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About this Episode
When an Army Sergeant is gunned down at home on New Year's Eve, investigators are at a loss on who would harm the beloved family man, until fellow soldiers in his unit confess shocking secrets to solve his murder.
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Transcript
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The following program contains disturbing accounts
of violence.
Listener discretion is advised.
Behind every investigation lies a story.
Behind every trial lies truth.
This is American justice.
Never in a million years I would have thought
I was going to see what I saw.
Tyrone was an outstanding father.
He was well honored in the military.
I came on sight and he was laying on the car.
OK, how many gunshots did you hear?
I don't know. I just heard a lot.
This was definitely very personal.
Whoever did this wanted Tyrone to see who did it.
I think I know who did this to myself.
Police get a tip that completely opens up this case.
It's looking more and more like this could have been retaliation.
Whatever it took for them to get justice,
I'll do it 100 more times.
On December 31, 2018, at 11.05 p.m.,
a 911 call is placed from Benton Harbor, Michigan.
911 was there to see emergency.
I can't see.
I can't see. I can't see.
I can't see. I can't see.
I need help.
I can't see.
OK, stand away with me.
Officer Jeremy Peppers of the St. Joseph Township Police
responded to the call.
Just after 11 p.m. on New Year's Eve,
we received a 911 call from a female subject.
She was screaming into the phone,
talking about her husband being shot,
and then all of a sudden the phone went dead.
Officer Mike Lemire also responds to the call.
When I arrived on scene there,
medical ambulance was backing up in the driveway.
As I exited my patrol car and approached,
where I saw the victim laying by his truck,
along with a female subject kneeled down beside him.
She was pretty hysterical.
I actually had to pull the female away from him.
Submetic could actually get in to treat him.
Officers learned that the gunshot victim
is 23-year-old Army Sergeant Tyrone Hassel III.
The woman is his wife, Kamaya.
Kamaya then called Tyrone's father Tyrone Hassel Jr.
I got a call from Kamaya.
I can barely understand what she was saying,
but she was screaming and then she was like,
Ty's been shot.
And I'm like, what?
As I was driving home, the only thing I was thinking is,
I just hoped he'll be okay.
What did he get shot at?
Who is it?
You know what I'm saying?
Tyrone Hassel III.
When I got there, I can see where he was shot at,
and I can see a big hole in the back of his head.
I knew at that point when I saw my son.
I prayed for the best, but I knew my son was dead.
When the paramedics loaded Tyrone in the ambulance,
Kamaya actually tried to get in with him.
They head back up.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
No, no, no, no, no.
You know, I tried to calm her down the best I could.
She was able to tell us that they were visiting
from out of town, that they were both army soldiers
that were on leave to visit family for the holidays.
She told us that Tyrone had been at a New Year's Eve party
and that she had actually stayed home that evening
with their son.
Kim Shine is a former reporter for New Station WNDU
in South Bend, Indiana.
Kamaya told police that Tyrone brought them food
and then he left the house to go back to the family's New
Year's Eve party, and that's when she heard gunshots.
Whenever I'd put my son in the room,
I came outside and he was laying on the cart.
Okay, how many gunshots did you hear?
I don't know, I just heard a lot.
Okay.
At the hospital, Sergeant Hassel's stepmother,
a Shanti Hassel, is on duty when the ambulance
pulls up to the ER.
I see the paramedics come through the doors.
One of the paramedics was on top of him doing chest compressions.
To me, it seemed a long time,
but it probably was a couple of minutes before the doctor came out
and told me it was nothing else that they could do.
I heard them call the time of death.
Tyrone's mother, La Shanda Jones,
arrives at the emergency room.
When I arrived at the hospital,
they told me that he's dead.
I just fell to my knees and I just cried and it's cried
because I wanted to see him so bad.
And I just wanted to hold him.
News of Tyrone's death makes it back to his father.
I felt like I failed because I spent all my life
protecting my son just for him to get killed on my doorstep work.
He should have been protected.
And I just didn't understand it,
especially the neighborhood we live in.
It didn't make any sense to me.
I was in total shock.
This was supposed to be a night of celebration
ringing in the new year
and it turned into something more vicious than that.
Detectives start their homicide investigation
at the scene of the crime.
We found spent gun shells laying on the ground
right next to where Tyrone was laying.
The shell casings were examined
and then we determined it was from a nine millimeter handgun.
