Am I Next? (Rebroadcast)

0:00Do you hear that? That's sound right? That means that summer is officially here. It means that grown adults just sprint into the street for a frozen dessert shaped like a cartoon. But this summer, Mint Mobile has a better tree. Every plan including unlimited is $15 a month. And unlike Ice Cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture does anyone have any cash! Give it a try at minemobile.com slash switch. A front payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required. $15 per month equivalent to taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes when network is busy. See terms. If someone had let you see everything that had gone on on Facebook and they're talking and saying nasty things about each other, would you ever have imagined that it would have wound up with two people dead in this house? No. Never would have. I got a phone call telling me that she was gone. Am I even able to just can't believe it? I was shocked. And this is the bedroom where the clinic claim was found. Single shot. Single shot in place. Through the back of the house. And did they catch Billie Jean as well? Totally asleep.

1:02My impression was it looked like a hit. The contract hit. People saw there was a killer on the list. I'm sorry it happened. I mean that's all I could tell you is they had been harassing and living crap. What kinds of things were people saying about you? Just that was a bad person. I was horrible threatening to get hurt. What started all this hatred? I've had my life. Dreadies. My wife has been threatened. They've threatened to take me out. Cracker hit all. All part of what prosecutors call the craziest, stupidest, deadliest cat fishing scheme you have ever seen. Pardon. This is Mountain City. A postage stamp hamlet nestled in the mountains in East Tennessee. Mountain City is a two by four town. You know it's two miles wide and four miles long.

2:07A sign greeting visitors calls Mountain City a friendly hometown. Johnson County is considered a very safe place. I was the assistant district attorney there for over six years. And there was only a handful of homicides. Maybe one a year if that. You grew up with people and you're going to see them at the grocery store. You go to the gas station and you run into somebody you know. Everybody goes to the same church. It's the quintessential small town America. Definitely a place where everybody knows everybody. Everybody's in everybody else's business. Johnson County now one more. And the only name that's bad. Can't say the flying place. That call is coming from this house where Billy Payne lives with his fiance, Billy Jean Hayworth. When two neighbors stop by they discover unspeakable horror. The back door is always unlocked.

3:08So he goes in, callers, nobody answers. He thought it was strange that Billy Jean's car is here. Billy truck is here and nobody's answering. So he goes down the hallway and finds Bill on the bed. Billy Payne is not moving. His face is bloodied. I can't find the pulse. I want to see the blood. Oh my god. Blood on it. I'm a child. It's okay. It's on your good call. They heard a noise in the second bedroom which is farther down the hall from the first. They went back and they found the seven month old baby. There's blood on the baby. There's blood on the baby. We found Billy Jean laying in the floor and the baby was there with her. She had her arms wrapped around him. He was laying there on the floor with her. The child was covered in blood. I'm worried that I'll be able to do everything. I'll be honest with you. I don't know how long I can live here. The baby can't do anything. The baby is a parent. It's like maybe it's been a period of time for a while. And probably cry. Do we can't cry anymore?

4:10Miraculously, the baby, Tyler, seen here in photos released by the Johnson County Sheriff's Office, has no physical injuries and appears to be unharmed. Sadly, the same can't be said for the seven month old's parents. No, there's no pulse. I know there's no pulse on him. I can't even want to do anything. You know anything. There's no pulse. There's no pulse on him. They don't want to. So. This kid. This was around 10.40 am in the morning. That's whenever the first call had came in. Here I am, I'm driving down through here. And I'm thinking it's hard to believe that there's actually two people that's been murdered down here, because you would just, it's just something that's very uncommon here. One thing happens there, the whole community knows about it. The situation of two people, we were murdered in their own home, murdered in the Regiomis. In the early morning hours was a great shock and nobody really knew what had happened.

5:11This is where Billy Paine and Billy Jean were murdered in this house. The law enforcement officers took me to the crime scene back in 2015. And you were the first on the scene because you lived pretty close to here, right? I lived approximately a mile and a half down the road right below here. Reese says they found no sign of breaking. That's because anyone could have walked right into the small house just like the police did. So they go to the back door, they just opened it up, it's unlocked. Sliding glass door and they just slotted out and walking. This is the kind of place where people don't really lock their doors I guess. They walked right in. Was there any sign of scuffle, a fight, anything? No, no sign of anything, no, that nature map. Looks like Billy had just gotten out of the bed. That's where we found his body.

6:11What we understand? Special agent Scott Lot with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation takes me into the home where the young couple was killed. This is the bedroom where the clay was found. Single shot. Single shot in the place. Bill, he also had slice marks across his neck and the front. It was like he was going from the left side over towards the right side was how the slashes were. And it wasn't one, it was like multiple slashes. I left from there and went down to the next room, which was the baby's room. And I saw Billie Jean Hayworth lying on the floor and I could tell that she had an injury above her right ear. Like Billy, Billy Jean is shot once in the head. Police theorized Billy is killed first. The bedroom should be right inside this window right here. First window. Billy's bedroom was here and the child's room was next.

7:12So they walked through the back of the house. And did they catch Billy Jean as well? Totally asleep or was she? No, Billy Jean wasn't asleep from walk. We get them. She was holding them. Once the intruder came in, she jumped up and ran out with the baby. Right. They tried to get away. Police think Billy Jean ran into the baby's nursery and tried to shield him from the attack. So it didn't take much time to get from that room to this room to shoot? No. And then this is five feet. Right. It takes a co-blooded person to shoot somebody holding the baby. Was that the most shocking thing about this murder? You know, when that information got out, people were just started about that. It's my community like this. You've been involved in police work and law enforcement for what, 30 years? Almost 30 years. Have you ever seen anything like this? Never seen nothing like this. Who could kill people in this way? It's a question that will ultimately uncover ugly family feuds, divide a mountain city,

8:14and have these small town cops looking to a possible CIA plot. My impression after, you know, the first week was it looked like a hit. But contracted. Right. She doesn't have a tooth. No, no, no, no. It's a home invasion double murder that has a small Tennessee mountain town on edge and authorities scratching their heads. When they first asked me if I knew anybody that would hurt them, nobody came to mind. Nothing hit me right off. I didn't know what would have happened. And then they asked me if they had any enemies. After the time, if we have a murder, it's usually somebody that they know or a family member or one of the friends that got upset. But this is one of those that we always call us like a who done it murdered.

