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Nancy Grace
Deadly Church Love Triangle in Missouri
Aired June 20, 2012 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAT LALAMA, GUEST HOST: Breaking news tonight. A beloved Missouri couple married 19 years with two children. The husband is a successful insurance agent, and the couple are members of a local Baptist church. By all appearances, it seems they have it all until the wife finds her own husband shot dead on his office floor. She thinks she`s getting nearly $1 million in life insurance money, but what the wife didn`t plan on was cops finding an incriminating letter from the hitman. Who? The couple`s own pastor, the same man cops say murders his love rival, then gives the eulogy at his funeral.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you once you saw him there?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I (INAUDIBLE) wake up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you shake him?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I sure did!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw blood coming out of his ear!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You saw blood coming out of his ear?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Love triangle...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bizarre love triangle turned murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stone admitted to planning her husband`s murder with her long-time love and pastor David Love.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For more than 40 minutes, Love eulogized Randy Stone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes I`d say to Teresa, Teresa, would you come and sit on this side of me (INAUDIBLE) He`s about to beat me to death.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Losing my dad was extremely hard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) a storm (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was Randy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I thought they were happy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prosecutors say the two planned to cash in on large life insurance policies after Love shot Randy Stone in his Independence insurance office.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why? Why him?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Until death do you part, but...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why now?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I guess it was, wasn`t it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Decade-long affair.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Without answers, death seems so cold.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Love letters and e-mails between Love and Teresa Stone were discovered by police.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) I`m so sorry!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LALAMA: Is it murder from the pulpit? Good evening. I`m Pat Lalama, in for Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us tonight.
A Missouri couple married 19 years seemed to have it all until tragedy strikes. The husband is found shot to death on his own office floor. The hitman? It`s the couple`s own pastor.
We go to Michael Board, reporter with WOAI Newsradio. Michael take us through this bizarre deadly love triangle. Go from the beginning.
MICHAEL BOARD, WOAI: You know, it sounds like the plot of a Hollywood movie. A woman falls in love with a man and convinces him to kill her husband so they can live out their lustful dreams, the man the family`s pastor, convinces him to kill her husband so they can collect the life insurance plot. It all went awry because of some good police work. They`re both -- you know, Pat, what happened to "Thou shall not kill"?
LALAMA: Well, and I was going to use the one about coveting thy neighbor`s wife. I supposed he ignored both of those, so it seems.
Ray Reed (ph), news director, KCMO Talk Radio, let`s talk about these two couples. Let`s talk about -- before we go any further, I want to know who were the Loves and who were the Stones, and where did they fit in the community and with each other?
RAY REED, KCMO TALK RADIO (via telephone): You know, by all accounts, they were just good-natured, loving people involved in their communities, a businessman, his wife, their pastor, their good friend, a very small, average Christian church where everybody really is family and supposedly committed to all of these beliefs, which even if we look at Deuteronomy, Pastor Love violated all 10 of those commandments.
LALAMA: Well, you know, I`m out here in Hollywood and I`ve got to believe somewhere close by is a producer looking to write a script on this one, Ellie Jostad, Nancy Grace producer. Isn`t it true that Randy was actually very, very close to the pastor, considered him a highly influential man in his own life.
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: That`s right, Pat. I mean, this guy, the victim, Randy Stone, actually went to Pastor David Love for weekly counseling sessions. We know that the victim attended services on Sundays, also on Wednesdays.
He had this sort of self-help workbook kind of manual that he would use to sort of set his priorities, talk about what he wanted out of life, his goals, what was important to him. And he actually wrote in this book that the most influential person in his life was his pastor, David Love. He considered him a trusted friend. He even considered him one of his best friends.
LALAMA: Michael Board, back to you for a minute before we go on. If -- what do you think about this? These two people are having an affair, the pastor and Teresa, people had to know. They had to smell something, or no? Was it completely secretive?
BOARD: Even Randy knew what was going on here because this is the twist, Randy knew something was going on in his marriage. It was so obvious for him, he changed his life insurance policy. Midway through his marriage, instead of his wife as the beneficiary, he changed it to his kids. He knew this marriage was going sour.
LALAMA: Yes, and he did that many years ago, which I find very interesting. And we are fortunate to have Kevin Harrell with us, chief deputy prosecutor, Jackson County prosecuting attorney`s office.
