The Man Who Loved Christmas

Tonight on Dayd Live, I will never again be able to hug my brother Three of you the three brothers against the world This guy that meant everything to me Was worth absolutely nothing to them We knew that he had been struggling and sick. He was diabetic. He had some cardiovascular issues The autopsy report says that he died from natural causes About nine months after Harold dies. You get a phone call. He said we were looking into a burglary at your brother's home We know who that individual is Starts telling his story This woman's a psychopath and I'm telling you guys that right now We started seeing messages about Harold. They'd actually done something to make him sick Putting something in like a margarita, chilly, a brownie You're upset because he's not dying fast enough. They start talking about making root beer floats. It's just so heartbreaking This was almost a perfect murder How in the world can somebody be that evil? Murdered by root beer float. You've never seen a case like this. I'm Lester Holt and this is Daydeline Here is Blaine Alexander with the man who loved Christmas There's a saying it's always darkest before the dawn and here in this quiet Indiana town most people were still fast asleep But inside one home two men were hard at work moving through the dark They had their eye on something and seemed to know exactly where to find it. They're drawn to the safe and he's opening up the safe Nothing about this break-in felt random. In fact, it was a clue a Key to a mystery investigators didn't even know they needed to solve We're like, okay, this is weird, right? We're small-town kids from Southern Indiana You see it in the world and it's crazy stories, but you know, it doesn't happen to us This corner of Southern Indiana is the kind of place where roots run deep Surrounded by farmland and country roads. It's where the Alan brothers grew up That is the youngest I grew up with two of the best older brothers that you probably could ask for James is the middle brother. You speak about it almost as if it was a magical childhood. It was it could not be any better of a childhood And then there was the oldest herald a big guy in personality and stature with a nickname that somehow fit him to a tee Peanut right. Yes, where did peanut come from when he was born? He was a kind of a preemie and His first visit to our grandmother's house. She said he looked just like a peanut and it stuck Hannah is married to James. What would your kids call him? Angle peanut. Uncle peanut. Yeah Harold worked as a computer programmer and had a passion for music. He taught himself to play But what you notice most his family says his endless generosity He loved through giving and there wasn't a birthday or a Christmas that he did not Make to do about right every year. Hey, well, you guys want for Christmas or like Bob We're 40, okay? We don't need Christmas presents. We're good But for all his strengths, there was one part of life Harold hadn't quite figured out You've said that Harold for all of his successes wasn't typically successful in relationships No, unfortunately my brother had a fatal flaw and that is he somehow acquitted having a relationship As being successful as being happy Samantha is his other sister-in-law. I think he was just really Seeking love. He was just really looking for that connection And then he found it in perhaps the most unexpected of places his 30th high school reunion I thought it was odd that he met somebody because I mean his graduating class. Yeah, it was like At least 70 people. So you're thinking how did you not already know everybody? How are you just meeting? Her name was Marsha Bucston She was divorced and worked as an assistant in a medical practice She did not fit the typical mold of the previous Women she was kinder more refined more of someone that I could see him with. I was happy for my brother And then the next thing you know, hey, we got married Was that surprising to you? No, not really. No He was quick to love and he was quick to go all in Marsha's 27-year-old daughter Ashley a pharmacy tech was a young widow raising her little girl alone Soon they were all under one roof living at Harald's home in pre-town Indiana. Now there's there's this child's energy in the house And I don't know if she called him grandpa, but he very much got to play that, you know, role when she was around and he loved it And so it went for about three years then came Thanksgiving 2022 The family was gathered at the table waiting for dessert and his face got Kind of scared in a sense. He was my face just went numb So I jumped up immediately or helped him take off of the sweatshirt and he was just soaked and sweat Marsha rushed him to the hospital. What were doctors saying? I had to do some of this blood sugar. He was a type 2 diabetic. He started a new medicine like maybe it was a reaction They sent Harald home, but a few days later he made