Based on what we found on Tyrone the third,
we saw that he had all of his money,
he had an expensive watch on.
So if robbery isn't the motive,
then usually it's some kind of personal vendetta.
The police was asking me,
did he have any enemies?
I couldn't think of a soul, not one person.
I saw a walk straight line.
He said, Tyrone, life, that's my oldest son
and I've been so proud of him.
He's active military right now, right?
He's active military.
According to his family,
Army Sergeant Tyrone hassled the third
was the last person anyone would want dead.
Tharong grew up in Benson Harbor, Michigan.
Tyrone was my very first child.
He was a big brother.
He looked after his younger brother and his younger sister.
So all of his siblings, he looked after.
His best quality was his lay back persona
and everybody would say that he was a real cool guy.
Little Tyrone was an honor roll student
from elementary to high school.
And then he decided that he was gonna go to the military.
He was gonna be a mechanic.
He wanted to fix tanks.
Seeing Little Tyrone graduate was very emotional for me.
You know, I'm kind of a big manly man type of guy,
but I was holding back tears and wiping away tears.
While in the army, Tyrone fell for a fellow recruit
named Kamaya.
We could tell that he really cared about her
because all he talked about was Kamaya this, Kamaya that.
When I finally met Kamaya, they were married
and they came home for Thanksgiving.
She called me dad immediately.
She was my new daughter.
Tyrone called me one day
and he just was like, you got to be a grandma
and I was decided.
My son was so happy.
Then a week after their son's first birthday,
Tyrone and Kamaya was deployed to Korea in February of 2018.
After nine months in South Korea,
the young family returns and settles into their new life
in Heinzville, Georgia.
It was beautiful.
They were married, had their first home,
their son, everything was just perfect.
The night of new years, Tyrone was definitely happy.
Smiling, he got dressed up
and he was just ready to have a good time.
Never in a million years I would thought
I was gonna see what I saw.
The following day, investigators continued their work
at the crime scene.
I definitely felt that we needed to get justice for Ty.
We sent investigators out to canvas the neighborhood.
We've had a shooting over there
and Frank said you saw a vehicle parked over here.
He parked right in,
right on the driveway, he backed in.
Okay.
One neighbor indicated that they had seen a vehicle
backed into a residence that was actually for sale.
He reported that the house was vacant.
He described the car as being in that driveway
and seeing somebody run from that car
in the direction of Hassel's house.
It looked like a male subject.
The neighbor vies it after he's seen the subject
run towards the house, he heard the gunshots,
saw him get in the car
and that's when he saw the car speed away rapidly.
The witness described the car as a newer,
dark color sedan.
He described the headlights of being special headlights,
which were LED headlights on that type of a car.
We were definitely looking at that as our suspect vehicle.
Later that morning,
police asked Tyrone's wife,
Kamaya and his father Tyrone Jr.
to come to the station for a more in-depth interview.
Kamaya informed us that my new year's eve,
Tyrone been at the family gathering for a couple of hours,
but was to do to bring her home food
and then leave again right away to get back
to that party before midnight.
Kamaya's story is corroborated by her father-in-law.
Then, he offers a new theory to investigators.
I'm showing you the Facebook posts that I get
that somebody brought to me already.
I think I know who did this to myself.
10 hours after the murder of
Army Sergeant Tyrone hassled the third,
his father offers police a promising lead.
I just knew that somebody had the mistaken Tyrone
for somebody else.
You know, my son, Benny, my stepson.
Yeah, he's into a bunch of shit all.
His uncle got a black pickup truck as a winner.
We're gonna go a little bit deeper.
My son got a black pickup truck.
And I think the dude thought that
my son was somebody else.
So he think Benny was the target?
Yeah.
There was a speculation that Ty's stepbrother
could have gotten into something nefarious
and then that could have been brought back on Tyrone.
Benny did reside at the same address
where the shooting happened.
We had information that Benny had a very similar truck
to the truck that Tyrone the third actually
had been driving.
So we had reason to believe that maybe they were targeting
Benny instead of our victim.
Benny was brought in the afternoon of January 1st
for an interview at the Township Police Department.
He did admit that there were some things
that could have led people to want to hurt him.
And Benny did provide a name of the individual in that case.
Later that day, officers locate the man Benny named
and bring him in for questioning.
And the person had a problem.