9:17The details are even more horrifying. 36 year old Billy Payne is not only shot in the head, his throat is sliced. 23 year old mother Billy Jean is holding her seven month old son when she's killed. Pretty cold blooded to shoot a woman holding her child. Yes, it is. Sure is. It's basically a point blank. I mean, it's just right there. Shook people up, huh? It did. Sure did. People saw there was a killer on the looks. Did you know the people who lived here? Yes, I did. Very familiar with him. No Billy and his sister from the time they were small. Billy Payne's sister Tracy told me she is still struggling with losing her brother. I was shocked, but I thought it wasn't true, you know. I just, I don't know, it's like impossible. I still don't think it's true. Everybody locked Billy. Billy was one of these type of people that was outgoing and was friends with everybody. He locked the get together with friends, go for it with your truck into mountains and

10:19you know, do stuff like that. Go camping. Billy worked at Parkdale Mills, a textile factory as a machine operator. Billy Jean Hayworth, who was a few years younger than Billy Payne, she started working at Parkdale and that's where Billy Payne and Billy Jean met. They started dating. It was a good person, fun, loving, outgoing, kind of person, everybody would be around. She's like swimming, all being up and worship. She's like a little person. She's a little. The romance moves quickly and no time at all, Billy Jean moves in with Billy and his father. And a short time later, she gives birth to baby Tyler. She was so excited. He was her world. This glow she had about her when he came into the world was just unbelievable. She told me that not before she got murdered, she was happy. Her son met the world of her and Bill did it.

11:21She said, sis, I'm in love. She finally found out what love really was. I got a phone call telling me that she was gone. This is a way of shot her. Am I going to just kill believe it? I was shocked. You just thought I would think of something like a happening to your baby sister? It was one of the hardest days of my life. Nobody should have to go through finding out that their friends have been murdered. So, who would want to murder a young family like this?

12:24At this point, police are desperate for any clues. Were you able to glean very much forensic evidence from the scene? There is very little, it is very clean scene as far as physical evidence goes. So no prints, no shell casings, no DNA left behind? Not that we found no sure. It was because whenever the suspects entered the house, they didn't do anything else. They did not go through the drawers, the closet, the wallets were all left in their places. Some money was laying around, it was left just as it was. So nothing was taken from the residents. Investigators at the scene don't find any shell casings which leads them to believe that the murder weapon was a revolver, but they do find two bullets there. The real estate of the building was laying in the floor in a semi-fetal position.

13:25To me, it looked as if she was bending over to pick up her child from the bouncy seat and was shot at that point. I guess the bullet landed in the bouncy seat. It was amazing. You would think that we would have to look for the bullet in the room, either in a wall or something. But it was just laying right there and the bullet was still in good shape. A bullet recovered from Billy's pillow is also mostly intact. That bullet has an X carved into its tip. This is a technique that's used to craft what is sometimes called a poor man's hollow point. The idea is that the bullet would break apart upon impact and cause even more damage. You never found the murder weapon or the knife that apparently slipped the throat. My impression after the first week was it looked like a hit.

14:26But contracted. But either they're had some training or they were self-taught. We didn't know. We initially started questioning family and friends. Billy's father tells investigators that when he leaves for work at about 5.30 that morning, Billy is still sleeping and Billy Jean is feeding the baby. Bill Payne would always ride with a guy to work. That morning he went up and knocked on the door but no one would come to the door. He just figured that he wasn't going to go to work so he just left and went on to work. That was sometimes around maybe 6 o'clock or so. How police have isolated a half hour window when they believe the murder happened but they still need to find out who did it. The first day when we were talking to friends, other victims. Someone had mentioned that there was some kind of altercation or grievance.

15:27If someone had let you see everything that had gone on, defriending each other on Facebook and they're talking and saying nasty things about each other, would you ever have imagined that it would have wound up with two people dead in this house? No. In 2012, the small town of Mountain City is very online. A lot of people know about everything that goes on here because of Facebook. Back in 2012, there was Facebook. There was a now-defront website called Topics. Topics became a big deal in Johnson County. Where people can go in there and make their own topic and have discussions and it's usually confined to different areas around here, it's very popular. One of the biggest users of Topics and other social media sites in Mountain City is a 30-year

16:29old Janelle Potter who will become a key player in this murder mystery. So let's start off in the beginning. Where did you grow up? Grewpink and Square, Pennsylvania. Moesant like. It was nice. Small town. Not everyone pretty much know everybody. They moved to Mountain City from Pennsylvania in the early 2000s. Your mall accounts, Janelle, was someone who didn't really leave the house very much. She lived most of her life online. The Potter family was known pretty well in Johnson County as keeping them themselves and just being a little weird. They didn't really interact with a lot of people. They didn't work. It seemed very, very like a very paranoid family. Janelle's father, Marvin, also goes by the name Buddy. Now Buddy's a Vietnam vet who says he did covert missions for the CIA. His wife Barbara admits she doesn't exactly know what he did overseas.

17:32Was he ever in the CIA or attached to the CIA? He said he was. Is he allowed to talk about what he did? No. Never. I just saw him as a general giant. Buddy's a gentle giant who's on disability. He suffers from debilitating back pain and periodically relies on oxygen tanks to breathe. But he still sees himself as the protector of this family. My understanding of Janelle and why she was still living with her parents is the chance of learning disabilities that were diagnosed pretty early in her life. Buddy and Barbara are protective and they barely let their daughter out of their sight. What were the rules? What kind of rules were they? Don't be out past, you know, 12 o'clock at night. No smoking, no drinking, no party, and no drugs, and stuff like that. Tell me about Janelle. Very naive can make decisions sometimes that aren't quite right for her because she's young.

18:34She's young in her mind, more young than her age, I think. Her parents had a lot of control over her. She was not allowed to use their computer unmonitored. She was not allowed to use her cell phone unmonitored. She wasn't allowed to have friends over socially to be around people in person without them getting in good with Buddy and Barbara beforehand. So this forced Janelle to seek out relationships online. Janelle also suffers from chronic health issues which keep her indoors most of the time. Janelle did have some interactions in real life and these photos presented in court show Janelle with new friends, Billy Payne and his sister Tracey. I worked at the pharmacy in town and they were coming in and getting her medicine and we felt sorry for Janelle because she was sheltered because she was sick. So I got to talk to my brother about these people that had come in. She gave me a phone number and the last start calling her. Tell me about your relationship with Tracey.

19:35It was again. She was a good friend to me. I would go out with her to the mall to her house a few times at the E. Took her son different places. We were okay. What did you think of Bill? He was not. Just nice. But Janelle says she's also being cyberbullied and hateful anonymous comments begin appearing on her Facebook page. Soon this war of words explodes online between Janelle and Billy Jean Hayworth who Janelle accuses of starting that online feud. What was her relationship like with Billy Jean? Oh, she hated her. From the get go. She had color all kinds of bad names. Now at one point they unfriend you on Facebook? I think we did it to each other. I am friend of them. They are friend of me. Who unfriended who first? I did Bill first and I think Billy did me and I am from it hard.

20:41But Janelle says the online venom keeps coming and escalates to physical threats. Janelle's mother Barbara intervenes. I wrote, please do not write these things. I begged them. Please don't do this. What kinds of things were people saying about you? That was a bad person. I was horrible. Threatening to get right. Threatening to get hurt. Must have been pretty scary. Yes. But why would people say this about you? I don't know. What started all this hatred? I'm not sure. Those are the exact same questions. Police want to ask the podders the day after Janelle's Facebook friends turned foes are murdered. The podders they leave right up here.

