Original subtitles

[tense music playing]

In 1994, I took on one of the newest,

Biggest cold cases that I ever handled in my career

And at that time, I was a pretty new chief

Of one of the district courts in harris county.

The sudden deaths of john and ruth high

Happened six years earlier, in 1987.

The highs were a really nice elderly couple,

But there were a lot of dark twists and turns,

Trying to figure out what happened with this case.

What the investigators uncovered

Was a person so twisted and diabolical,

That he even started to believe his own lies

And that's what made him even harder to catch.

Man: Even if, for instance, there was something

That I had done and I confessed to it...

...Y'all be dragged right down with me.

He's evil to the core.

It took a cleverly devised phone call ruse

To try and get enough evidence on the killer,

But would that be enough?

I had to go to trial basically relying

On the testimony of one pretty unsympathetic witness.

[theme music playing]

[calm melody playing]

-Kelly: How are y'all? -Wendy: Good, how are you?

Kelly: Oh, hi guys, so good to see you.

Wendy: Good to see you too.

It's been too long, you know it?

-Too long. -Too much.

How are you? How are you? Give me a hug.

I remember this case, because it was one

Of my first introductions

To the best guys at hpd homicide.

Because it was my first cold case

And because the victims were so sweet and innocent.

What were the family dynamics back then?

Everything was normal, I felt.

-I recently graduated college. -Okay.

-And recently got married, so. -Kelly: Okay.

And I was in college at the time.

-Kelly: When it happened? -Mm-hm.

So, talk about that day

When you first hear that something horrible has happened.

I was with my dad at one of the facilities we operate

And we were there, working together

And my mother called him

And said that nobody's heard from my grandparents.

And he went over there to check on them?

[sinister music playing]

On October 8th, 1987,

5:00 p.M. In the afternoon,

The houston police department receives a phone call

From a gentleman named ken high.

He was concerned about his parents.

They had not been able to reach him by telephone

And so,

Ken high had gone around the house,

Peeking in the windows,

And he noticed his mother was laying on the bed

And he was concerned that she may have passed away.

And he wanted an officer to come there

To perform a welfare check.

[tense melody playing]

The officer arrives,

He meets pat and ken high.

The officer notices newspapers on the front of the porch.

The door was locked,

And so, the officer makes the decision

That he's going to kick the door in.

The officer immediately detects

The strong odor of gas.

And he observes an elderly male on the floor,

Face down, there's a pool of blood around his head.

There's an outdoor gas cooker hooked to the dryer gas jet

Just inside the kitchen.

You would not want to use that type of cooker

Inside the house.

The officer immediately turns the gas jet off

And the gas starts dissipating in the residence

And he looks at the body.

To him, it's obvious that this person

Had been dead for several hours.

Since it's the high's residence

And it's an elderly male on the floor,

The initial assumption is that it would be john high.

Next, the officer proceeds to the master bedroom.

He finds who he believes is ruth high.

There was a book beside her

And one of the pages was folded over

As if she fell asleep while reading her book.

[birds chirping]

Sgt. Burmester: My partner and I are sent to the scene.

I did the inside work,

Trying to determine if there's anything

Indicating foul play.

We had to wait on the medical examiner,

Because we're not really allowed to touch the body

For further wounds.

My partner, who was doing the witness portion,

He informed ken and his wife

That his parents were deceased,

Possibly of gas inhalation.

[sorrowful piano playing]

My dad and my grandparents were very close.

He was devastated.

I just couldn't believe that both my grandparents were gone

At the exact same time.

That just doesn't happen to many people.

So, what you have at the scene is the smell of gas,

You see a gas cooker hooked up in the kitchen,

You see an elderly man, john high,

Lying on the kitchen floor,

You see ruth lying what appears to be

Peacefully asleep in her bed.

No forced entry and nothing stolen from the house.

Sgt. Moore: It was the officer's belief that

John had fallen while messing with the gas cooker,

Struck his head, knocked himself unconscious,

And either died from that wound or gas asphyxiation.

And that ruth high had fallen asleep

And that she was overcome by the gas fumes

As they moved through the house.

It's an accidental death.

They wrap it up and that was it.

[mysterious melody playing]

This is grandma and grandpa

On their 50th wedding anniversary.

Kelly: Oh, wow, they got dressed up a lot.

Wendy: They got dressed up a lot, you can always tell.

Dewayne: My grandmother was a native houstonian.

She was a homemaker.

She loved bridge, she loved her friends,

Loved to get dressed up for different events.

My grandfather worked for a gulf oil corporation

For 49 years.

