber music)
- [narrator] the news that douglas county's
Beloved horse trainer has been found murdered
And his wife's lover will stand trial
For the crime stuns the entire community.
- I think from the time brian went on the property,
He decided, "this is going to be mine
And everything here's going to be mine."
I think he had a plan from when he went to work there.
I really do.
(feet crunching grass)
- It's just unfathomable.
You couldn't get it out of your mind
That something like this could happen right next door.
The whole thing is just a tragedy.
- [narrator] in August of 1995,
17 months after chuck shriner disappeared from his home,
Brian whiting stands trial for chuck's murder.
While prosecutors are confident they have their man,
Convincing a jury won't be easy.
- We had a case with a lot of little pieces
But no real smoking gun.
We didn't have a confession,
We didn't have an eyewitness.
- It had all the elements of a tale of southern gothic.
There was jealousy, deceit, anger, bitterness,
And of course there was only one witness to the murder,
And that was the guy sitting in the courtroom.
- Whiting didn't take the stand, but the defense,
They were trying to create the scenario
That possibly some other unknown perpetrator
Had snuck in the house and killed mr. Shriner.
- [narrator] on September 14th, 1995,
The jury reaches their verdict.
- Brian whiting was convicted
(gavel slams)
And was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.
(dramatic music)
- There's a little
Bit of closure there.
Justice has been served,
But it's not bringing the person back.
(soft dramatic music)
- [narrator] for family, friends,
And the local community,
Chuck's absence has left an indelible mark on them
And rural douglas county.
- When chuck shriner was killed,
A lot of dreams died for him and his family, obviously.
The stable ultimately went out of business
(soft dramatic music)
And weeds grew up around the place.
- Chuck had a positive outlook, nothing negative.
He was just a good neighbor.
Lori, she moved away and became a new person.
Her son, he's fully grown now.
(emotional music)
- [narrator] in 2018, after serving 23 years for murder,
Brian whiting is released on parole.
- Mr. Shriner's family will never see mr. Shriner again.
His child grew up without a father.
So brian whiting didn't deserve to be released ever,
In my opinion.
- I don't guess I've ever met anybody like chuck.
I don't think we'll ever forget him.
I think he was happy here.
- Justice can only go so far,
Ant the person who's murdered, his life is gone.
Everybody that has anything to do with chuck,
Relatives, friend, he's gone.
(soft dramatic music)
And I hated to lose him.
(soft dramatic music) (horses neighing)
(bright music)