21:43So this is the house. This is the house. And you told them this is a conversation? This is no search warrant? Right. This is just something just to get some interviews, just to set down and talk about what type of problems that they all had with each other. Hey. Hey, dad. Hey. What are you talking about? Unknown to the podders, investigators record the interview. What we're doing right now is investigating the dog house. Very serious, man. Everybody always points fingers at us. You don't see? Well, no, they're written about killing their fingers. Instead of talking about how tragic the murders were, instead of talking about what an outrage it was, the podder family, especially Janelle, just started tracking the dog. They had a passion on Billy Payne and Billy Jean A. They've been harassed me in my driveway or her property. And then yesterday, when I got on Facebook, it's when I count out.

22:43And we have, sorry, happened. I mean, that's all I can tell you is they have been harassing the living craft. Why would they be harassing? They came out to be a jealousy thing. That was too pretty. Buddy and Barbara Potter definitely saw their daughters of victim. They saw the Facebook posts. They saw the emails that were sent back and forth. They really thought that people were out to rape her. People were out to kill her. You never put on the internet that you wished it. That would be it. No. That would be called an accident. No. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I just don't want to believe the old. That's all I've ever had. What did you come away with? I have nothing to do with it. I didn't. I did not have anything to do with it at all. And so were you really suspicious when you walked away from that house? We were suspicious, yes. Why are investigators suspicious?

23:44Because Genelle brings up another person who is involved in this online feud. Ailer just got to get home. I stood by father with Jamie and her mom. We had talked to some of the other people and they had heard Jamie Curd had threatened to cut Billy Payne's throat. Support comes from wise. The smart way to manage the currencies you need around the globe. You've fed up with losing out the hidden fees when you send money abroad with your everyday bank. Choose the smart way. Wise. You can count on the exchange rate you'd usually find on Google. No unwelcome surprises. Plus, ditch that. Where's my money feeling? Most transfers arrive in under 20 seconds. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees. Be smart. Get wise. Download the Wise app now. Tees and sees apply. Today I want to tell you about an exciting new deal from our friends at Cozy Earth.

24:45Take a moment and close your eyes and think back to the best night of sleep you ever had. Did it feel like you'd never sleep that well again? Well, good news. You can give yourself an amazing night of sleep every night by upgrading your bedding to Cozy Earth. Cozy Earth offers luxury bedding at an incredible price. Their ultra soft, temperature regulating sheets, coverlets and duvet covers are the perfect companion for a night of uninterrupted relaxation. Their sheets come in all different colors and stripes so there's something for everyone, whether you're doing a big fall refresh of your master bedroom or updating a guest room in time for the holidays. And as comfy as they are on day one, they only get better from there because they're designed to get softer with every wash. Best of all, with our limited time deal, the already great prices are even better. You can get 50% off of a wide assortment of bedding options by going to our unique link. That's right, 50% off. But hurry, this deal is only for a very limited time. Get yourself the bedding of your dreams. Right now go to abcsecretsavings.com slash 2020 for 50% off the best bedding you'll

25:46ever sleep on. This is abcsecretsavings.com slash 2020. As Mountain City investigators are interviewing the potters about an online feud with murder victims, Billy Payne and Billy Jean Hayworth, they ask about a local man named Jamie Kirk. He's just a fine, favorite friend for years. He's friend of our family. He has friends all of us, too. Jamie Kirk was from Johnson County, I had lived there his whole life. He was a pretty solitary guy, kept to himself. Every time you see him, he's always wearing sunglasses. He says that the son always bothers his eyes. Jamie Kirk was Billy's second cousin. Jamie had grown up with Billy. They were more like brothers and cousins.

26:48Jamie, like Billy Payne and Billy Jean, worked at Parkdale Mills and like Billy, he's brought into Jeanelle's orbit thanks to Tracy, who set the shy Jeanelle up with her cousin. So why did you think this set up Jamie and Jeanelle? Well, Jamie didn't have a girlfriend and she really didn't have a boyfriend. So we just, that's the only time, I mean they didn't look like they'd get together by no means. Why not? Well Jamie was sort of reflaken, you know, greasy and she was neat. So... Jamie also moonlights fixing home computers around town. The potters. Use Jamie as a person to come and fix their computers whenever something was wrong, which would give Jeanelle a reason to be able to see Jamie. And when Jamie was there, Jeanelle would be allowed to go into the computer room and talk to Jamie and be around Jamie. So Jamie and Jeanelle got closer and closer. But the potters didn't want Jeanelle dating and they certainly didn't want Jeanelle dating

27:51Jamie. Jeanelle's mom and dad did not approve of Jamie. So Jamie was in love with her. So Jamie had purchased her a cell phone and he would come here and bring it and hide it in the bushes so she would kind of get it. They started talking to me. I believe that they text message and instant message back and forth. They used email frequently. This undercover relationship between Jamie and Jeanelle just kept growing and growing. You and Jamie got pretty serious at one point. Yes. How often would you talk? Every day. For long periods? For an hour or two hours at a time. Wow. What would you talk about? Our Dave. I don't know. You're talking about his life or about mine. In typo filled messages, Jeanelle tells Jamie, you will always be in my life. I will always love you and you're not just a part of me.

28:52You are all of me. Jeanelle even signs the message, your wife. But when police ask Jeanelle about her relationship with Jamie, she lies. Are you sure you feel like you're boyfriend? No. No. No, I'm going to use this to feel really different. Does it want to be your boyfriend? I'm kind of a heart just like a really different child. But police have evidence that shows that's not true. We located photographs and a cell phone and the photographs show them kissing at one point. Would you think it jamed me? I'm nice to everybody. He told me how he worked on computers. He could build them from the bottom up. He did more than work on your computer. He worked on your daughter too. Yeah, and I didn't know that for a long time. He was interested in her or vice versa. It was secret.

29:53Police also know that Jamie got dragged into this online feud and his feelings for Jeanelle pit Jamie against his own cousin. A Jeanelle convinced Jamie that Billie Jean hayworth and Billie Payne were targeting Jeanelle and sending her death threats threatened to rape her, threatened to kill her. He started having problems with Billie Payne at work. They had got into an argument down there and some of the people had heard Jamie say something about slicing his throat. Billie's throat had been slashed. So yes, that's the reason that we brought Jamie Kurty. We're just asking, hey, would you take a polygraph? And sure enough, he said that he would. That didn't go very well. Jamie is more involved with Jeanelle than what he was letting on to us. So that's whenever Agent Locke and Agent Hannah basically confronted him about the deception

30:57of some of the answers of the questions. Jamie, those are labelled questions. Which ones do you think you have the most reaction? You can tell he's nervous. We confront him with the results of the polygraph. You can tell that he is apprehensive about talking. I think you had an error. I won't take care of this situation. I won't take care of people that's wanted to know. People ain't gonna mess with my girl or more. She's not my role. You're gonna say that out loud. You know what you're hard to do. We sort of, you know, asking the same question, you know, what's your all's relationship? What's yours and Jeanelle's relationship? And you know, he kept on saying they were friends. Did you make a statement at work? Here? Did you go crazy, dude? You made that statement. I know you did. I know, I did. But eventually Jamie changes his tune and he starts singing. Jamie finally admitted that he went to the house.