I said, no, this was cleared up.
And yeah, he did these things,
but this is nothing we're gonna kill anybody over.
Steve Peer, Anjali, was a prosecutor
for the Berrien County Prosecutor's Office.
He indicated that he was in a city about an hour away
called Kalamazoo.
And they looked into his alibi,
and sure enough, he wasn't Kalamazoo on New Year's Eve.
So the investigators at that point
ruled him out as being a suspect in the murder.
As investigators look for their next lead,
the household family coaxed with the loss of their son
and husband.
Kumar and my grandson stayed with us.
I would try to comfort her because not only did I lose my son,
I look at her as my daughter, and she just lost her husband.
She would lay up on the couch and not eat.
So I would bring her food, try to make sure she ate.
It just felt like a dark cloud over our house.
One of my kids lost his life here.
It broke my heart to see Tyrone a third's son.
He's looking for his dad to hold him,
but he's not there.
When I came through the door, Kalamazoo must hold him,
and he just put his arms out to me.
So I sat with him, and I brought him to sleep.
I held him really tight because I couldn't hold my son.
The overall feeling after Sergeant Hassel
was murdered in that community.
It was just a lot of concern wanting to figure out
who would have targeted somebody in this family.
Two days into their investigation,
Sergeant Hassel's autopsy results give investigators
a new window into his murder.
The autopsy on Tyrone determined that he had been shot five times
four in the head area and one in the shoulder,
all at close range within three to five feet.
It wasn't a drive-by shooting.
Whoever did this wanted Tyrone to see who did it.
As investigators dig deeper into Sergeant Hassel's
potential enemies, Tyrone's family
organizes a vigil in his memory.
The day of his candlelight visual,
it was a line of cars down the street.
It was just a lot of people that they cared.
I can't express how thankful I was
to see that amount of people come out
and show the support for not only me, but our family.
The visual also provides an unexpected tip for investigators
when a friend of the family comes forward
with new information.
A man approaches Sergeant Hassel's father
and says, I know who killed your son.
We brought him in for an interview.
He says there were Facebook posts on New Year's Eve.
He indicated there were some videos posted
in making threats.
He says it was a guy named Deshaun,
talking about somebody he's not going to make it
to see midnight.
So we conducted investigation,
talking to another local agency.
They actually had a shooting involving Deshaun
where he was the suspect a few hours after
the shooting that happened with Tyrone III.
Investigators wonder if Tyrone's murder
was the first of two shootings by Deshaun on New Year's Eve.
Turns out Deshaun had a beef with the family.
We were thinking, okay, we may have a suspect here.
This might be connected.
Maybe something happened that we don't know about.
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Five days after the murder
of Army Sergeant Tyrone hassle the third,
detectives pursued the most promising lead yet.
A man named Deshaun, who's known to the family.
Tyrone Jr. tells us there's this longstanding disagreement
or feud with Deshaun, it's another cousin of his
that Tyrone the third was actually close with.
It's looking more and more like this could have been retaliation.
Maybe not specifically at Sergeant Hassel,
but as a family member.
And then maybe Sergeant Hassel got caught up
wrong place at the wrong time.
Investigators look for a connection
between the shooting that killed Tyrone
and the second shooting hours later involving Deshaun.
We were able to coordinate with the Michigan State Police
to use their shell casings along with our shell casings
to determine whether the guns were the same
in both shootings.
They compared the ballistics and it turned out
that the two shootings were not related.
It was two separate guns that fired the bullets.
We were able to determine that Deshaun had a pretty solid
alibi as far as being involved in our shooting.
So it definitely ruled him out as a suspect as well.
10 days after the murder of Sergeant Tyrone Hassel
the third, investigators are back to square one.
By the police not finding who did it,
only think I'm thinking that somebody is still out there.
Couldn't sleep.
I didn't know if somebody was outside of my house waiting.
It was very scary.
Everybody that was over to the house,
we didn't let them just walk in and out.
We were just afraid.
One day, Kamayo just walked on the porch
and I slashed her back and pulled her in the house
and I was like, wait, and I walked out and looked around.
It didn't happen once I wasn't going to let it happen again.
During the investigation, police left no stone unturned.
But then, St. Joe Police get a tip that completely
opens up this case.
I also have a military son.
He was very distressed about the situation.
You guys should look at the wife.