another visit to the ER What I remember is him looking very pale and just not steady. Yeah Then just five days before Christmas he got worse Not one more much worse My husband and our begging for his non-renewing and I believe Okay, is he breathing? No, we thought about held on One of James's cousins is on the volunteer fire department down there and they heard on the radio Peanut's address come on and so they were like just so you know they're headed to peanuts We had arrived just shortly after the ambulance Deputy Aaron Wilkins of the Jackson County Sheriff's Office responded to the Allen home We made our way inside the home back into the bedroom. Harald was laying on the floor between the bed and a closet The paramedics did what they could but it was too late And so then they heard over the radio you know that the person was deceased Hannah had to break the news to James Having to give him like the worst news ever was so hard Yeah, it was pretty It was pretty bad It was bad and you went to tell me and then Matt came home and that was a very very hard thing to watch We didn't know what had happened. We didn't have any idea He we knew he was gone a whole family grieving a wife now A widow and then out of nowhere something happened Something that would warp this family tragedy in a way nobody could believe There's been some developments in your brother's case make it look vandalized so I can get the insurance money These text messages are the worst I've ever seen this guy that meant everything to me Was it worth absolutely nothing to them if we can keep this the screen as possible I will cooperate in any means necessary After learning about Harold Allen's death in a roundabout way through a police dispatch his family had so many questions Without more information his brother met was having a hard time believing it was real I convinced myself that he wasn't gone Optimistic I guess I kept trying to get a hold of Marsha I sent her a message saying you know like What's going on and when I called she said that she was crying too hard and she couldn't She couldn't answer All Harold's wife Marsha could tell them was that she found Harold Unresponsive in the bedroom and autopsy filled in the rest what did it show? um That he had Cardiac cardiac issues that he had a blockage hard to talk um. Yeah, that's cardiac arrange The news was hard enough, but the timing made it even worse It was Christmas, but instead of celebrating they were preparing for Harold's funeral That's a pain that never goes away And thinking about the fact that this was your brother's favorite holiday Thank you - Exactly, that was his jail. - We went to his mom's house with our kids and Marsha came over. I think it was Christmas day. We were over there and she had brought in gifts for our kids that Peena had already purchased for them. - A week after Harold died, his family and friends came together for his funeral. - That was the worst moment, you know? Like we are literally saying goodbye to one of the most important people in our life. - Harold's family was still hungry for details, anything that would help them process the loss. But they say Marsha and her daughter kept to themselves. - They didn't interact with anybody and then once we were at the grave site, they left, like immediately and we're like, okay, this is weird, right? Strange yes, but they understood. Grief can make people do strange things and Marsha was finding her own way through it. She channeled her grief into a self-published book about rebuilding life after losing a spouse. She wrote, he was my world, two peas in a pod and she described how she overcame chronic and debilitating sadness with therapy. Marsha stayed at the home she and Harold had shared and the family gave her space. But the brothers did reach out to talk with her about getting some family heirlooms, Harold had been storing. - My dad was an avid gun collector. I had a lot of guns, so those were all at my brother, Harold, peanut's house. When we would contact about getting those items, it was, don't you understand? We're grieving over here. I lost my husband. I was very understanding. He said, okay, just let me know when you're ready. We'll go through the items. Then nine months after Harold's death, Marsha was once again calling for help. - Marsha Allen had called in, I believe, to our dispatch. - Detective Clint Birchum of the Jackson County Sheriff's Department spoke with her. - She was on vacation with her mother and father down in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. - Marsha said she'd been asleep when she received a security alert on her phone. Someone was inside her house. - She had set up some security videos in her home and she ends up realizing that her house had been burglarized. In fact, while she's coming back from Tennessee, she is emailing me videos of these two individuals in her house. - Does it look like they're looking for anything specific? - They're