(ominous music)
- [newscaster] news five has been
On the case of taylor wright.
- The private investigator
Has been missing for more than a month.
- [narrator] a mother and former cop
Disappears without a trace.
- We found a handgun that was missing a round.
- She knew how to cover her tracks.
She knew how to hide.
- [narrator] is she a victim of foul play
Or did she run away?
- She would've never just left her son.
- [narrator] someone is hiding the truth.
- [narrator] investigators searching for answers.
- We keep pressing, pressing, and pressing.
- [narrator] in the interrogation room.
(atmospheric music)
- [narrator] every suspect accused of a crime has the right
To remain silent.
Many agree to be interrogated anyway,
But they can stop the interview at any moment,
Making it a race against time.
Justice hangs in the balance.
- Authorities say the search for taylor wright is ongoing.
She is five feet, six inches tall with brown hair.
If anyone sees her or has any information of her whereabouts
You're asked to contact police.
(atmospheric music)
- Taylor's girlfriend casandra waller said,
"hey, my girlfriend who's living with me hasn't come home.
I'm just concerned about her welfare."
- Casandra said it wasn't normal for taylor
To just come up missing
And not respond to text messages or phone calls.
- According to casandra, the day taylor wright disappeared,
Her friend ashley mcarthur picked her up
At approximately 10:00 am.
They were going to run some errands.
- And then taylor, at the end of the day, vanished.
- Taylor wright was a 33 year-old
Mother of a small child.
She was a former law enforcement officer
Currently working as a private investigator.
- With taylor's law enforcement background,
If she was attacked,
She would have some knowledge on what to do
And she probably knew how to hide.
So I began questioning
Is she missing because she wants to be missing
Or was she harmed?
We had to travel down each of those roads
To try to figure out exactly what happened.
- If she did wanna up and leave,
It's not against a law for an adult.
You know, people do it all the time.
But the first thing that we did
Was attempt to find out everything about taylor.
(ominous music)
- We found laptops, taylor's passport, ids.
We found a cashier's check
That was made payable to her for $19,000.
Things that, if you were trying to hide,
You would probably take with you.
- You've gotta have money,
You've gotta have id to do just about anything.
It's not as easy as people make it sound
To where you can just up and vanish.
Very hard for someone to do in today's world.
- We also found a handgun,
A six shot revolver that had five rounds in it.
So it was missing a round.
That did make us think
That maybe casandra is involved
In the disappearance of taylor.
At that point, we began to be concerned
That this ain't just a normal missing person's case,
That something is wrong
And we really need to figure out where taylor's at.
(soft music)
- Taylor wright was a very, very good friend of mine
And she was an amazing person.
She absolutely loved law enforcement.
I mean, as a police officer taylor was fearless.
She would go into neighborhoods,
Try to find drugs, try to find guns.
When I met taylor, she was married to a man named jeff.
He was an officer in the marine corps
And he was deployed a lot,
But they eventually had a little boy named drake.
Taylor loved being a mom.
It was amazing to see her transition
From the police officer that was hardcore
To the mom, taylor.
It was beautiful to see.
A little bit after that,
Jeff got military orders down to florida.
From what I understand,
A lot of issues started once they moved
And they ended up divorced.
She ended up meeting casandra
And they ended up moving in together and falling in love.
- For taylor everything was going great.
She had a great relationship with her new girlfriend,
She was successful in her job.
To up and vanish, it just typically doesn't happen.
- When I found out taylor was missing,
It was a shock 'cause I know how close she was with drake.
She would've never just left him like that.
Something's wrong.
- There's several people we have to look at first
That are in her inner circle,
Whether it be casandra waller,
Who is the current girlfriend,
Whether it be jeff wright, who is the ex-husband.
We were able to rule out jeff wright pretty quick
As a person of interest.
Based on knowing where he works,
We were able to confirm that he was at work at that time.
So that left casandra.
(eerie music)
(atmospheric music)
- So while the detectives they're interviewing her,
I'm going through her cellphone.
While speaking with cassandra
We learned about some issues they had in the past,
Potential infidelity issues.