This caller says that police should look into the wife
because the wife had a boyfriend
and because of that relationship, Sergeant Hassel was killed.
The anonymous caller says their son
served with both Tyrone and Kamayo
and lives in the same town in Georgia
where the hassles are stationed.
Later that day, police hear from the army investigator
at the military base.
Two soldiers actually came forward at Fort Stewart
to the Army Criminal Investigation Division.
We were informed that Kamayo had been having
a romantic relationship with another soldier in their unit,
Jeremy Koyar.
The relationship was witnessed by a soldier
who basically was a bunkmate of Jeremy Koyar
and spoke of the infatuation he had with Kamayo.
When did you first know they were involved?
We all used to speak in a row together.
And they never been in the bed
and not be on the other bed on the floor.
According to the soldier,
the relationship began when Tyrone, Kamayo,
and Jeremy were stationed in South Korea.
So when they got back to the states from Korea,
Kamayo and Jeremy continued to have a lot of contact
and they did it through Snapchat.
These soldiers, because they're communicating over Snapchat
because Snapchat basically deletes everything,
you don't have any record of the conversation.
He said Jeremy was obsessed with her
that he would have done anything to be with Kamayo
up to and including killing for her.
Later that day, Army investigators received
even more disturbing information about Jeremy Koyar.
Another soldier from the same base came forward
and indicated that he had actually
sold Jeremy two different handguns.
He explained that to me, run that down.
Oh, I sold him five guns.
Two times?
OK.
One of the handguns was a clock, nine millimeter,
I believe, and the other one was a Ruger, nine millimeter.
That was significant because the caliber of the weapon
used to kill Tyrone III was a nine millimeter weapon.
The soldier also tells investigators
that Jeremy shared a disturbing story
of what he did on his Christmas break.
Jeremy gave him a play by play of what he's been doing
over vacation, including staying at his mom's house
in Chicago, driving to Bent Harbour
where Kamayo's in law lived,
staking the house out for three or four days.
He said he was there waiting for Tyrone to get home
and when he walked back out of the house
he was wanting to kill him in his driveway.
Jeremy Quayar went on to tell this soldier
that I shot him multiple times, I walked up to him
and walked over him and shot him again.
So he really laid out the crime, how he committed it,
and just to gruesome, awful details
about how he executed Sergeant Hassel.
On January 11th at 10 p.m., deputies in Georgia
convened at Jeremy Quayar's home to execute a search warrant
and take him into custody.
While searching his car in the backseat,
they find a nine-millimeter magazine
that fits into a rouger pistol.
Looking through the bullets,
it was the same brand of ammunition
that was used the night of the murder.
We'd had the state police run Jeremy's license plate.
His car's in Bent Harbour at 831 p.m.,
so then we know Jeremy's in town
about a half mile from Hassel's residence.
We knew there were neighbors in Michigan that saw a car
and they gave very descriptive detail about the LED lights.
So we did a photo lineup with the car.
When we turned on the car headlights,
the neighbors did indicate, yes,
that looks to be the car that was there the night of the murder.
At that point, Jeremy Quayar is definitely looking like
our number one suspect.
We believe that he wanted to kill Tyrone
over this relationship with Kamaya.
11 days after Tyrone was killed,
police in Georgia charged Jeremy Quayar
with first-degree murder.
When questioned, he has little to say,
what do you want to do?
You want to talk to me here today,
or do you want to just wrap it up?
Just wrap it up, okay.
While Jeremy remains tight-lipped,
investigators continued to piece together
exactly how the murder went down.
We were certain that Jeremy committed the murder.
The outstanding question was,
what was Kamaya's role in that?
Was she the mastermind or an innocent victim here?
11 days after the murder
of Sergeant Tyrone hassled the third.
Officers follow up on a disturbing possibility
that his wife, Kamaya, was somehow involved.
That shot in the head?
Okay.
I was in shock that Kamaya had had something to do with it.
It was hard to grasp because at the scene,
she appeared to be legitimately upset.
We definitely need to bring her in
and start asking her questions
about her relationship with Jeremy.
I ended up calling Tyrone,
and I basically told them,
you need to take Kamaya to the police station
as soon as you possibly can.
And then that she needs to bring herself home with her.
And that's pretty much all the information
I was able to give Tyrone at that time
without, you know, alerting him
that there was something going on.
I was like, Kamaya, they want us to come to the sheriff's department.