32:01Do me a favor. Hey, do you do me? Buddy? No. Sorry? Yeah. Let's talk about it. Jamie said that he was involved in it. He didn't do much, but he had told us that Buddy had been the one to have shot the two people. And he said something about on the lines that, you know, he was the one that did the cutting of the neck. Jamie was formally charged on the set of the paperwork. We put him back in the shell. He wasn't going anywhere. Now that Jamie's on the hook, he agrees to help reel in his alleged partner in the double murder, Janelle's father, Marvin Buddy Potter. We asked Jamie if he made a phone call tomorrow. If Marvin would admit to anything during that phone call, he'd say, I think he might.

33:06Well, I'm very, I'm angry. It's time to mourn in Mountain City, Tennessee. Billy Payne and Billy Jean Hayworth are laid to rest. The murdered couple survived only by their infant son. I'm just as shocked today over my friends, Bill and Billy Jean losing their life. For someone who created her own hill. Days later, Jamie curred confesses and I dees the killer as Buddy Potter. Investigators then have curred call Potter hoping he'll incriminate himself. He doesn't think of our wild on their own fingers. Oh, gee, I think I'm sorry. You got rid of everything.

34:07I was for Bill and Danny. Okay, I make you feel better. We never did really find the weapon that was used to kill Billy Payne and Billy Jean Hayworth. We took Buddy Potter statement that he took care of it to mean that he'd gotten rid of the murder weapons. With Jamie locked up, it's back to the Potter house. But this time, but he's not so welcoming to investigators. We knew he had a weapon and at one point we thought he made a gesture to us. What kind of gesture? He's going to do like this and we grabbed his arm. My father hugged on us and treated us like we were angels. He was a very protective father and at all cost, he was going to protect his wife and daughter. Down at the Sheriff's office, Buddy, who's in jeans, a red sweatshirt and handcuffs,

35:11settles in to an easy chair for some hard talk with that pair of TVI agents. You know why he's right? Yeah, I'm assuming. Okay, what do you think? Somebody's told you how the one who killed somebody. But Buddy Potter is no Jamie Kurd. Here's the thing. Why can't we be in that state in this case? We help think you kill. We know you kill. Okay, that's it. And that's not just a guess. It's not just a good feeling. No, okay. We know that's fine. I didn't kill him. I did not kill Billy Payne. I'm not going to mess up until I didn't do. He denied everything and we pressed him and pressed him and pressed him. Come on, this kiddo. Take care of the fence before he... I'm fixing my family's start with, but I did not do this.

36:13Tell me what happened. I don't know. The agents repeatedly assure Buddy they understand how he must have felt. I believe you are sick and tired. The most precious person in your life. Being attacked and harassed constantly. I know that. Okay, ever since all this crap started, I've been... I've had my life. I've been trapped. My life has been finished. They've threatened to take care of the house. I've got to get off. Finally, at one point, he starts to say, when people are threatened in your daughter's life. When you hear people's... ...life... ...to take you, catch your daughter in the restroom. And murder her. They want her rape her because she's a virgin.

37:16Investigators getting the sense that Buddy might be ready at last to confess. Just not to them. Special agent Lot has an idea. I made the suggestion. Buddy, would you like to call Barbara until her first before you tell us? And he said, yes. So we'll let him, like, phone call to Barbara. Yes. Before you find out somebody else wants you to know, I was involved in it. I did it. I'm a son of a bitch. I don't know the fans. Because of what all they've been trying to do to you and you know, I just wanted to tell you first. He told Barbara, I did it. That's as close to a confession as we got from him. I was been confessed to it. Yeah, but there's questions about that. So why would he admit to it?

38:17Why would he confess? When they took him, they took no oxygen. They took no medication. And they interviewed him for hours. When he, his oxygen gets loud, he says things that don't make sense or are incorrect. Authorities beg to differ, saying even without his oxygen tank and medication, Potter was lucid and understood the questions. Now the question becomes, who convinced Buddy Potter? His family was in danger. Why would your father go and shoot those two people? I don't know. No idea. No idea. He said that your father is always protective of you. Yes, but I don't think he would kill over silly stuff like this. Authorities say it didn't seem silly to Buddy Potter. He very tearfully recounted that these people had put a bounty on his daughter's head

39:21that they had threatened to rape her, cut her up into pieces. And you could tell from the way he said that he believed it. When I found out that they had arrested Marvin Potter and Jamie, I knew what it was over. It was over Janelle and the stuff that she had pretty much put in her head. He said he was trying to protect you. He said that they had threatened that they would chop you up and rape you and kill you. Yes. Is that what you told him? Because they weren't telling him that directly. Somehow he had to be getting word that these people were going to do some serious harm to you. He would go in town and there was people that would tell him that. That there was people out to hurt me, to get me. Case closed, far from it. Buddy Potter and Jamie Kurt, according to investigators, they're not even the half of it. You started to realize that this is bigger than just Marvin Buddy Potter.

40:22This is something to do with the other people in this house. Exactly. More mystery, more murderers, and now a mastermind. A new character enters the story, a reported CIA assassin. Why are you killing a lot of killing people? All part of what prosecutors call the craziest, stupidest, deadliest cat fishing scheme you have ever seen. This is where Billy Payne and Billy Dean were murdered in this house. There's no call. There's no call from either one of them. They're what? They're kids? I mean, this was one of the biggest, craziest things that had happened years. You give him the pictures of the people that you say are taunting you. Hey, don't think he's going to do anything about it? Did you ever want Billy and Jamie to be together? Did you ever want Billy Dean and Billy Payne to die? No. Never. You didn't even want them dead? No. I didn't even want them hurt.

41:23It appeared that there were some type of conspiracy here that they kept referring to a guy named Chris. Who is Chris? I was the agent of the tall blonde hair in Blue House. Jason Born. Did he ever talk about the kinds of things he did for work? He did. More of those things. I like killing people. I think someone else was playing games with our minds, our computer, our life. There is nothing in your lives that has prepared you to understand the Potter family. If you had to describe Janelle and Barbara with one word, what would you use? Aval. That's what I would say, Aval. You can do it, please. What kind of person would take a revolver to a man who's sleeping and shoot him in the face?

42:23And then go to a woman who's running away with a child and infant in her arms? Cold blooded and he's not. He's not cold blooded. The whole thing is so sad. I'm so sad they died. It's always bothered me that it had to involve my family. The situation of two people being murdered in their own home was a great shot. And I think there was some relief once Marvin and Jamie were arrested. The shootings of Billy Payne and Billy Jean Hayworth seemed close to being solved. But unlike horseshoes and ham grenades, close doesn't count in murder kids. And authorities are wondering whether all the killers have actually been caught. While Buddy Potter is interrogated, other investigators search the Potter home and pick up truck. I was left there along with other investigators to conduct a search of the Potter resist.