Thanks so much. What a story, I must say. Tell us about that spring day when 911 receives a call, only 911 wasn`t the first call. Tell us what was found, who called who and how that all transpired.
KEVIN HARRELL, CHIEF DEPUTY PROSECUTOR, JACKSON COUNTY (via telephone): Well, thanks, Pat. You know, you`re right, 911 was not the first call that was made that day. The first call was made by Teresa to her mom, letting her mom know that her husband Randy had been shot. And so she decided to call her mom before she called 911, told her mom to come to the office where she found her husband, and then she hung up from 911 and - - or excuse me, from her mom and then decided to call 911.
LALAMA: That`s very interesting, Christine Grillo, prosecutor, deputy chief of domestic violence bureau. Are we just to jump to conclusions if someone doesn`t call 911 first?
CHRISTINE GRILLO, PROSECUTOR: No. You know, taken in context with everything else, then, yes it has a strong bearing on the case in showing someone`s guilt, if you would. But I never really hold or put too much stock into what people do when they walk in and find a loved one dead, or even any dead body. You can never predict what someone`s going to do.
So yes, what Mr. Harrell`s bring out is a very good point, but it needs to be taken together with the other evidence. In and of itself, it`s not enough. It may raise an eyebrow, but it`s definitely not enough.
LALAMA: All right, before we go further with evidence, I want to go to Andrew Scott, former chief of police, Boca Raton, president AJS Consulting. He was killed with, I believe, a Glock, and I think you might have something to show us?
ANDREW J. SCOTT, FMR. CHIEF OF POLICE, BOCA RATON: Yes. As a matter of fact, I do have a real Glock, 40-caliber weapon which was used to kill Mr. Stone. And it`s a very powerful weapon. The caliber is a large size, and frankly, it really can do a lot of damage. And it`s -- that type of bullet will definitely hurt somebody far more than a smaller caliber., And it was used to kill, and clearly, it achieved its objective.
LALAMA: All right, I`m going to get back to that gun in a second, but let`s get back to the actual scene of the crime. And the first thing that I want to say is it looks like he was ambushed, in a sense. And I`m wondering if Dr. Michael Arnall, M.D., board-certified forensic pathologist -- what does that mean if someone is surprised? Is it -- does that help in figuring out what went wrong?
DR. MICHAEL ARNALL, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST (via telephone): Oh, in this case, they indicated that there had been no evidence of a struggle. And when you see that at a scene, you wonder whether the decedent knew the assailant or was surprised by the assailant.
LALAMA: And Kevin Harrell, I want to get back to you, chief deputy prosecutor on this case. there was money left there, so it didn`t appear to be a robbery, is that correct?
HARRELL: That is correct. That is correct. You know...
LALAMA: All right, then -- go ahead.
HARRELL: Go ahead. I`m sorry.
LALAMA: No, I want you to finish.
HARRELL: Well, I was just going to say there wasn`t an indication of any type of struggle. There was money still left there. And those were signs that Randy may not have known -- probably did not know what was going to happen to him.
LALAMA: And then we go back to Ellie Jostad for what turns out to be probably the biggest, most interesting piece of evidence, and that would be a shredded letter.
JOSTAD: Right. Right.
LALAMA: Tell us about that.
JOSTAD: So police find this letter at the scene. They don`t believe that the victim wrote it. It appears to be some sort of love letter. I mean, it says things like, You are my heart, you are a precious place in my heart, you`re the center of my world, you see it there, you are precious to my heart.
This very strange love letter seems to have some code at the bottom of it, "MMT," which is police later realize meant "Marry me Teresa." This appears to be some sort of love letter written to the victim`s wife but not written by the victim himself. And it`s found there right at the murder scene.
LALAMA: And so Michael Board, what does that tell investigators? Right away, they`ve got somewhere to go.
BOARD: Yes, exactly. There`s so much evidence in this case. Also, you have to remember in this case, according to the police investigation, Teresa and Pastor Love were carrying on this secret affair through throwaway cell phones. They had these discardable cell phones, texting each other back and forth with these dirty love notes.
LALAMA: Well, we`re going to go back to that, but I just got to ask Richard Herman, defense attorney, and Brad Cohen, too, while you`re here, defense attorneys. What is it about these people, they make really dumb mistakes and you have to defend them. Leaving a love letter in the trash basket, for heaven`s sakes? Richard?