And she's like, come on, let's go.
They've arrived at the Baron County Sheriff's Department
and the investigators told Tyrone,
you know, we'll just call you when we're done.
We don't really know how long it's going to take.
I'm thinking, like, what is going on?
I was really, really confused.
Officers ask Kamaya about a fellow soldier named Jeremy Quayar.
At first, she just says, I know Jeremy, he's in our unit.
I work with them, nothing else.
And this goes on for several hours.
Kamaya denies any real romantic relationship initially
with Jeremy.
She doesn't really say that they're communicating, texting.
She says he might have Snapchat,
but she doesn't know for sure if he does.
We asked if she'd ever seen Jeremy mad or aggressor.
She just said that Jeremy Quayar is, quote, unquote, a firecracker.
He has a short fuse.
That's another red flag to us that, you know,
we're heading in the right direction here.
Tyrone was texting me, asking me what's going on,
and how long it was going to be.
And I just had to keep putting him off.
I was worried about Kamaya.
And they keep saying they don't call me back.
And they wasn't talking to me.
While investigators interview Kamaya,
a forensics team combs through her phone
for any corroborating evidence.
They were looking to see if there was any type of communication
on planning this murder.
So they were looking for text messages.
Call logs, anything that could potentially connect either
Jeremy or Kamaya to Benton Harbor,
that area, or to just this murder in general.
We were able to determine that she
did have a Snapchat account and that there
had been some activity with Jeremy on her Snapchat,
but we were unable to determine what those conversations said.
And Kamaya continues to deny that anything
took place with her in Jeremy,
and that she had any involvement in the murder.
Hours later, investigators shift tactics.
So we asked her, hey, do you want to take a polygraph?
And Kamaya said, absolutely, I want to clear my name.
We're wondering if she was a victim in Jeremy Quayar
or she was actually one of the players involved
in her husband's death.
Polygraph expert Andrew Longusky is brought in
to administer the test.
Yes, Kamaya was very cooperative.
Was very talkative during the pre-test interview
as we spoke.
Her story was very believable.
So we were in Korea.
I can't really pinpoint exactly what it was.
When I had to be pregnant, and then I came back
and took good and all the fucking stories of Jeremy.
I'm like, yeah, I don't even know them.
And he was like, I can't do that.
And I was like, no, what do you mean by that?
He's just like, I can't do it.
I get back, I get to come.
But I never took a series about it.
Kamaya claims she had no idea Jeremy would follow through
on his threat to murder.
But when the polygraph test is administered,
the results tell a very different story.
And after the polygraph, I walk back into the room.
And I tell Kamaya that I don't believe what she's saying.
And I think there's more information
that we have to clear up.
She went into defensive victim mode.
She tried to indicate, no, I was the one who was the victim.
And Lunguski said, hey, Jeremy's talking down there.
Jeremy's giving his side.
Now is your chance to get out in front
and tell your side of the story.
I want you to be honest with me.
So how did it go that night?
Let's talk with that night.
Now hold back up.
And I think Kamaya realized she was in pretty deep.
And I would say within 10 minutes, she started
to explain that there was more here and her involvement
was much more than we had originally thought.
Kamaya admits that on the days leading up to Tyrone's murder,
she and Jeremy had communicated via Snapchat
about their plans.
These Snapchat must have been highly
going to make you look like you're questioning us.
Use your column back.
Yeah.
This will make me look like I've pushed you.
So are you guys talking?
Because you're going to get your course by on every day,
or you're going to be like, I mean, this is a,
would you say this is a 50, 50, you guys were on this?
Yeah.
OK.
I know what I'm about to do.
Kamaya admitted to detective Lieutenant Lunguski
that she and Jeremy had both taken part in planning this.
What do you think should happen to you right now?
I don't know.
Because myself, I feel just guilty of telling you.
Why don't you call a file, say I was just a morsel?
I would have called it off, like, Jeremy
probably would have been a sedative to take
that I called it off.
And I didn't want him like mad at me.
OK, but you understand, though.
Call him and I would have saved your health
and flight.
You better work them.
I'm on.
To investigators, Kamaya's confession
is proof that she was a willing accomplice
in her husband's murder.
To see her talks no matter a fact about taking life of her husband
and who's actually a good husband,
she was one of the coldest human beings that I've run across.