43:23In a attempt to look for ammunition, any type of firearms that would be for a 38-special or 9-millimeter. They were searching the house. Yes, they did do that. Did they go into your room? No, they went to my parents' room first. And then they went to the second bedroom that we had, which where my dad would keep his clothes and his stuff and then my room and then the computer room. There's Deputy Joe Woodard and a stunned-looking Barbara-Enginell Potter during the search. So did you notice anything odd in the house or anything unusual? Whenever the investigators went downstairs, there was a lot of firearms. We had rifle, shotguns, semi, I mean it's just one of those. An arsenal, an arsenal, basically, yes. Guns in the basement, guns in the bedroom, guns in the dresser drawer, and guns under the mattress.

44:23There's even an ammo belt on his oxygen tank and knives. Lots of knives all over the house, even hanging from the antlers on the wall. The search also turns up pictures printed from Facebook, including one of the recently murdered Billie Jean Hayworth. Even found pictures of the victims in the living room. In the living room. You found pictures of the victims in the living room? Yes. Investigators say about seven months before the murders, Jenelle grabbed this photo of Billie Jean Hayworth from Facebook, emailed it to herself, then printed it off. The subject line, Billie Hor. A printed out picture of Billie Jean Hayworth, with the title, Hor. Which is kind of an odd thing to find after someone has been murdered in their house holding their baby. Exactly. You printed out a picture of her and wrote Bitch Across the Top. No, my dad wanted pictures of who is bothering me.

45:27So you gave your dad pictures of the people who were bothering you? Yes. Why would you do that? He is one of those, because if he was out or if someone was harassed me, he would want to know who they were. Just then, Barbara Potter does something she will come to regret. Barbara was sitting on the couch next to Chief Investigator Joe Woodard, who was logging the evidence. At one point, Barbara picks up a stack of papers, looks at him. Then all of a sudden, she ripped it in half. And I asked off to her and I said, give me those pieces of paper. Why did you fold up the picture of Billie Jean? Try to hide it and tear it up. I didn't. And I've tried to explain that over and over. But you didn't do that. I was tired and I was kind of nervous. I said, well, I'm getting more, you know, I just started doing that. Not thinking that there was even picture in there, because I didn't know it was there. And then whenever I picked it up and I just made a little tear. I thought it was just...

46:27You didn't rip it in half. Authorities aren't buying it. They charge Barbara with tampering with evidence. They also see what may have been Barbara and Janelle's fondest possession. The family computer. I believe there was just one desktop computer that they all used, Janelle and Barbara. Marvin didn't get on the computer at all, that I know of. I don't think I've ever heard him say anything about being on the computer. Remember how the bullet that killed Billy had been scratched, marked with an X? Investigators find similar 38 caliber bullets in buddies pickup. Marvin had taken a knife and scratched X's into the tip of the bullet to basically create hollow points. Investigators also discovered something in the bed of buddies pickup that will prove to be even more incriminating in the long run. Not just for buddy. They noticed several bags of shredded paper.

47:29So they went ahead, closed everything back up. And the vehicle was then transported to the TBI lab in Knoxville, Tennessee. Those shreds of evidence leave investigators to a shadowy figure. They kept referring to a guy named Chris, that supposedly has a CIA opportunity or something. Who is Chris? A front payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 month plan required, $15 per month equivalent to taxes in these extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow in network is busy.

48:29See terms. I'm going to Washington. This is Snap Judgment from KQED. When everything is falling apart, what do you do? Hurricane Elaine shut everything down. No roads, no cars, no way through. But his daughter was getting married. And somehow some way, he was going to walk her down that aisle. All systems down. A new Snap Judgment, any city from KQED? Tap to listen now. Marvin Buddy Potter is in jail awaiting trial. And so is Janelle Potter's boyfriend, Jamie Kurt. But the feeling in town and at the courthouse is that justice has not been fully served. I'll buy him Janelle. Immediately. Because I mean it was her fault. She was the one that we was friends with. And she was the one that started to lies. Janelle should have been held just as accountable as they are.

49:32Billie Jean's sisters, Beverly and Janie say, even before the murders, they believed Janelle was the troublemaker. Chelsea, attention. She was a tension-gitter. She was doing the same thing to Billie Jean. She would fall her them around all the time. Billie would call me and she would go, Janelle's behind me. There she is again. I mean it's constantly. If you had to describe Janelle and Barbara with one word, what would you use? Aval. That's what I would say, evil. It was several months after the arrest of Jamie and Buddy that I came into the case. I knew there was some thought in the community that the women were behind the killings, but they hadn't been charged. I think that Janelle and Barbara were the ring leaders. I think they were the ones that were the manipulators. And I think they convinced Marvin and Jamie to do something awful to Billie Jean

50:35and they followed through with it. Early on, we wanted to charge Barbara and Janelle, but really didn't have enough. We mentioned yesterday about Potter's daughter. She was in court today as an observer, although she has not been charged with any crime at this point. Prosecutors say she is at the center of this investigation. They say she is the common link to all of the parties involved. Throughout the investigation, Buddy maintained that Barbara and Janelle really didn't have anything to do with the homicides. He acted unilaterally in an attempt to protect his family. Now, investigators take note of Barbara Potter's conversation with Jamie Kurt. When he made that phone call to the house after his confession. Whenever Jamie had called their residents, Barbara was the one that first answered the phone. Did it go all right? Yeah. Really? Yeah. And they just let it go and that's it. It's over. Yeah. Well, that's wonderful.

51:35We've been prying our hearts out. Janelle is all an angel today. Come in the computer room. And I did, oh, that's good. We've all been prying so hard. And, you know, she was asking, how did the polygraph go? Did you have a live detector? Yeah. And you passed it. Yeah. Well, that's wonderful. I'm so glad, Ellen. And investigators are even more suspicious of Barbara's reaction when her husband calls and confesses to murder. Janelle, Bob and Melissa do you know? Yeah. After his confession, he made a recorded phone call to his wife, Barbara, where he told her that I did it. I killed them. And before you find out somebody else wants you to know, I was involved in it. I did it. I don't understand. And immediately, Barbara turns into Mama Bear, saying, oh no, honey, you didn't.

52:38You were right here the whole time. Tell him that you didn't do it. I saw you. There's no way you could have done it. You were right here next to me all night. You don't have no rest and you don't have your oxygen. I know. I'm not yourself right now. I know. Sorry. I just don't matter anymore. Have a nurse pressure? No. They said a nurse of checking you to cover what's magic you're on and the new oxygen model. But you needed to say, you know, you're not here, you're not here. I don't think she was really shocked. It's just like, if she was shocked, she was probably shocked that he told. But I don't think that she was shocked that he had done it. Because in my mind, I think she knew that he did it. I don't know that he did it. As far as I know, he was in my home all night. He was in that lounge chair asleep. Not in bed, though. He sat up at night every night because of what was happening.