These issues could be the motive for taylor being missing.
- We really gotta be careful
How much we're poking and prodding,
Because she could just get up and walk away.
(atmospheric music)
- When we're doing these interviews,
We want them to feel uncomfortable to a point,
But not so uncomfortable they don't wanna talk to us.
So it's a balance that we have to juggle.
But at this point, an hour into the interview,
We needed to start applying some pressure.
(clock ticking)
- I think ultimately we have to ask that question,
No matter how aggressive we are with it or not.
We would not be doing our job
If we didn't ask that question.
- [casandra] okay.
- I'm going through casandra's cellphone
And I went in to get the detectives out,
To talk about what I'm learning through the phone.
I can see there is communications about
A bank and money and some other weird things
That we didn't know about before.
- That interview was huge
Because casandra said that taylor had given ashley money.
The money was the biggest red flag
That shifted this from a missing person
To very suspicious activity,
Potentially a homicide investigation.
(atmospheric music)
(tense music)
- We would have to consider ashley mcarthur
A potential suspect.
Ashley was the last person to see taylor
And ashley was also holding onto this large sum of money
That taylor had asked her to hold.
- Taylor had been going through a difficult court battle
With her ex-husband
Over some finances that they shared while they were married.
Just prior to taylor going missing,
She had taken approximately $100,000
Out of a joint bank account that she should not have taken.
- Of that $100,000,
Taylor had given ashley $34,000 to hold onto.
- Casandra said,
"taylor gave this check to ashley
Because she has a safety deposit box
She could put this check into."
From looking at the text messages between
Taylor and ashley before she disappeared,
Taylor kept asking ashley, "hey, I need that money back.
I need to get the money back.
I need to have it for court.
The judge is making me get this money back."
Ashley was pretty much blowing taylor off.
Casandra told us that the day that taylor went missing,
She was expecting ashley to pick her up,
Take her to the bank,
Get the money out of the safety deposit box,
And everything be okay.
(atmospheric music)
- The purpose of the first interview
Is to let her tell us what she wants to tell us,
Whether it be the truth or a lie,
But get something on video that we can begin to investigate.
(clock ticking)
- Ashley seemed to be bubbly, outgoing,
Wanting to tell us everything.
Somewhat flirtatious, not standoffish.
We want to build friendly banter back and forth with her,
So she'll trust us.
Immediately when we ask her about her cellphone,
You can see she starts getting a little bit more nervous.
Actually, she adjusts the way she crossed her legs.
You'll see she starts playing with the phone
And it is my belief
That she is purposely trying to change her password there.
She hands over her phone,
We can see there are text messages
About the safety deposit box,
But then the phone locks up.
So we can't access the file
Because we don't have the correct password.
She gives us multiple different variations of passwords
And none of those worked.
That's a little weird.
But we do need to start prying into
Why ashley was holding onto this large sum of money
That taylor had asked her to hold onto.
So we wanna be able to keep this friendly,
'cause at this point she's free to go whenever she wants.
- This was kind of curious to us
Because casandra said that taylor thought
Ashley had a safety deposit box,
But ashley said she didn't have a safety deposit box.
That was another reason to throw a red flag in the case.
Why would someone give us a false story?
Other than if they're trying to hide something.
- Authorities say wright is listed as a missing person
In the national crime information center.
If anyone has any information,
You're asked to contact police.
- When I found out that she was missing,
It was a very bad feeling.
You know, it was the gut punch of something's wrong.
This isn't right, this isn't normal.
(tense music)
(clock ticking)
- We directly asked her if she harmed taylor.
Her body language didn't change any, she tells us no.
So we moved on to the next question.
- That's a little weird
To be talking negative about your friend who's missing.
It added to my suspicion.
I think maybe she was just trying to throw us off
On another track.
- We thought we had at least a good starting point.
She gave us a timeline
And we got her locked into some kind of statement,
To start working to corroborate
Or prove that it's all a lie.