Then, Kamaya reveals something even more shocking
about what she told Jeremy on the night of the murder.
To be engaged, he's outside.
This homicide may very well have been avoided.
Kamaya Hassel has just made a stunning confession
about her involvement in her husband's murder.
What she tells detectives next is even more disturbing.
I was to ask in her about Jeremy's vehicle
being parked there for a couple days.
She told me he was staking it out.
He was trying to kill him for three nights in a row.
But he could never get a clear opportunity.
On the night of the shooting, Jeremy
was actually at one point going to leave
and go back to Chicago.
He was just like, never mind.
We'll just try another date.
But Kamaya said, no, don't go.
And at this point, she called Sergeant Hassel back
to bring her some food.
And that's when the homicide took place.
Jeremy, who's going to give up?
It may not have happened, but due to her,
it happened that night.
Based on this new information, Detective Longusky
goes back to the beginning.
Asked to Kamaya, where did this all start?
And she says that she and Jeremy started plotting this
while they were over in Korea.
She told Jeremy just how upset that she was
and how their marriage was going in a low point.
And Jeremy was the person who was right there saying,
I'll do this for you, whatever you want.
During the interview, Longusky brings up
a second possible motive.
We did discover that as part of their military insurance,
when there is a death of a spouse
that she does get a settlement from the insurance company
of about $400,000.
I brought up the money.
And she admitted that was part of it.
And that money would help her and her son
get a better start with Jeremy.
At that point, there was really no doubt in my mind
that she was the genesis of this whole plan.
She used Jeremy Kwayar to follow out the plans
of executing her husband.
Almost two weeks after the murder of her husband,
Tyrone Hassel III.
Kamaya Hassel is placed under arrest.
When the police arrived to the house,
they said, we found your son's killer.
And it was Kamaya.
My whole family just fell apart.
Just like, everybody got the screaming and crying
and yelling and I was just sitting there
because I was like, ain't no way.
This was somebody who I looked at as a daughter.
This was the ultimate betrayal.
I got a phone call from his father.
And he was like, Kamaya.
And I just screamed and hollered.
I felt so much betrayal.
Because Kamaya sat in my face and hugged me, crying,
and my son was sleeping with the enemy.
Following Kamaya's arrest, their two-year-old son
is placed in the custody of Kamaya's mother.
For me and my husband, it was very hard in the beginning
because that was the only thing that we had left.
You know, really, from Tyrone III.
As the prosecution prepares for Kamaya's trial,
they discover a surprise piece of evidence.
After the arrest were made, I'd actually
obtained an auto recording of Kamaya Hassel
speaking to her mother.
And the entirety of the phone call was another confession.
It was going on, Kamaya.
I'm in the jail.
Why are you in jail?
I know what was going on with Tyrone.
I got myself mixed up in something I didn't think would be like this.
Do you remember one of my co-workers I was telling you about?
Where are we planted?
The most beautiful.
I knew we had strong evidence prior to that.
But when I heard that, this case was going to trial full steam ahead.
There's not going to be any deals for you, Kamaya.
Six months after her arrest, the trial of Kamaya Hassel begins.
This is not just an average murder case.
You have a young, decorated army sergeant
who was also a father and a very beloved person
in both his home community and his military community.
And then you find out that it's fellow soldiers,
his wife being one of them, who are accused of his murder.
The trial begins and prosecutor Steve Piranjali
lays out the evidence for the jury.
Walk with me up this driveway.
And you'll find violence.
You'll find blood.
You'll find bullets.
And you'll find the bite of United States Army Sergeant
Tyrone Hassel III lifeless on the ground.
Going in to this trial with the overwhelming amount of evidence for the murder,
my strategy is basically, I'm putting it all up front.
Kamaya is the one who really masterminded everything.
The woman responsible for that killing is seated right there.
But if I did, you'll find she had murder on her mind.
I'd be trailing her heart.
But my main worry was never putting the gun in Kamaya's hand.
How would the jury react to that?
Even though that gun was never in her hand,
her fingerprints are all over this crime.
But you just never know.
All it takes is one juror to get a not guilty.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're here today.
This is the defendant, Kamaya Hassel.
I wasn't happy with her life and with her husband.
And she devised a plan for lover, Jeremy Koyar, to have a murder.
And again, you'll see from the evidence
it was all about her and what she wanted.