53:40And when I woke up at 7 o'clock, he was in bed. I thought he was in a lounge chair. He came to bed. I didn't hear him come to bed. She was telling Marvin that you didn't have anything to do with that. I saw you. You were here all night. This is just not the other thing to push you over here. You have to stay back. You have to stay back. She was trying to convince him that no you didn't do this. I didn't say try to fix it. You know that I did a fix, you know. I don't know if you did it. No. You did say you weren't here. You were not. I saw you. In that call, Janelle also encourages her father to claim he's innocent. But that is... Yes. Are you okay? Not Janelle. Seven so excited.

54:40Honey, don't worry about it. Just take care of yourself. Okay, but this is alright. You didn't do anything yours to you. You're so fine. You have to go through this. In 2013, Buddy Potter is found guilty of the murders of Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth getting two consecutive life sentences. If Barbara and Janelle know more than they're saying, authorities suspect those three trash bags found in Buddy's pickup could contain a shredded paper trail. We took those shredded documents. Whatever I just spent a month of her life taping those back together. And what they were were printouts of emails, printouts of instant messages, printouts of pictures from Facebook. Emails from Barbara, emails from Janelle. Authorities said that Buddy Potter didn't have much use for the computer. So they said that Barbara would pull the family protector into the online war of words

55:44by printing out the alarming emails and social media posts and anything she wanted him to see. Barbara tells Buddy about everything that goes on and sort of gets him all upset because Janelle's upset, because he's afraid somebody's going to hurt them. But some of those emails also talk about murder. You know, they talked about killing Billy Jean. It appeared that there was some type of conspiracy here that they kept referring to a guy named Chris. That supposedly a CIA operative or something. Who was Chris? I'm not sure. Now I don't know. I don't know. When Jamie Cardwell's interviewed at the end, he asked, is the CIA here? The CIA? Oh. Very strange question to me. I guess about the CIA. I had certainly never experienced anything like this in my career at that point.

56:46And I can say a decade later that I haven't seen anything else like it since. We knew that they had to be looking in the computer somewhere because they're the type that's always got to be doing something on a computer. We are going to the library right in the middle of town. Law enforcement isn't ready to close the book on the murders of Billy Payne and Billy Jean Hayworth. Investigators follow Barbara and Janelle, photographing their Ford Explorer outside. So we made contact with the library. And the library say that they usually came here. So they called us whenever they were here. The John Scatty Sharps from America did keep an eye on the Potter women. And there is surveillance video of them going to the local library. They videotape them sending at these two computers.

57:49And they got them as they walked through. And they even went and was shining at the key fob camera through the books just so that we could see what they were doing. They were logging onto topics, logging into their email, logging on to Facebook and just continuing this narrative of Janelle being a victim. Not a crime, but evidence investigators say of how obsessed these two women are with what people are saying about them online even after two people have been murdered. It shows Janelle has to have a computer to know what's going on. And what are they saying about her? That way she can reply back. And now enters one of the spookiest characters ever to appear in a murder investigation. His name is Chris.

58:49After we did subpoenas and search warrants and got emails, the message records, text message records, we started seeing this name Chris pop up. Barbara is talking back and forth to supposedly a CIA agent named Chris. When Janie curd makes his confession, everything's done. There's silence in the room and Janie just almost suddenly asks, I've got one question I need to ask you. They go, what's that? Is the CIA here? CIA? No. Mike and Scott were sort of shocked by, you know, where did that even come from? The officers had no idea what he was talking about. I guess about the CIA, because they're a scientific work for them. He assumed and probably hoped that the CIA was on the other side of that door ready to take this case away from the TBI and then set him free.

59:51Who is Chris? I was the CIA agent, tall, blonde hair and blue eyes. Jason Bourne. What kind of stuff did he do? He said he was down here to protect me, protect my parents. He communicated with them through Janelle's email account through her Facebook. There was Tadas could be and they were close. Barbara would receive emails from this guy, Chris, but the emails were still coming from Janelle Potter's email address. Do you find it odd that Chris was written from your personal account? That all those emails were written from your personal account? Yes. And you never noticed that? You never asked the question. All of that correspondence, there's not a single question. Hey, why is this person running from my account? Yes, I never showed up, but yes, I had asked how I emailed him through my email.

1:00:54And I said, you know, how did you get my screen name password? I changed my password lots of times. I've done everything. It really does seem like bad fantasy fiction. A secret agent mixed up in a small town drama falling for a damsel in distress. He would never show up in person. I would ask him to come over or meet me, nothing. Had you feel about him? Well, he was a friend. I mean, he wasn't just a friend. He was from the emails in my bread. It seemed like you guys were very, very intimate. We were. Actually, you told my mom he went to marry me at one point. Janelle says this, Chris, seems to know her as well as she knows herself. He would say things like, well, I saw you today and he would tell me what I was wearing, what I was doing how my hair was. And I was like, okay, this is weird.

1:01:54Uncanny. He was really weird. Chris even emails Jamie Kurt via Janelle's account, gushing about Janelle. She just put up some new picks on Facebook. You might want to look. She is cute. And love advice. Tips on how to be a better boyfriend to Janelle. There were some Chris emails out there where Chris would suggest, why don't you get Janelle to go out with you tonight and take her out somewhere. Here's from Antic Tradecraft, CIA Chris, probably did not pick up it Langley, but he offers it to Jamie. Make sure you have candles and a card. Make the bed really pretty and just love on her. She is a wonderful sweet, caring girl. But Chris also has a cold streak and he's supposedly a bloodthirsty assassin. Did he ever talk about the kinds of things he did for work? He did.

1:02:54What were those things? How are you killing? How are you killing people? CIA Chris claims he's monitoring Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth. Has their house bug, phone's tap, says he knows her up to no good. He was watching these people. He said that we're harassing her on the computer. He would say how upset he was. You know why would anyone win this treatment? He got mad. Yes. How mad did he get? I got mad. I mean he got really mad. He went into hurt everybody. Who specifically did he want to hurt? I think it was Bill, Billie Jean. Everyone who was picking on me. Anyone that picked on me he was after. The email show CIA Chris is angry. Authorities say he and Barbara talk about settling scores. And this was actually in the shredded documents that her found in the truck.

1:03:55She writes to Chris, but it's so mad and I'm 100% behind whatever happens. You guys meet when you are ready Chris. Maybe bug can you CIA guns etc for his protection. Get the jobs done you know. They all need to go and the ones left need to be given a big scare as they watch and wonder, am I next? That's chilling. The job is obviously the murder. Absolutely. But blood can't do it by himself. He needs CIA guns with him. At this point, identifying this fantastic character CIA Chris becomes key to closing this murder case. Who is Chris? Is Jamie Kurt Chris? Janelle? I don't know. Can't do this. I think we're done there. We're done. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile with your summer price forecast.