(eerie music)
- When we heard about this safety deposit box
And the $34,000 taylor gave to ashley to hold,
The first thing that we did was subpoena ashley's bank
For all the records.
We learned two things from this.
One, we confirmed she didn't have a safety deposit box
At wells fargo.
Second, I could see a deposit for $34,000
Come into ashley's bank account.
And the following day that money is transferred out
Into various accounts.
That deposit was taken down to zero within a day.
That's an alert for law enforcement.
- Also when we got a copy of the cashier's check
And looked at the signature on the back,
It did not match any of
Taylor wright's signatures
On other checks
That she had cashed.
- Those multiple lies show us
That she is now involved in taylor's disappearance.
(atmospheric music)
- When she missed her court date,
We knew that something was wrong.
We began really seriously thinking like, okay,
She's not just hiding out
'cause she would've gone to that court case immediately.
We started doing all the physical searching.
We were clearing the bayous with canine dogs,
Went back and searched casandra waller's house.
We even used the dog to search ashley's neighborhood.
We were knocking on doors, talking to neighbors,
Handing out flyers.
- At this point we had pretty much agreed
That this was gonna be a homicide investigation,
More than likely over money.
Ashley left a trail of evidence for us to follow
And we did start breaking apart her story.
- Instead of holding on to taylor'
Like she was supposed to for safekeeping,
Ashley deposited it into her account
And then immediately began moving that money
To various other accounts at her bank.
We also discovered that ashley had purchased a boat
And a motorcycle for her boyfriend
Before taylor disappeared.
Ashley was married, but also had a boyfriend on the side.
We have to look at everyone in her inner circle.
(atmospheric music)
- During this investigation,
We looked at cellphone records.
Cellphone records can tell us where someone's been,
Even if they tell us it's somewhere else, right?
The cellphone doesn't lie.
We got information
That showed us her story was completely false.
- Cellphone data
Showed ashley never went to milton, florida,
Where she said she went with taylor.
Actually, she was 30 miles away in cantonment.
- Why was she in cantonment?
An area that she never told us about
And she was there for hours.
During the investigation,
We learned that ashley's family had a second farmhouse
In cantonment,
Right in the middle of where that cellphone was at
For those hours.
That was a huge break in the case
Because we figured that potentially
Is where taylor's gonna be.
- And that's when we knew, okay,
We got the money missing
And now she's lying about where she had been,
And what else is she lying to us about?
(tense music)
- [richard] before we ask you any questions,
You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can be used against you in the court.
You understand that?
(clock ticking)
- She had no clue that we had her cellphone records,
That we had subpoenaed the bank.
So we wanted to confront her
With everything that we had learned
And break apart her lie.
We decided to search the cantonment property
Simultaneously with the interview.
'cause if we did find taylor,
That's another thing that we could confront her with
And also arrest her at the same time.
- The ultimate goal is to get her to confess
And tell us what took place.
- She's starting to realize
That we've gotten her bank records
And she starts squirming around a little bit more,
Crossing her hands into her legs.
And that's an indication that she's uncomfortable
And not really liking that line of questioning.
(clock ticking)
- We wanted to give her an opportunity to change her story.
She didn't take it, she continued to lie.
- She's here on her own free will.
She could just get up and walk away,
So you gotta be careful not to push too hard.
We're trying to keep her there long enough
To where we can hopefully find taylor's remains
Out at the farm.
(clock ticking)
- We knew she was lying,
But we had to be careful not to push too hard
'cause there's still information
We wanna extract from her.
We move on past the question
And plan to come back later on down the line.
- It's a chess game.
I'm always thinking two or three moves ahead.
So I know where I'm going,
I'm running play after play after play
And she's not able to think as quick on her feet.
- I think she knew she was really backed up in a corner.
Now I just keep pressing, pressing and pressing
And hopefully she'll eventually crack.
(clock ticking)
- We finally got her to admit
That they were out at this farm in cantonment
And not at a farm in milton.
She placed herself and taylor out there,
Which is a big deal
Because we needed to physically place her there
In case we ultimately find taylor out there.
- Umm.