He was a geologist.

He enjoyed being outdoors, golfing, fishing.

Kelly: Oh, how cute.

With both of us.

-With y'all? -That's both of us, yes.

Wendy: And susie, the dog. [chuckling]

[mysterious melody building]

Wendy: We had christmas eve with our grandparents every year

And now we continue that as well

And that's what keeps them alive for us.

[sinister music playing]

On the 9th of October,

I was instructed to travel to the medical examiner's office

And meet with doctor perungal

Who had performed the autopsies.

The medical examiner immediately informed us

That john died

From six blunt trauma blows to his head.

[sinister music playing]

It created six lacerations,

Two to three inches in length.

This is not a natural or an accidental death.

John high had been murdered.

After it was determined that john was murdered,

We need further investigation,

Because there was no forced entry into the house

And there was nothing to indicate

That ruth was murdered.

There was a possibility that

Ruth high had killed her husband.

It could have been a murder-suicide...

And that she died because the gas building up in the house.

We need to return to the scene

To see if we can find any information,

Any evidence that would be helpful.

I think the key to investigating any murder-suicide

Is to be methodical, thorough,

And make sure you don't overlook any single detail.

Finding any forensic evidence becomes top priority.

After the medical examiner's report,

Going back to the scene, we noticed some things.

When someone is struck in the head,

You have cast off blood

And some of that was detected on some spots of the wall.

And we found an ax handle

Behind a curtain in ruth's bedroom.

We think there's a possibility it might be the murder weapon,

But we're not sure, so we collect it as evidence.

Sgt. Burmester: There's a gas jet cooker on the floor.

The gas cooker is designed to cook crawdads or shrimp.

I went to the refrigerator, and checking in the freezer

And I did not find any shrimp.

There was a candle

That had been lit, but it was out.

If it was designed to set the gas off,

Somebody didn't know

That natural gas doesn't behave that way.

It tends to rise,

So a candle would not have affected it.

This makes us think that somebody has planned this,

Someone left the gas on...

In hopes that the house would blow up

And in the process of blowing up,

It would destroy any evidence on the body

And then it's going to burn

Any other evidence up inside the house.

[ominous music fading]

Murder-suicide. It was just unbelievable.

My grandparents had a wonderful relationship.

Seeing them at their 50th wedding anniversary,

Knowing them from my childhood,

That just was not possible.

They loved each other way too much

For anything like that to happen.

Sgt. Burmester: We suspected a double homicide or a capital murder.

It was something that we would have to look into.

Something that was unusual was john and ruth's wills

Were lying on the table in the living room.

John and ruth high

Made the beneficiaries of their estate

Ken high and his brother, gary high.

Their estate was around $300,000 to $500,000,

So everybody in the family needs to be questioned.

[suspenseful music playing]

You just can't arrest somebody.

We need something.

It was a cold case.

Sgt. Moore: The male who refuses

To identify himself

Begins talking about a double murder

That happened in '87.

[suspenseful music fading]

[tense music playing]

Kelly: One day has passed

Since the deaths of ruth and john high.

The murder investigation that started out as an accident

And then turned into a murder-suicide

Based on what they saw and thought happened.

The investigators realized how important it was for them

To interview ruth and john's sons...

But the medical examiner called first.

Doctor perungal called the homicide office.

When he looked closer at ruth,

He noticed she had bruising on the inside of her lower lip

Consistent with her lower teeth.

[sinister music playing]

Then he sees petechiae...

Small blood vessels that break

When you're suffocated or strangled.

She was probably smothered with a pillow

Or some sort of object forcefully against her face,

Causing the lips to be bruised by the teeth.

Ruth high was murdered, just like her husband.

With that knowledge,

Then the investigators needed to go back to the scene,

Because there is no forced entry and the doors are locked

And nothing appears to be stolen and consider the idea that

This is going to be somebody committing this murder

Who's in the world of john and ruth high.

[suspenseful melody playing]

Usually when you're talking about a murder,

It's going to come down to one of three different main motives.

It's going to be either greed,

Or jealousy, or revenge.

But it sure feels like

Money is going to be the main factor here

Because they are worth some money.

The number one priority would be to start talking

To family members and very close friends

About all the dynamics going on with that family.

[mysterious melody playing]

Sgt. Moore: Ken high is very successful.

He's married, he has two kids.

He's close to his mother and father,

But doesn't get to see them real often.

He explains that he's not very close

With his brother, gary high.

He blames that on their age difference.

Ken is eight years older than gary.