1:04:57Now, unfortunately we're seeing rising costs across the country with possibility that big wireless hates you 100%. Now over here at Mint Mobile, we're seeing sunny skies and dropping prices every plan to just $15 a month. Give it a try at MintMobile.com slash switch. Up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required. $15 per month equivalent taxes in V's extra. New customer offer for initial plan to remold me greater than 50 gigabytes me slow and network is busy. See terms. I'm going to Washington. This is Snap Judgment from KQED. When everything is falling apart, what do you do? Hurricane Helene shut everything down. No roads, no cars, no way through. But his daughter was getting married. And somehow some way he was going to walk her down that aisle. All systems down. A new Snap Judgment mini-city from KQED. Tap to listen now.

1:06:00In the months after Billy Payne and Billy Jean Hayworth were gone down, Janelle and Barbara Potter were porping threatened by members of the community who suspected that the Potter women were also involved in the murders. A lot of people are sort of harassing them. They're trying to shut me up, but I like those because I'm very sick. They threw rocks at the house. I was calling the police a lot. They even threw rocks in the yard there just to leave a message with Billy Jean's name on it, with Bill's name on it. Their guardian angel CIA Chris seems to be missing an action. But when authorities take a closer look at the computer seized from the Potter house, they have a Ureca moment. And that's because the IP address on Chris's emails leads back to only one place. Everyone of them pointed straight back to Barbara and Janelle's home address. He was the same IP address, meaning that the emails were all generated at the house.

1:07:00Authorities develop a theory that Janelle's a sort of Kaiser Soce of the keyboard. Remember him from the movie The Usual Suspects? I work for Kaiser Soce. There is no Kaiser Soce. Creating the identity of Chris to con those closest to her and convince them that she's in danger and needs help. Once we started looking at the communications between the Potter family, between Chris, between Jamie Curd, that's when we started building the case against Barbara and Janelle. Investigators have their theory, but no definitive proof. At least not until the Potter women show up at the Sheriff's Office to file complaints of harassment. That's when authorities devise a test. I had them top house statements so that we can see how Barbara writes and see how Janelle writes. The reports that they made about this alleged harassment, the word choice, the spelling, the grammar, the punctuation, was compared against these emails.

1:08:00And it was interesting that this Chris character had the same spelling mistakes, had the same grammar mistakes as Janelle. That's when the pieces started falling into place. Authorities believe that Janelle wrote messages as Chris to her mother, Barbara, that falsely reported threats of rape and murder by the victims. Barbara would take this information and show it to anybody. Buddy, look. Look what they're trying to do to Janelle. Look what they're trying to do. If finally they just pushed him to his living. Marvin Potter and Barbara Potter truly believed these people were out to harm Janelle. They really thought that people were out to kill her. She knew exactly what to do to get to her mom. She knew exactly what to do to get to her dad. Janelle manipulated everybody that she dealt with. Janelle was writing these Chris emails. Janelle was pretending to be the CIA agent. She was masterminding a murder conspiracy. The events that she said in the motion ultimately resulted in the death of two innocent people.

1:09:06So she's catfishing her mom from the same house from the same computer. It's hard to believe that you could do that from the same house. This is the worst catfishing I've ever heard of. Yeah, I mean it's beyond absurd. In all catfish cases, at some point the victim of the catfishing is guilty of some degree of being naive. Barbara has no idea that Janelle is using the same computer and her own email address to create the victim. To create the fictitious Chris, she bought it her client and sinker. I don't think she created anyone. I think someone else was playing games with our minds, our computer, our life. But Janelle's mother Barbara is about to go from naive to nefarious. And in the email exchanges with Chris, she sounds like she really wants Billy Payne and Billy Jean Hayworth dead. In one email Barbara writes, we've had enough. No one wants to kill anyone, but we will.

1:10:09Why did you write to Chris that you wanted them dead? I didn't. Yeah, you did, from these emails. Well, you can believe those emails if you want. I never wanted anyone dead and I would never plan a murder. That is not me. And you write, I will kill if I have to. Not just her, but kill. That's not me. That is not me. Barbara says someone hacked into her email, but authorities don't buy it. They say that her writing style from the harassment complaints matches what's in the emails to Chris. The more I studied, the more I realized these crimes do not happen without these two women prodding these men along. A year and a half after the murders of Billy Payne and Billy Jean Hayworth, Barbara Potter and her 32-year-old daughter Janelle, are under arrest for murder. We finally got the word from the DA to go ahead and arrest. My mother and daughter charged with murder. She was the killing of Johnson County couple. Barbara and Janelle Potter are charged with first-degree murder of Bill Payne Jr. and Billy Jean Hayworth.

1:11:14I don't enjoy it. I think I said how do I really bow to him. Authorities claim Janelle's motive for creating Chris was jealousy. If Janelle couldn't have Billy Payne, nobody could have. Janelle had a crush on Bill Payne and the Chris emails start after Billy Jean Hayworth moves in with Bill Payne and gets pregnant. Chris would talk about the baby, the baby tower. They were calling that damn baby. That baby needs to die. No one talks that way about an infant other than a woman perhaps who is jealous that that's not her infant. Janelle is behind bars at the Johnson County Challenge 2015 when she and her attorneys sat down for an interview with me about the case. You don't have any responsibility for the murder of Billy Payne, Billy Jean. No. None.

1:12:14No. How about you hated them? No, I didn't. You hated them enough to tell your father that they were really torturing you. And you must have hated them if what you say is true that they were harassing you time after time again. I didn't know how much I just disliked them. I wanted it to quit. I wanted their harassment to stop. I went through a lot with them. But I never wished them dead. I never wanted them dead. And then I bring up Chris. Chris was you. No. You were Chris. You invented him. No, I didn't. He didn't. No. He was right into your email, happened to know all the most intimate details about you. And it just so happened to be only emails Chris has ever written are exclusively about Janelle. No. Because he was right into my mom and he was right into Jamie. Of course, from your computer with your fingertips. No. It was from your IP address, from your email address. I don't think we're going to get into that. She said that. Everything leads back to Chris. Chris apparently created this scenario.

1:13:15She stated she's not Chris and that's what she maintains. Can't do this. Janelle Potter shuts down in tears and walks out of our interview. Janelle may deny the authorities allegations that she is Chris and that she's behind the online threats. But when this case actually does go to trial, you're never going to believe who shows up. My name is Christopher Jaden. Turns out Chris isn't total fiction. In the Johnson County community, there was an immense amount of anticipation for this trial. I mean, this was one of the biggest, craziest things that had happened years. The interest in it never really died down. The trial of a mother and daughter charged with murder for the 2012 deaths of a Johnson County couple underway right now in Jonesboro. The biggest factors in Barbara and Janelle's trial was making the jury understand that all of this drama was being driven by Janelle.