(atmospheric music)
- With her pausing and dragging out her answer,
It's just another indication
Of having to come up with another lie
And have a reason of why she and taylor
Are out there at the farm,
When she's never told us about that.
It's a totally different ashley at this point.
She's pulled her leg in
A lot closer to her body.
She's kind of tucked her hands in between her legs
And she's nervous.
At that point, we knew that we had her,
We just needed to get her to tell us
Exactly what took place.
- Ashley.
- We were at the point in the interview
Where we just have to confront her.
It was make or break time.
Reaching over, moving her chair and moving it really close
Is a way to try to break down that defensive posture,
Make her feel uncomfortable.
She's either gonna shut down
Or potentially tell us exactly what happened.
We didn't know where taylor was at that point,
So I knew that there was a big risk.
She could ask for an attorney
And the interview would be over.
(tense music)
(clock ticking)
(tense music)
- We had search and rescue dogs
That can locate human remains.
We had multiple atvs, we had a dive team on standby.
We didn't have taylor.
We needed taylor, to say that there was a homicide.
But a couple hours into the search,
Officers noticed an area that had some foliage on it
That didn't really match.
And when they moved the bushes and the branches,
They could see what they thought was a human skull,
Sticking up in a mix
Of what appeared to be potting soil and concrete.
After we found the skull,
We were able to put the skeletal remains together
And we actually found a necklace that taylor had.
That moment, I knew it was her.
We could see that on the back of the skull
There was a bullet hole,
So we knew that she had been shot in the back of the head.
(tense music)
Once we confirmed it was taylor,
We got units over to ashley's residence
Where we had her under surveillance
And we arrested her.
(atmospheric music)
We knew that ashley had stopped off at a convenience store,
So we went to that convenience store
And pulled the surveillance footage
And we could see ashley inside that store.
We could see ashley's truck in the background
And we could tell
That it looked like another person
Was in the passenger's seat.
So we believe that, at this moment in time,
Taylor was alive.
Later in the investigation,
We found surveillance video of ashley buying concrete
And potting soil,
Which matched the concrete and potting soil
That was found on taylor.
- That video was definitely
The nail in the coffin
For ashley mcarthur.
- [chad] what we believe happened
Was ashley took taylor up to the farm up in cantonment,
(gun shot)
Shot her in the back of the head,
Buried her in a shallow grave,
Covered her body up with a mixture of concrete
And potting soil, and left her.
- I believe ashley mcarthur felt backed into a corner
Because she did not have the money to give back to taylor
And the only option she saw was to get rid of taylor wright.
(tense music) (dates clicking)
- Ashley mcarthur had the motive to kill taylor wright,
Money.
She had the opportunity to kill taylor wright.
She did in fact kill taylor wright
And then she tried to cover it up.
- Imagine you're on your sofa at home.
Everybody take a deep breath, here we go.
- The interrogations gave the jury
An insight to her ability to manipulate.
They were able to show her lies and her deceit,
And her constant pointing the guilt away from her
And toward anyone else.
- [judge] my understanding is we have a verdict.
Let's bring the jury in.
- We, the jury, find the defendant, ashley mcarthur,
Guilty of first degree premeditated
Murder with a firearm as charged in the indictments.
- When it all came together,
It was clear beyond a reasonable doubt
That ashley was guilty.
She was immediately sentenced to life in prison
Without the possibility of parole.
- The way she didn't blink, didn't cry.
I don't understand how a human could be like that.
Such an evil person.
- Ashley took away the life of a young woman,
The mother of an eight year-old little boy
Who will never have his mother
See him go through all the milestones in his life.
- Ashley being in jail for the rest of her life,
I think that's very justified.
There's a child that doesn't have a mom.
It was over something senseless, it was money.
- We're glad that we got closure
For casandra, jeff, and drake.
They can work toward moving past this tragedy
In their lives.
- Drake growing up without his mom, I mean, it hurts,
But he has his dad
So I know he'll grow up really happy and healthy.
Taylor was a mother, she was a friend.
She lived life to the fullest.
I will always remember that about her.