RICHARD HERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Pat -- nice to see you, Pat. You know, that`s why they`re criminals, and that`s why they`re morons because they got caught here. But Pat, I have to tell you, when you come across this much evidence against your client juxtaposed to incompetent buffoon prosecutors and a weak judge, you make the best of it.
And to get an eight-year sentence on a conspiracy to commit murder with overwhelming evidence -- I mean, oh, my God, what a tremendous deal by the defense attorney for her. I mean, she could have got 15 years. It`s probably what she should have gotten. And an eight-year deal, what, she`ll be out in four to five years? It is really beautiful defense work.
LALAMA: Well, we`re going to -- well, let`s go back to some of this great evidence that I just want to hear, Brad -- you know, a letter in the basket, text messages? Come on!
BRADFORD COHEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, that`s never a good idea for any criminal. But you know what? If the entire truth always came in, then everyone would be guilty. You don`t know what does come in and what doesn`t come in generally in cases.
That is not smart, I agree, but the sentence that she received of eight years I don`t think is outrageous because normally, what you have when you have multiple defendants is the first pig to the trough usually gets fed. And if you see the same thing in the John Gotti case when Sammy the Bull ratted him out, he only got three to five for multiple murders. The same thing happened, I believe, in this case.
LALAMA: Well, I want to go back -- I want to go back to how this case now starts to unfold. And we`ll go back to Kevin Harrell for that. So you`ve got this letter, and you`re thinking, Hmm. How do you finally tie that to these two?
HARRELL: Well, you know, you find that letter, and so obviously, it raises questions for investigators who are out there on the scene. They don`t know who did it at this time, but they have no reason or motive for it. But obviously, finding the letter that doesn`t appear to be from her husband, Randy, from a gentleman to her, raises suspicion as to what is going on.
So yes, your eyebrows are raised as to what`s going on. Is there an affair? What`s happening? And so, you know...
LALAMA: And how -- how...
HARRELL: ... investigators...
LALAMA: How -- go ahead. Go ahead, Kevin.
HARRELL: Well, I`m just saying investigators are now, you know, starting to say, OK, we may have something to -- some more rocks to kick over and look under.
LALAMA: OK. And so Ellie, what`s next? They take that letter -- and take us down that investigative road.
JOSTAD: Right. Here`s the weird thing, though, too, Pat, is, you know, when police asked Teresa Stone about this letter, she first -- What letter, doesn`t know anything about it. Then they say, you know, This letter? And she says, Oh, yes, found that on my car about a year ago, totally forgot about it. It`s from, like, an anonymous admirer, something like that.
So she denies any knowledge of this letter. And you know, from then, police start saying they see other weird things at the scene. The two of them are acting very strangely. For one thing, Pastor Love is very closely watching the investigators that are processing the scene, and he`s not ministering to the widow or her family members who have all gathered there. Instead, he`s watching what the detectives are doing.
And police also thought that the widow, Mrs. Stone, was acting strangely, too. You know, there were times she showed emotion, but other times, she`s all business, you know, no tears running down her face, strangely sort of detached from the scene where her husband is lying dead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he have life insurance and stuff?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, he did. His dad died when he was 52 of a heart attack, and that was right after Randy got into the insurance business, and left his mom in a world of financial trouble. So he was bound and determined that if he ever (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`d be taken care of?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
He took care of me. He did everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I paid the bills!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LALAMA: Kevin Harrell, prosecutor from Jackson County, there she was. When was the first time that investigators got to sit down with her?
HARRELL: Oh, they got to sit down with her that night, that evening of the homicide, on the 31st.
LALAMA: And what was her demeanor with investigators that night?
HARRELL: Well, it was oddly strange in that she would cry at times and she was business at times. At the scene, she would go in and out of hysteria to just normal, you know, run-of-the-mill behavior. There was a time when she went from the crime scene down to headquarters, where she was riding with detectives, and would carry a normal conversation and she might even comment that, I know it seems strange that, you know, I`m all cried out.
And she continued that even once she got to the police station, go in and out of times where she would cry or attempt to cry, and then she`s just normal. So I mean, just very strange, odd behavior for having found your husband just, you know, an hour or so earlier.
LALAMA: Caryn Stark, psychologist, you know, I`ve always -- if I had -- if murdered somebody, would I be able to keep it straight or hold a poker face. But they kind of give themselves away a lot, like she did, correct?