drawn to the safe. At one point, you can see an individual. The pier should be holding a phone and he's opening up the safe as if he's looking at the combination to the safe on his cell phone. And they end up taking 40 to 50 guns. The family heirlooms that were also worth a lot of money. Tens of thousands of dollars. What else are they looking for in this house? - They take jewelry, a clustering is taken from the safe. - One of the burglars was wearing a mask, but the other, well, look at this. - One of our suspects faces exposed and looking directly at the camera at one point. - Marsha saw that on the security camera videos. She lets you know that she recognizes one of the guys in this video. - Yes. - She tells you about this person. - She tells us that she recognized individual to be Stephen White. - With a name and video in hand, detectives had no trouble finding Stephen White. - I almost felt like I could not have guns. - But following what he had to say, well, that was a different story. - Like another secret, it's like the whole thing, but it doesn't matter. (dramatic music) (dramatic music) - Less than a year after Harold Allen died, his home was a crime scene, the sight of a burglary. This seemed to be an easy solve. Detectives had video and a clear look at one of the perps, recognized by Marsha as Stephen White, a 29-year-old father with a prior criminal record. - Wanted on. - Detectives found him at his parents' home. - So you have any idea why we're here today? - Well, they said that y'all got me on camera last night, burglarizing the place. - Just right off the bat, what kind of impression is he making? - He, of course, he denies it. - Do you know anything about it? - No. - Okay. - My husband and I set up last night until about four o'clock in the morning watching no. I personally think I have a strap or something. Been running a fever. My tongue is all swollen and sore and my mouth is red and white, so I'm letting y'all know that. - If he was trying to scare the cops off, it didn't work. - The homeowner has the video. We got three detectives out on the house right now that was burglarized. - Who? - Well, I don't even know anybody in Jackson County aside from my aunt. - Then he's confronted with a screenshot. - Yes. - There's the picture. And we got a video. I mean, I really do not have a heart. I don't even care the (beep) - Well, had or no had, the cops knew they had him dead to rights. - We either get the stuff back, or I think you know probably what's coming. - He's gonna (beep) jail and set and rot. - But eventually, he's like, yeah, you know, it was me. - I'm just like another cigarette. I don't explain the whole thing, but it's lovely. - The story began with Stephen admitting he did know Marcia and her daughter. - My best friend's with a daughter. - Okay. - What's the daughter's name? - Honestly Jones. - And then came Stephen's plot twist. He said, "Marcia was no victim here. She was the one pulling the strings." - So to say, I'll give you $30,000. You can go to my house, give me the safe code. - Okay. - For sure. - Yeah, it's Marcia did. She said, "You can go down there, you can get this." And I need it all taken somewhere. You need to make it look like you've broken in there and make it look vandalized so I can get the insurance money. And I said, "Marcia, I'm a felon, I cannot have guns." My dad is running for air. We got a lot of (beep) going on. I'm not about to drive guns across this town. - And you don't have any text messages? - No, because I deleted the messages. She told me, "Oh, we'll make sure you delete all this stuff." - What are you guys thinking as you listen to this story? - I think he was telling us at best half-truths. - Do you have all the guns and everything here you said? - Yes. - Stephen had told police what they came to find out and then some. But still, it seemed he just couldn't stop talking. - Sorry, mom, Marcia set me up. - My mother's best, she's gonna disown me forever now. - I know she won't. - Yeah, she will, nah. - You said your dad's running for mayor? - Yeah, please, this is not gonna go on the media release. If we can keep this the screen as possible, I will cooperate in any means necessary. - They put trains on your back. - Police recovered the stolen items and Stephen was arrested. The next day, Marcia was back from vacation and came to the station to talk with Detective Bertram. - I was going to get all the videos, I think, 22. - I'm not sure if I got 22, but I got a lot of them. - And she's coming in as the burglary victim? - Yes, we're talking about what kind of items could possibly be missing. It's a very friendly conversation. - The detective showed Marcia photos of everything they'd recovered. - You recognize that ring? - Yes, that is his dad's ring. - Who's dad's ring? - My husband's dad's ring, here on that one. - Okay. - My husband's dad would be similar. The detective then turned the conversation to