1:14:22It was about Janelle, by Janelle, for Janelle. There is nothing in your lives that has prepared you to understand the Potter family. Investigators realize that there are even more people than they thought caught up in Janelle's web. Turns out Janelle does know a real person named Chris. We were able to get Chris Jaden, the real Chris, to come down the court. My name is Christopher Jaden. We determined what Chris Jaden was a guy that you know what the high school is. She was a, you know, one of those kids that just very strange. It ended up he was a police officer and Delaware. When we asked him directly, do you work for the CIA? And him saying no, I think that that kind of put a face on the faceless CIA threat that Janelle always had in her back pocket. But Cameron Hider, who represented Janelle, tried to present her as not capable of doing something like this.

1:15:26She is not capable of directing anyone to commit murder. It's just not in her. Janelle's defense attorney even called an expert to testify about Janelle's level of intelligence. Mary is fairly embarrassed, arguably as much as she could, very much for that hate life. She may be operating on a fourth grade level, but she's got a PhD in manipulation. You know, even kids can manipulate their parents, and she did it to the heeled. She always had my parents to go to and they, she had promised to go to school and to go to the parabit. Would you say that she was intelligent? She was more intelligent than people gave her credit for. In what way? Minimum. So she wasn't good at school work, but she was good at working people. Yes. There's the her parents. Yes. It's very difficult for Barbara to discern what is fact and what's fiction. She has been catfished. Prosecutors say that despite Barbara being entangled in Janelle's manipulation, she still bears responsibility for the murders.

1:16:27And prosecutors have found evidence that they say shows that Barbara knew exactly what was going to happen to Billy Payne and Billy Jean Hayworth. She had emailed herself a link to a Billy Graham article saying, can God forgive a murderer? A couple of weeks before the murders, you had searched. Can God forgive a murderer? No, I didn't. That's not me. No, I did not. I saw that in court and I said, where did that come from? Why would I do that? I don't want anybody murdered. Today the state called six witnesses to the stand, one of which we've been anticipating all week. Mr. Jamie Kurt. We had worked out a plea deal with Jamie Kurt in exchange for his cooperation. I can't kill nobody. I mean, having a gun and being happy to use it's two different things. Looking back on it, do you feel like you've been manipulating anybody by part of family? Yes. If you're wanting the case to be everyone sitting around a table, mapping out how they're going to go do the killing, you know, we never had that.

1:17:31Our belief was that co-zying up to Jamie was an effort to get Jamie conditioned to assist buddy. Jamie Kurt ultimately pleaded guilty to facilitation of first-degree murder and received two concurrent sentences of 25 years. It's a story of a manufactured conflict born out of the mind of a very bored, lonely, 30-year-old woman. One thing that was very telling about Janelle being involved in the preparation for the killing is the text messaging she does with Jamie through the morning. She's telling Jamie, leave your cell phone at home. His message is on there, you know, showed that starting to truck and he's on his way. And then all of a sudden the text messaging ends. And presumably around five in the morning, buddy picks up Jamie and they drive over there.

1:18:34So that, to me, linked her knowing exactly what was going to happen. Where's the evidence? Easy to say, hard to prove. This was an act of an overprotective father who went way too far. My client is not culpable. Marvin Potter is behind bars and is fully culpable for these homicides as is Jamie Kurt. This may have been more than what Barbara, original intended, but that doesn't change what they did. It doesn't change how they manipulated Buddy Potter and Jamie Kurt into taking this drastic, horrible action. You have this in this case, been completely examined, you can instruct you as to the law. It was up to a jury to decide whether this duo, Janelle Potter and Barbara Potter, were capable of plotting a double murder. Now the jury must deliberate the Potter women's fate.

1:19:36The families of the victims were in court today. It was just like you're sitting there all pins and needles. And now family loyalties begin to frame. I'm not going to cover anybody else. Take care of myself right now. You wouldn't take a hit for your daughter? Less than 24 hours after closing arguments, the jury delivers a verdict in Barbara and Janelle's double murder trial. The families of the victims were in court today. It was just like you're sitting there all pins and needles. It's been physically emotionally exhausted. You will play spring the jury in, please. We the jury funded a defendant, Janelle Potter, guilty, first-degree murder. Barbara made Potter guilty, first-degree murder. Barbara and Janelle were both found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

1:20:36Barbara was also convicted of tampering with evils. It's a release that will keep the most response for it's going to be held accountable. It was hard. We have justice. This part's over but it will never be over. I think about it every day. I know me. God knows me. Did you ever want Billie Jean and Bill Payne to die? No. Never. You didn't even want them dead. No. It seems to me that you are either completely innocent and blame this in this or you are an exquisite liar. Oh, wow. Well, what do you believe? The victims' families have the last word at a sentencing hearing with Billie Payne's mother addressing the Potter's directly. What were you going to know if you were going to hang on to the Andrew Court? And if I had to prohibit any of you and stay out of him, I'll see you in the better. Janelle Potter court hereby sends you to the term of imprisonment for life.

1:21:39Barbara Potter court hereby sends you to the imprisonment for life. Barbara Potter's post-conviction attorney was able to latch on to a conflict of interest that her trial council had by representing both Barbara Potter and her husband. So she gets a new trial and starts back from square one. Rather than go through all of that, she had requested to enter into the plea agreement. I have a clean conscience about having a part of this, but I'm a part of it because I've been pulled into it. You wouldn't take a hit for your daughter? I love her, but I'm not going to serve life for her now. So years after our conversation where Barbara insisted she was innocent, she finally admits guilt. Barbara pleads guilty to facilitation of first-degree murder. Her original sentence was life without parole. This plea agreement changes that, making her eligible for parole.

1:22:40Janelle and Buddy Potter also filed for appeal, but they were denied. This is a story that has shaken that little mountain town for over a decade now. And what remains etched in everyone's minds is the memories of the victims, Billy Payne and Billy Jean, and their infant son Tyler. It's the little boy just thinking about him just breaks my heart. You're lucky enough to meet people who I think touch everybody they come in contact with. And that was Billy and Billy Jean. They were just always happy and loved life. And above all, the couple loved their son Tyler. After the murders, he was taken in by his maternal grandmother. He's now 12 years old. Meanwhile, Janelle's secret boyfriend and co-defendant Jamie Curd has now been released from prison on parole. He declined to be interviewed. That is a program for tonight. I'm David Neuer. I'm Deborah Roberts from all of us here at 2020 and ABC News. Good night.

1:23:44Do you hear that? That's sound right? That means that summer is officially here. It means that grown adults just sprint into the street for a frozen dessert shaped like a cartoon. But this summer, mid-mobile has a better tree. Every plan, including unlimited, is $15 a month. And unlike ice cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture. Does anyone have any cash? Give it a try at midmobile.com slash switch. A front payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 month plan. Required $15 a month equivalent to Texas and P's Extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow and network is busy. See terms.