CARYN STARK, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Yes. Well, they give themselves away either by fake crying, which is kind of like crocodile tears, Pat, or in her case, saying she`s all cried out.
What you would expect -- not always, but what you would really expect is that somebody faced with that kind of tragedy would be amazed how much tears she really has and that it doesn`t stop. But she`s kind of like a little crying, a little talking, so it doesn`t appear to be extremely sincere at all.
LALAMA: Ray Reed, news director, KCMO talk radio, two other things very interesting. She gets some sort of a text saying, Don`t go to the office today. Explain what that -- on the day of the murder. What was that about?
REED: On the day of the murder, though that disposable cell phone, he sent a message that said, Urgent, do not go to the office by yourself. And she did anyway, and that`s when the body was discovered and the phone calls began.
LALAMA: And Ellie Jostad, here`s what I like the best, the questions about the life insurance. Talk to us about that.
JOSTAD: Right. Well, a couple of witnesses told police that right after the murder, just a day or two after the murder, that Teresa Stone is talking about this big life insurance payment she thinks she`s going to get.
She tells, actually, the pastor`s wife that she thinks she`s going to get about $80,000 -- sorry, $800,000 from the insurance money. And she says she`s actually worried that people are going to start coming to her, wanting a handout when she`s got all these plans for the money. She`s going to pay off her bills. She`s going to pay off her car, going to pay off the house.
And you know, she wants to kind of do these things with the money. The pastor`s wife thinks it`s really weird that she`s bringing this up and that she`s not more of a grieving widow. And Pat, there is also a relative, a niece, who said she heard the same story, except she heard that she was going to get a million dollars in insurance money -- this from the wife.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She didn`t love him or she couldn`t have done what she done.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ultimately, the love triangle and the plot to kill Randy Stone...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) Losing my dad was extremely hard, but losing my mom would be harder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Death seems so distant. It seems so long. Death seems so permanent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LALAMA: Dr. Michael Arnall, board-certified forensic pathologist, how do we know right from the beginning this isn`t self-inflicted or whatever?
ARNALL: Well, they`re going to look at the distance between the barrel of the gun and the head when the gunshot was discharged. They can do that by looking at specific criteria around the wound itself.
LALAMA: What kind of injury -- can you tell us about the injuries very quickly?
ARNALL: There`s a gunshot wound to the head. There`s a 911 call indicates that there was blood coming from the ear. So this individual was shot in the head.
LALAMA: OK, and Ellie Jostad, Nancy Grace producer, we know or we think we know where that gun came from.
JOSTAD: Right. Well, they collected .40-caliber shells there at the scene, and they were able -- even though they didn`t find the gun, they were able to trace those shells to shells at the location where they know the victim had done a lot of target practice. Same shells. They match up. So they`re fairly convinced that the victim was actually shot with his own gun.
LALAMA: And he -- and the husband was a Marine and had a gun collection, correct?
JOSTAD: Yes, that`s right. And police, you know, say even that they believe that the wife actually allowed her lover -- gave him codes, gave him the, you know, combination to the safe, gave him the code to the garage door opener and their alarm, allowed the lover access to her husband`s gun, and that`s how he was able to get ahold of it and then use it to shoot the victim.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The love letter from Pastor David Love to Teresa Stone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I`m not in control of things yet, but when we are fully together, your birthdays will always be exciting."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The decade-long affair.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the plot to kill Randy Stone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you`re not happy, get a divorce. I know God tells you not to, it`s `til death do you part, but -- well, I guess it was, wasn`t it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The two conspiring to kill Randy so they could live happily ever after.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LALAMA: Kevin Harrell, Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney`s Office, when did you finally determined that the man of the cloth was the man with the gun?
KEVIN HARRELL, CHIEF DEPUTY PROSECUTOR, JACKSON COUNTY, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY OFFICE: Well, we knew for sure once she finally gave it up about almost a month later, later on in April when she had about a fourth interview with detectives. We knew for sure that the -- Pastor Love was the man with the gun.
LALAMA: And did they turn on each other? How did that work out for you, when you know you`ve got them both, generally speaking, you try to get one to rat out the other one, or however you want it to work?
HARRELL: Yes, I mean, it is -- one of your guest said earlier that it almost is a race to the prosecutor at that point in time. She came to us first and wanted to tell how things had occurred and obviously in order to help herself out. So she and her attorney came to us and wanted to talk some type of bill.