Stephen White and his version of events. - Well, what he's saying is basically that you said that you would give him $3,000 to go in the house and have him take the guns and take them back to his place. - He's a liar. I did not do that. I don't have his number, I don't have his cell phone number. He's lying. - Marcia did agree with police on one point. It looked like an inside job and she had a good idea who was behind it. - So almost immediately, she's pointing the finger at her daughter. - Yes, Marcia was confident that Ashley had had given Stephen White the combination to the safe. - 'Cause there's only three people in the world and I know it's me, my husband and her. I didn't get it, I didn't get it out. He died, so he can't get it out. There's one person, process of elimination. - Marcia and her daughter had been close, but recently they'd had a falling out. - The last, I would heard, she said she was in Branson, Missouri, but I don't know where she's at right now. 'Cause she was supposed to come in and say to me for a while, which I guarantee she won't. Now. - The detective still didn't know what to make of the burglary, but with every new detail, there seemed to be another finger pointing accusation and another layer to unpack. Because what exactly did Stephen White mean by this? This woman's a psychopath, and I'm telling you guys, that right now. (dramatic music) (dramatic music) - Marcia Allen walked into the Jackson County Sheriff's office of burglary victim. Now, officers were pressing her about what Stephen White claimed was her role in a possible insurance scam. Make it look vandalized so I can get the insurance money. - But Stephen White had told them a lot of things. - My dad is running for air. - And he'd made some even more dramatic accusations about Marcia. - This woman's a psychopath, and I'm telling you guys, that right now. - But this one? - But this one is a (beep) murder. "Okay, I know that. I have not gone to nobody and so do you think I don't have no proofs on it." Was he really accusing Marsha of murder? "The woman's murdered her husband and if you go into her computer files. " So what do the deputies think when they heard that? "I think we all knew it was something we needed to look into, but at the same time I think is he just trying to deflect from what he just got caught doing." So detectives had reason to be skeptical. Still, as Marsha sat before them at the station, you let her know that Steven is pointing the finger at her for her husband's death. "Yes, I'll tell you what else he said. He accused you of murdering your husband." "I did not murder my husband." "Something to the effect of some kind of, I don't know, basically poisoning, poisoning as a drink." "That would show fantastic how you put it if that happened." "Was there an autopsy done?" "Yes." "There was an autopsy." "The autopsy told you. He died because he had paradise that was undetected." "What are you watching for in her response?" "Obviously, we're watching how she reacts to it. You can't bank too much on the fact that she was somewhat defensive, because if she didn't have anything to do with it, she's going to deny it." "I cannot believe you said I tried to kill my husband." The detective didn't know who to believe, but he did know if you want to find out what a person's really been up to, there's one pretty good place to start. "Would you be willing to consent to download to your cell phone?" "Yeah." "Okay." Were you surprised by how willing she was to handle her phone? "I think my initial thought was like, well, maybe there's nothing on there." He left the room and briefed Detective J.L. McElfresh, the department's digital forensic examiner. He, too, was skeptical about accusations from Stephen White, a felon caught red-handed. "It's normal for a suspect in a crime to start talking about other crimes that they were not involved in to try to get themselves out of the trouble that they're in now." While the detective was out of the room, it appeared Marsha was deleting something from her phone, but she didn't try to hide it when the detective came back. She told me basically she didn't want us, when we went into her phone, to see her walking around in her underwear. "I should make sure you know some of you in my underwear." "Oh, the videos of your. " "Yeah, I went through and deleted some of them while you were out, so, well, just of me." They let Marsha go home and got to work analyzing her phone. "We needed to look and see what things had been deleted and at what time stamp, and that's when we found that she had deleted the entire text conversation with Ashley." "I would imagine that that then becomes a pretty good place for you to start." "Oh, it does, because why delete the entire conversation." Of course, deleting something doesn't mean it's gone. It was easy enough for Detective McElfresh to restore the messages, but sorting through them would take weeks. There were 24,000 