The prosecution sets out to prove that both Kamaya Hassel
and Jeremy Koyar murdered Sergeant Tyrone Hassel III.
I want to make sure that the jury, there on board,
with the idea that, yeah, multiple people can commit a crime.
And even if you don't pull the trigger, you are just as guilty.
I believe she was the one that drove this execution.
The defense counters by shifting the blame to Jeremy Koyar,
insisting that he acted alone.
There's no question in my mind.
And I think Mr. Ferangely, I agree on this at least,
that Jeremy Koyar is directly no question
about it responsible for Tyrone Hassel's death.
Over three days, the prosecution calls 23 witnesses to the stand.
We really focused on Kamaya's confession to Detective Lungusky.
We focused on the evidence that was found in her cell phone.
And that second confession she made to her mom.
So those were three really important pieces.
Perhaps the most powerful testimony comes from the victim's father,
Tyrone Hassel Jr.
He was very relevant as a witness, because he was on scene.
He witnessed the medics taking his son away.
I saw my son, back of his head, explode up.
And his eyes were open.
Me testifying on the stand was very tough.
It always bring me back to what I've seen.
And that was my child.
The state also calls its star witness to the stand.
Polygraph expert Andrew Lungusky.
One of the first things we did is we played the video
of my interview where I confront Kamaya
and let the jury watch the whole thing in its entirety.
You can see that some of them were really appalled
by some of the things they heard on that video.
I probably lose to the spot, but the reason I didn't
because I felt like he would be mad at me or...
And I love you anymore.
Yeah.
Next, we played her confession to her mom.
We played it all.
Why?
Why, Kamaya?
I was scared to tell anybody about what was going on.
Did your job think I was a little lazy then?
She admitted all that to her mother,
which was really a huge piece of evidence for us.
And then we had all the physical evidence,
the shell casings, the snapchat records,
physical evidence that the offense really could not rebut.
After three days of testimony and no witnesses
called by the defense,
both sides present their closing arguments.
The prosecutor's didn't hit home to a lot of points
about the man Tyrone was,
the direction he was going in life,
what a tragedy it was.
Sergeant Hassel made you a better person
because he gave his family and his friends,
his wife, his son, his country, he gave.
There weren't too many dry eyes in the courtroom.
In the defense closing,
they still went their theme in the case of,
this was Jeremy acting on his own.
But at the end, the mastermind
and the master manipulator in this case was Kamaya Hassel.
When the jury went to deliberate,
everybody's nervous.
Man, my daughter was holding each other hand,
um, just waiting.
Then two hours later,
the jury returns with a verdict.
I'm going to ask her if you would please read
in count one, her verdict.
Guilty of her degree, premedited murder.
There was just no reaction from Kamaya Hassel
when the jury verdict was right.
They find Kamaya guilty on all three counts.
First degree, premeditated murder,
conspiracy to commit murder,
and using a gun to commit a crime.
I did glance over to Tyrone Jr.
There was obviously embraces in their family side
and it was good to see that they thought they got justice.
Kamaya was sentenced to spend the rest of her natural life
in prison with no opportunity for parole.
And I felt justice was done,
but it's really bittersweet
because, you know, Sergeant Hassel's still gone.
There's no winners.
And in a case like this, there's never a winner.
With Kamaya's verdict in,
Jeremy Quayar's defense team changes tactics.
They approached the prosecution about a possible plea deal.
On July 29th of 2019,
Jeremy Quayar pled guilty to second degree murder,
put 65 years in prison.
I do remember telling Jeremy in a courtroom
that you could have had my son's wife,
you could have had his house,
you could have raised his child,
but you could never be my son.
My son was better than you,
and he still is better than you.
Putting Tyrone's killers behind bars
is little solace for his family.
I haven't seen my grandson since after the murder.
It hurts me every day.
That's all I have left for my son.
Me and my husband both feel like we lost Tyrone the third.
And our grandson,
the only thing that we can do is pray for comfort and peace
for ourselves.
I don't want to be angry, you know, with her
for the rest of my life.
I would like my son to be remembered
for what he did for our country.
As a young man, he wanted to serve the country
and he did, and he did it very well.
That's the way I wanted to be remembered
by his military status, Sergeant Hassel.
I would never stop talking about him
because I'm proud of him,
and I believe he deserves to be remembered.
Tyrone and Camaya's son remained in the custody
of Camaya's parents.