LALAMA: And you know what, Christine Grillo, prosecutor, deputy chief of Domestic Violence Bureau, it`s a tricky game you play when you have these, you know, seemingly love entranced human beings. How do you play that because, you know, they want to run away together and be together forever and now they`re caught? What happens and how do you play it?
CHRISTINE GRILLO, PROSECUTOR, DEPUTY CHIEF OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BUREAU: Well, they want to be together like you said, but until they get caught. I mean how you play it is you look to the strength of the evidence, who you have more evidence and who is actually more culpable.
And in this particular case, remember the shooter, she wasn`t the shooter, the wife was not the shooter so -- and she didn`t actually set it up. Like she didn`t -- there`s no allegations that she left a door open or she provided a key or even that she did -- there`s no evidence that she actually provided the murder weapon.
Remember we don`t even have the murder weapon, we have what appears to be shells that might match. So she is less culpable than the actual murderer if you would, so I would believe that the prosecutors were absolutely dead on in going after her to give them more evidence to the actual shooter.
Because quite frankly, he is the one who killed him, he is the one who pulled the trigger. And she was of course part of it and that`s why, you know, she is going to be held or hopefully held accountable for what she`s done.
But really, in this case, the love starts to -- I don`t know, go away when they start to see what their future will hold when the evidence comes before and they`re going to have to face the music, if you would.
LALAMA: And we`re going to get into this love affair in a minute, so stay tuned. It`s really something.
But I just have to ask Richard Herman and Brad Cohen.
Richard, which of these clients would you prefer to have?
RICHARD HERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I`d definitely prefer to have Teresa here, because she could -- we could make her out to be Mother Teresa. She didn`t know this pastor, and let`s use that word. He`s not a pastor, he has no moral compass, he`s not a religious man, he`s a murderer, that`s what he is.
And, you know, she -- her position could have been, he just went off the handle there, he was so in love with her, and, you know, she just -- never wanted it, she never thought he would really kill her husband, my god. How would he ever do that?
LALAMA: Mm-hmm. Right.
HERMAN: So I mean that`s where she would be coming from.
LALAMA: Brad, how about you? Who do you pick?
BRADFORD COHEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That is the defense and in fact in terms of whether or not or how he got this weapon, if it is in fact his weapon, is that, you know, they were together all the time, she was in the house, he had access to the gun. He could have taken the gun upon one of their trysts, who knows, and then he flew off the handle, it`s his fault, she never wanted it that way, he did it all, and that`s the -- that`s the defense. That`s the name of the game right there. And that`s where they would have gone with if it went to trial.
LALAMA: Caryn Stark, I -- you know, I have covered so many of these cases, a pastor and people in these, you know, really special positions in society who basically take advantage. How does a guy, you know, of this pastor, this congregation, this lovely community carry on a 10-year affair with this woman?
CARYN STARK, PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, that`s the --
LALAMA: (INAUDIBLE)
STARK: -- travesty, Pat, because it`s so unethical, I mean he was doing counseling with the husband every week. You have to really look at people who have no conscience and sociopathic like this. She was equally culpable because she gave him access to the gun, she was in on all the plans. She can`t have any emotion for either one of these men. She turned on the pastor. But when you think about, he was doing counseling, so he was doing sessions with this guy. Being a psychologist, that`s very close to home for me, to think that somebody would be doing that.
LALAMA: Absolutely and taking advantage -- I mean, look, she`s -- you know, she`s equally guilty in a lot of ways.
STARK: Yes.
LALAMA: But Michael Board, reporter, WOAI Newsradio. There`s a bombshell that we haven`t told the audience about at this point and that has to do with the good pastor`s wife. What did they have planned for her?
MICHAEL BOARD, REPORTER, WOAI NEWSRADIO: Yes, bombshell in all of this, this was not only a love triangle, this was more of a love box, while they were planning the murder of Randy, at the same time they were also planning the murder of the pastor`s wife. And it was a completely different scenario, instead of walking up behind the pastor`s wife with a gun and blowing her head off, they planned to strangle her, murder her, and then have a car accident and try to pretend like she died in the car accident.
LALAMA: Oh my gosh.