deleted text messages between mother and daughter going back more than a year. What do you see? "You know, we see conversations farther back just about things going on in life." No talk of a burglary or an insurance scam, but you keep looking. "We do." "What else do you find?" "We start seeing, like, really horrible conversations between Ashley and Marsha about Harold Allen talking about him being sick, going to the hospital, you know, kind of laughing about it." "What was the tone between the two?" "The tone was lack of respect for human life." The detectives also found messages about what Harold was eating and drinking. There was this picture of a brownie. Marsha took picture, Harold is eating a brownie and he's sitting there and they're talking about the brownie. They're, you know, talking about how much of the brownie's been eaten and that it's almost gone. Maybe their chatty perp wasn't so crazy after all. The messages got more specific. There was something that shifted from, they're talking pretty badly about this guy too. You can tell that they're actually doing something to him. Yeah, they're talking openly about, you know, putting something in like a sprite or a margarita or chili. You now have a murder investigation on your hands. Correct. Yes. But the autopsy had already pointed to hard issues with no indication of foul play. If Harold was indeed poisoned, detectives needed to find a way to prove it. But as they searched, they stumbled on something else. Would there be yet another crime in play? Her previous has been died under strange circumstances. It was taking weeks for detectives to sort through the thousands of text messages on Marsha's phone. But while Harold's family knew nothing about the burglary or a possible murder investigation, it had been months since they'd spoken to Marsha about the family's guns. Don't contact me. Don't want to talk about this. Yeah, it was a complete shutdown. Shut down of the conversation. We're not having this conversation. That had left them with questions about Marsha, things that never sat quite right. She'd written that book about grief, but the family says she didn't appear to be doing much grieving when they saw her at Christmas and the funeral. I'm seeing these of raw emotions with James, and I'm not seeing any emotion from her. Now almost a year after Harold Allen's death, a detective was calling his family. He said we found out some more information, and we're open in your brother's death up as a potential homicide. Was there a part of you that had almost always been waiting for this? Yeah, I wasn't really surprised. Are you then thinking back to every interaction you had with Marsha, every conversation you had with her? Yes, absolutely. They remembered Marsha telling them that her daughter Ashley collected life insurance when her husband died. Then you heard a rumor about Ashley and her previous husband. Yeah, I think it was at a family get together, and they were like, well, you know that her previous husband died under strange circumstances, and that she took the life insurance and basically ran. Ty Jones was only 33 when he died suddenly of a heart attack. Was there ever an investigation into his death? No, we found out later that his family was always suspicious, I guess. Now detectives were too, like Ty Herald had seemingly died of a heart attack. And like Ashley, Marsha collected life insurance money after his death, and there was something else buried in those thousands of texts. Remember the messages about that half-eaten brownie? In that back and forth was a reference to Ashley's dead husband Ty. At one point Ashley writes, it's slow, followed by, and previously Ty was only 120 LOL. What did you take that to mean? Whatever they had tried at that point on Herald Allen was working slower and not as well as something that may have happened with her deceased husband Ty. Three weeks after the burglary, detectives were at Marsha's door. Was she surprised to see you show up at the house that morning? I believe she was, yes. They went through the house looking for something, anything that might link her to Herald's death. Computers, receipts, maybe even the poison itself. And we end up asking her to go to the Sheriff's Department to sit down and do an interview with us. She went with them and at the station, detectives Sat Marsha in front of a computer and asked her to explain that exchange about the half-eaten brownie. She says, "How's it going, LOL, when you send that picture?" Then she says, "Oh, let me know when it's gone, LOL." How do you say that? What are you talking about it going faster though? What is sickness, the flu? You said, "Like, what's taking so long?" She said, "The weight. It takes 12 hours for a woman at 180 to fill anything. You do the math, laugh out loud. It's slow. And previously, Ty was only 120, LOL." Yeah, she made brownies. Marsha said there was no poison in that brownie, just marijuana, to