BOARD: Which is (INAUDIBLE) ludicrous because you have to know even people who have maybe seen "CSI" once know that the police investigators, the first thing they look for is the signs of death. If they strangled her, they would see the marks around her neck, so it`s just a -- such a moronic plan to begin with.
LALAMA: Yes. Well, yes, and there she is. Mrs. Pastor, or actually Mrs. Love, but I`m calling her Mrs. Pastor.
And, you know, I just want to ask Andrew Scott, former chief of police, Boca Raton, president AJS Consulting, you`ve seen this kind of cases before, why don`t these darn people just get divorced? Why do they hatch these plans, these elaborate plans to have these -- I mean it`s a question for Caryn, I`ll ask her in a minute. But from a police perspective, it`s so much easier just to say honey, I`m out of here.
ANDREW J. SCOTT, FMR. CHIEF OF POLICE, BOCA RATON, FL.; PRESIDENT, AJS CONSULTING: Well, from the police perspective, absolutely, why not get a divorce, but nobody said that criminals are smart. Emotions and passions drive people to think stupid things and do stupid things. And here you have a perfect example.
And the other thing is, is that the human condition allows us to be so fallible and to make these type of intellectual errors thinking that we can get away with something like this when in fact here it unravels and it unravels in a very, very horrible way.
LALAMA: We`ve had some patient callers, I know you`ve been waiting a long time, starting with Blair in Texas.
Good evening, Blair. What`s your question?
BLAIR, CALLER FROM TEXAS: My question is, why in the world wouldn`t the wife get a divorce from her husband instead of having her lover kill him?
LALAMA: Well, I think we just responded to that, who knows? It`s just -- well, Caryn, go ahead. You take a stab at that because you deal with these kind of people.
STARK: And I will tell you, Pat, that the reason that they don`t get a divorce is because for sociopaths, this is the same as having a divorce. It`s just much more fun for them, believe it or not, it`s much more enticing and exciting to come up with this elaborate plan and where a divorce could possibly lead to more trouble, and this way they have this fantasy that they feel that they are infallible, they can do whatever they want and they will get rid of this man in this elaborate way and then his wife.
And that`s where they enjoy themselves. That`s what it`s all about for people that don`t have a conscience.
LALAMA: Well, I am going to give Ellie Jostad, NANCY GRACE producer, the illustrious job of reading or telling us some of these adoring, mutually, loving, affectionate text messages, everything between the two of them. I mean it`s like some -- I don`t want to call love cheesy, but some of this sounds pretty cheesy.
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE CHIEF EDITORIAL PRODUCER: Right. Right. It`s pretty -- it`s pretty out there.
So police were able to recover messages these two had shared and you know we already explained, they were using these prepaid TracFones that their spouses didn`t know about so they could contact each other and not leave behind a trail, a cell phone bill. They were also using Facebook messages to talk about how they were in love, to plan this wedding they thought they were both going to have after their spouses were out of the way.
I mean, you see this kind of stuff, "I miss you, you belong with me." I think one of them says, "The love of your life is waiting for you." Some of these got pretty raunchy I really don`t want to get into what they were saying but they were talking about what they wanted to do to each other when they`re together.
LALAMA: Come on. Come on, Ellie.
JOSTAD: No. I mean my mom can be watching.
LALAMA: I`m teasing.
JOSTAD: But at any rate, you know, it was pretty blatant and they were able to recover these from, like I said, cell phones, Facebook, e- mails, texts. They left quite an electronic trail of this 10-year love affair.
LALAMA: Well, you know, I`m kind of making light of it, but it`s all very tragic and there are children involved.
And Christine Grillo, I mean, you`ve seen children suffer at the hands of people who make these kinds of horrific decisions in their life, I`m sure.
GRILLO: Yes, and you know what, it is very sad because now you have these children that their father has been murdered and their mother is involved, yet they`re still -- I mean it`s their mom. And I`m sure they`re still loving their mom. And who knows what kind of support they put behind her, but it is. It`s very tragic. And it`s a continuing tragedy that`s going to be with them for the rest of their lives and it`s super unfortunate.
LALAMA: And Ray Read, news director, KCMO Talk Radio, my understanding is that Kim`s choosing to stay with her husband and she actually found out about this through a ring, can you very quickly explain it, what the ring scenario was.