help Herald with pain he was feeling from his illness. She made brownies and you had to pay me for how much of the butter you use, you have to go by the way of the person and how it affects them. She came up with some kind of excuse for everyone. I'm just going to be straightforward about what we were concerned with as that maybe Ty was poison to. Oh no. And no, I forgot about the brownies. Maybe she would remember this. They showed her a text from Ashley that read, "The male is here. It was sent the day before Herald died. Marsha said that male was a package for Ashley. But this wasn't just in a delivery. Detectives had traced the package back to the shipper and learned it was a $32 order for ethylene glycol. A clear and sweet tasting toxic liquid found in antifreeze. "I see how it looks like you're connected to this ethylene glycol." "Yeah, but I'm not." "Okay, but I mean, you see why." "It looks that way yet." "It's not like you don't understand why I get it." "Cause I didn't know what was going on." The detectives kept coming back to Ashley's late husband, Ty. "Did Harold die of the exact same thing you tied in?" "No." "Uh, Harold, what they told me is that he had pericorditis and he had stopped his heart." "That's pretty much what this stuff does if you drank it." "And that's why I think that you probably know it a little bit." "I actually know I don't, and that's the truth." Was it? Because investigators had one more thing to confront Marsha with. A text about a special kind of drink. "They start talking about dinner one night, and after dinner, making root beer floats." And that matched with one of the more specific things they heard before. From "Who Else?" Stephen White. "I called her daughter who explains to me mom is gone crazy. Marsha went into the kitchen. I made a root beer float with whipped cream and sprinkles on top of it. And she poured some out of a bottle into there. And she told us that that was his little extra sock because he like spiked root beer floats." "What is being claimed is that you guys are quizzing him." "Oh, she's not true. It looks good to you, I know." And she just continued to deny and deny and deny. "We both made root beer floats. So I did not put anything in any more drink. I didn't even know we had anything like that there." The texts told a different story. Now detectives needed science to prove it. As standard procedure, a vial of Harold's blood was being held for a year after the autopsy. It had been untouched for nine months, and now detectives sent it off for testing. For prosecutors, that was the missing piece. "It was." In the meantime, they let Marsha go. Again, Detective Birchum drove her home, certain he'd be back soon with an arrest warrant for murder. "It was a very quiet ride back." Marsha may have said little on the ride home, but detectives were about to hear plenty from her daughter, Ashley. "You were going to take the mother to the other bank, didn't you?" While detectives waited on Harold Allen's toxicology results, they turned their attention to Ashley. By now, they knew it was Ashley, not Marsha, who had enlisted Stephen White in the burglary. "It ends up telling us like, 'Yeah, and Ashley's the one who planned the burglary.'" White pleaded guilty to those burglary charges, and Ashley was arrested and extradited back to Indiana on charges related to the break-in. Investigators cut right to the chase. "All right, Ashley, I'm Detective Birchum with the Sheriff's Department here. We're not going to talk to you about the murder, okay? We know what happened to Harold." At first, Ashley denied everything. "Do you know anything about the effluent glycol?" "No, sir." "Okay. What was your relationship like with Harold?" "He was always. He said, 'I never know a chance to be a dad or a grandpa, and we were eating that up." But once confronted with those text messages with her mother, Ashley knew she had some explaining to do. She took a page from her mother's playbook and pointed the finger away from herself and righted her mom. "If you know something else, it's time to tell us. So we can. " "I know she said she wanted out. She wanted to be free of him completely. She wanted him dead. And I said, 'You're going to go to hell for that month.' No matter what happens, you're going down." She was essentially telling you that she was trying to be the voice of reason. "Yes." "Yes." "Compless in all of this." It was a few months before Harold died. That's when Ashley says Marsha started asking for help. "I guess because I used to be a pharmacy take. She wanted it. She was asking me like, 'What is the adverse effects to insulin? What's the adverse effects to this? Things like that.' Ashley said they bought Fox Glove seeds and natural toxin. Is that what put him in the hospital that first time? I think so, yeah. What other foods did she put that Fox Glove in? I think she tried chili once. Was she concerned that it wasn't working? Yeah. She said, 'I'm never going to be free.' Whose idea was it to use the ethylene thigol? Harold. She asked you to help by placing the order for her. She asked me to place order for her. Yeah. I really don't ask many questions, which I guess I should. She definitely tried to minimize her role in it. I mean, just doing that to anybody, regardless of any which way or forward, I didn't agree. But loyalty to the mother did all the thing. A loyal and otherwise innocent daughter? Detectives weren't buying it. As Ashley was led off to Wade and Jail still held on the burglary charges. They did some digging into Marcia's finances. We found that there was ultimately the motive of money. Lindsey Fleetwood is the Jackson County prosecutor. Marcia Allen did receive some of the life insurance money. And then additionally, you see that Marcia Allen was paying Ashley Jones monthly some of this payment, and then she stopped. And that's when Ashley got mad. How did they know that? She complained about not getting enough of Harold's money in a text to her good friend, Stephen White, writing, "She couldn't get into a dead man's phone without me to get all his retirements and savings he had hidden. She didn't give me out of that." Now, detectives connected the dots. That burglary and Harold Allen's murder weren't separate crimes. They were tied together, bound by one thing. Greed. She mails Stephen White, a key to her mother's house, and she knows the code to the safe. She wants the valuables. In more messages found on Stephen White's phone, Ashley exposed herself as much more than a misguided loyal daughter. She boasted about the murder. Saying, "I planned this all. Basically, my mom couldn't have done this without me. She wanted to do this way. I told her to do this way. She was proud of it." When Harold's toxicology results came back, they confirmed what detectives had suspected. We were notified that, yes, at the Linglichel wasn't a system. We know without a doubt this is how we died. So you can't plan a case better than what was thrown in our laps, right? Because not only did Stephen White be the one to break this case open, but it's through Ashley Jones' actions of her greed that got us here. Ashley's charges were upped to murder. "You are under the arrest for the murder of Harold, okay?" But Marshall's story would end differently. It was just hours after she left that interrogation room after that quiet right home with Detective Birchum. "There's something wrong." Marshall's parents called the Sheriff's Office, asking officers to do a welfare check on their daughter. "We knocked on the door." Deputy Wilkins, who'd responded to the Allen House the day Harold died, was there again. "We went ahead and made entry, and we come to a closed bedroom door, open the door, and we locate Marshall laying there in her bed." Marshall had died by suicide. She left a note, "I did not kill my husband. You win, Ashley." "What did you take that to mean?" "I think it was one last attempt at denial, even though she thought she knew she was caught." Ashley pleaded guilty to attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The burglary charges were dropped. She was sentenced to 50 years in prison. And Detective's questions about Ashley's late husband have not gone away. "The information that we obtained during our investigation was turned over to state police." Prosecutor Fleetwood tells Dateline that Ty Jones's death is being investigated as a possible homicide. Ashley maintained in her initial police interview that her late husband died of a heart attack. "It's not even coincidental anymore. It's just heartbreaking that the circumstances I feel like were very, very similar." "Do you hold Marshall and Ashley equally responsible here for your brother's death?" "Oh yeah. Definitely." "This doesn't happen without Ashley. And just like it doesn't happen without Marsha. So in my mind they're bold as responsible for what happened." And she says equally responsible for getting caught. "It took them being greedy to essentially shine the light. You don't always get to see Karma. Sometimes." "You did here?" "I did here." For Harold's family, this story doesn't end with Marsha or Ashley. It ends with Harold, peanut, a man who loved Christmas, loved giving, and above all, loved his family. "This guy that meant everything to me was worth absolutely. nothing to them. Like I said, the rest of my life will be missing in peace without him because I know he's not here. What I refuse to allow happen to him is to be forgotten in this story. He was just a simple guy that goes to work, pays his bills, and wanted to be loved. That's P-NOT. That's all for this edition of Dateline. And don't forget to check out our Talking Dateline podcast in which we'll go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again next Friday for our 35th season premiere at 9/8c. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News. Good night.