RAY READ, NEWS DIRECTOR, KCMO TALK RADIO: There seemed to be an inclination that they -- there was advanced notice there, but Kim just seems to be staying with their bible based believes that, you know, this is marriage until death do us part and, you know, he`s parted to the Graybar Hotel, but he`s still in this world so they`ll remain together.
LALAMA: To tonight`s "On the Radar" tracking crime and justice.
An Ohio infant boy, just two days old, found dead in the family freezer. His parents arrested for the baby`s brutal death.
In Florida a group of teens accused of setting a 15-year-old boy on fire. A judge sentences the mastermind.
And cops investigate the murders of a mother and her two little boys found shot to death in a Texas hotel.
For "On the Radar" or to have your story on our radar , go to hlnTV.com/ontheradar.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The audio of Pastor David Love actually presiding over Randy Stone`s funeral.
PASTOR DAVID LOVE, JACKSON COUNTY: The question tonight, why, why him? Why now?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: His wife was having an affair with their pastor.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A 10-year sexual relationship.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And Stone was in the way.
LOVE: We sit here today and we weep.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LALAMA: It`s this part of the story just kills me, I mean here`s the guy, he knows he shot this man dead, Kevin Harrell, prosecutor, Jackson County, and yet he`s up there, why? Why now? I mean you guys must have had a little bit of a smirk about that down at the police or down at the D.A.`s office.
HARRELL: We had more than a smirk about that and you know that is something that makes for great closing arguments when you do these type of cases. You know, sometimes as you know fact is much stranger than fiction.
LALAMA: Yes, that`s exactly true, and Ellie Jostad, NANCY GRACE producer, how did they finally get both of them? Take us to the end of this.
JOSTAD: Right. Well, you know, the grand jury indicted both of them on these charges. As Kevin said, they did get a lot of information from the wife. She confessed to a lot of what was going on, admitted the affair, admitted that this whole love note was written as a birthday letter to her from the pastor. Admitted that they exchanged texts. That the pastor had talked about killing her husband with one of his own guns.
Of course she initially claimed that, you know, that`s not how she wanted it to go down. She said, you know, if god wants us to be together, he`ll find a way for us to be together. But she did eventually admit to prosecutors that she did tell her lover that she wanted her husband dead. So, you know, she confessed to her culpability, the -- rather, the pastor also copped a deal in the end so he wouldn`t get life in prison or hopefully will not get life in prison and they both admitted eventually, yes, we did this, we tried to have him dead so we could continue our life together.
LALAMA: And Michael Board, reporter, WOAI Newsradio, didn`t he take off -- surely after the murder, didn`t he go become a truck driver somewhere?
BOARD: Yes, he became a truck driver on the East Coast. He tried to get as far away from this because I think in his heart, in his mind he knew that if he stuck around, eventually he would say something stupid and well, you know, it caught up to him eventually.
LALAMA: And Richard Herman, defense attorney, he gets 25 to life and she gets, I think, eight years. Somebody stop me right if that`s wrong, but I`m sure that`s right.
What do you make of that, a little disparity in the sentencing?
HERMAN: Well, he`s the actual shooter, Pat, so I mean he`s the one that actually murdered the gentleman.
LALAMA: Right. Right.
HERMAN: So he gets the 25 years.
LALAMA: But I guess what I`m asking you is a -- you know, I understand that, but I mean she gets eight, does that seem fair to you?
HERMAN: As a defense attorney, I think it`s a fabulous job by the defense.
LALAMA: I thought you would.
HERMAN: You got - you got a soft prosecutor who was ridiculous to make this deal. Christine (INAUDIBLE) would have made this deal. So you take advantage. You have a soft judge who went along with it. The judge didn`t have to go along with it. So in the end, it`s a fantastic job for the defense, she`ll do about four, five years, after having her husband slaughtered, 42-year-old man, as she`ll see the light of day again. As will the ex-pastor. He will see the light of day also. He`s up for parole I think 23, 24 years, so he`ll get out, he`ll see the light of day again.
HERMAN: Bradford Cohen, what do you make of the sentence for both of these?
COHEN: Yes, well, certainly, certainly I wouldn`t disparage the judge or the prosecutor, because I`m not in their seat. You know it`s very easy to do that when you don`t know what`s going on in the case and when you need someone to break something and you need someone to talk to you and tell you what exactly went on and what their culpability is, and she was, like I said, the first one at the trough, the first one at the trough, is usually the one who wins.
In this case, she went, she came forward, she told what happened, I mean this pastor was a complete moron the way that it went down, leaving shell casings, not stealing money or jewels, it was just ridiculous. But she got the deal that she should have got.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The players in this case started talking. Police documents show Theresa admitted to a friend she knew Pastor David killed Randy.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Ultimately the love triangle and the plot to kill Randy Stone put his wife in handcuffs, escorted from the courtroom with eight years in prison ahead of her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LALAMA: Randy Read, news director, KCMO Talk Radio, are these two still carrying on their love affair from behind bars?
READ: We can only speculate on that. It does seem, you know, that the heart wants what the heart wants. When it came to these two, irregardless of all their family, friends and the close congregation, which at times felt that, you know, they were under assault because at one point when the search warrant was served, they thought that it was a government assault against Christianity because nothing like this would happen in their community.
LALAMA: Caryn Stark, I just have to ask you, I`ve seen so many -- we have a case out here in L.A. where a well-known TV chef ordered a hit on his wife, it didn`t happen, and she`s still with him and that`s what`s happening here.
What the heck is the psychology of a woman who goes to bed at night and says, my husband wanted to have me killed, no problem, I`m still here with him. What is that?
STARK: It`s someone who has such poor self-respect, who doesn`t feel good enough about herself as an individual, Pat, and so -- I mean there was a recent case that we just covered where there was another wife who -- I think there were three attempts on her life and she is standing by her husband.
And somebody like that is kind of -- you know, doesn`t believe that she`s worth anything else except for this person that she`s with. She`s desperate. Kind of addicted. It`s like domestic violence.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: In this bizarre love triangle turned murder --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Admitted to planning her husband`s murder with her longtime lover and pastor, David Love.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s been -- he has blood coming from his ear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The woman has no sense of right or wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LALAMA: Ellie Jostad, NANCY GRACE producer, it was a very, I would say, heartbreaking appeal on behalf of their mother from the children. Was it not?
JOSTAD: Yes, that`s right. I mean the two children of the victim and his wife Theresa Stone are standing by their mother. They actually asked the court to have mercy on their mother. They said, losing their father was horrible, but it would just make it even worse if they lost their mom as well. So they were tearful in court as they begged for mercy. And the defendant herself even broke down as her children pled with the judge.
LALAMA: Christine Grillo, how much does that weigh on a judge? I mean, you know, a crime is a crime and there must be a punishment, but these kids, you know, they`re a little bit older, they`re not toddlers, but it still hurts, dad is dead, mom is in prison.
GRILLO: Well, I mean, I -- I can`t speak for the judge, but just as a human being, it`s hard to hear. And like I mentioned before, the dad is dead, the mom is all they have. And this is their mother. And it`s something and they are standing by her and I`m not surprised to hear that they`re begging to not have her go away for that long.
And, you know, it is -- she did help the case. We have to remember that without her, there was barely anything to convict -- to convict the shooter. There was barely anything. There was unsigned letter. There was no weapon recovered. Without her words putting him there and solidifying the whole thing, the actual killer might have walked away.
So the judge will take that into consideration and I think did and so did the prosecutor in making this offer of the eight years, which was applicable here. It really, really was.
LALAMA: Kevin Harrell, prosecutor, Jackson County, just a few seconds left. I know this had a big impact on your community, did it not?
HARRELL: Yes. It definitely did. And it`s still having a big impact on the community. Like you already know, this is not a run-of-the-mill case. And, you know, this doesn`t happen every single day. And so, you know, it stops and makes you wonder and it makes you a little -- think twice about the people that you let into your life and the people that you trust. And you know you just -- a little more guarded and a little more jaded.
LALAMA: Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Tonight, let`s stop to remember Marine Lance Corporal Charles Sharp, 20 years old, from Adairsville, Georgia. Killed in Afghanistan on a second tour. Also served in Iraq. Purple Heart, Rifle Expert Badge, National Defense Service medal, loved outdoors, football, leaves behind parents Rick and Angela, stepparents Tiffany and Gus, sisters Caitlin, Taylor, Jessica.
Charles Seth Sharp, American hero.
Thank you to all of our guests. Our biggest thank you to you for being with us and inviting us into your homes.
Happy birthday to Tracy in Florida. Here she is with her newborn Liam. And they love the Phillies.
Stay tuned for Dr. Drew coming up next.
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