Wendy: Uncle gary, my dad's brother,

Is the type of person that did not talk much.

Very reserved, very quiet.

Not very emotional.

You just couldn't break that shell to get to know him.

We learned from ken high

About a guy named duncan, chuck duncan.

♪♪♪

Chuck was the last person to speak to john and ruth high.

Chuck duncan is the business partner of gary high,

But he's also...

A...

Lover to gary.

Chuck was over at my grandparents' house

All the time, doing stuff for them,

Helping them go to the doctors and things like that.

He was always being invited to family events.

He was pretty much included with anything

That gary would have been invited to.

As the investigation proceeds,

We learn that gary high is in a business called high tech

With two other people.

Chuck and robbie duncan.

Sgt. Burmester: Ken felt that the company was not doing real well.

They were having financial problems.

Ken opens up and he thinks

Gary has been asking his dad for money.

We need more information.

On October 9th, gary, chuck, and robbie

Come into the homicide office and are interviewed.

Kelly: The three men had a very unusual relationship.

They were business partners, they were roommates,

They were friends, and they were lovers.

We learned robbie

Actually has changed his name from his birth name

To match the name of chuck duncan.

The three individuals function as a family unit,

All live together,

With chuck being the head of the family.

It's obvious during the interviews,

That he has firm control

Over robbie and gary high.

Chuck wanted to lead the conversations.

Like if you said, "what did you do yesterday?"

And if they'd go to answer, he said,

"oh, remember you went to--"

It's like it's a little bit of a cult leader, you know?

He's got such control over them.

[sinister music playing]

Chuck explains that he goes and sees

John and ruth high often.

He ran errands for them,

Even took john high to the doctor.

The subject of the cooker comes up

And chuck says that

John high wanted to fry some shrimp.

So chuck went out and purchased a cooker

And delivered it to the highs.

At the scene, we noticed wills laying out in the open

On a table inside the residence.

Chuck alleges that john high and ruth high

Wished to change their will

And leave their inheritance to gary.

When the subject came up, gary was surprised,

You could tell by the expression on his face

That he had never heard that before.

I think in chuck's mind,

If he could have john and ruth change their will,

Cut their oldest son out,

Then he would control whatever their inheritance was worth.

$500,000.

We started questioning gary, chuck,

And robbie about their business

To see whether they were having financial problems.

They said the company was doing well.

So when we asked them how much money was in the bank,

They guessed about $40,000.

Bank records indicate something else.

It was less than $10,000.

So then we tried to determine where they were

When the murders happened.

Gary and robbie were in seattle, washington,

Where they were trying to set up a new business.

Chuck was in houston.

He adamantly denied

That he had anything to do with a double homicide

And even suggested that a gardener,

Or a yard worker, or something like that

That may be responsible for this.

Chuck duncan is very smart

And manipulative and controlling

And he's quick on his feet

To come up with explanations and answers

To convince hpd of what happened.

As investigators, chuck raises a flag for us

For a couple of reasons.

One, he's the last person

That saw john and ruth high.

Two, he is in dire straits financially.

But you got to have evidence.

You just can't arrest somebody.

[suspenseful music playing]

When I first went to special crimes

And they started to bring me all their cold cases,

There were a couple that came through

Where I would read them and I would know who did it,

But I didn't think there was enough to charge it.

So I would keep the file

And I put them in this drawer in my office

And I named the drawer my "waiting on god" drawer.

Those are the cases where I thought,

One day something's going to come along from god,

From heaven, to make this case get solved.

For example, a divorce, somebody getting out of prison,

Somebody all of a sudden coming forward

With new information after so many years

Can make the case change.

You're waiting on god to make it happen.

Six years after the murder of ruth and john high,

The waiting on god drawer came into play

And god finally made something happen.

♪♪♪

[phone ringing]

In August of 1993,

Night shift officer working in the desk

In the homicide office

Receives a phone call from a male

Who refuses to identify himself

And begins talking about having knowledge

About a double murder that happened in '87.

He even names john and ruth high.

[ominous music playing]

He talks about his knowledge of it.

He wants to know what kind of trouble he could be in.

The officer tape records him.

[ominous music building]

When I'm listening to the tape recording,

I recognize his voice.

It's robbie.

Robbie duncan was the third member

Of the triangle relationship

Between him and chuck and gary.

At some point,

After the investigation kind of quieted down,

Robbie duncan left the relationship.

He talked a lot about how much control chuck duncan

Had over both him and gary

And how good it felt to get out

Of that controlling relationship.

Sgt. Belk: After robbie called the night shift desk,

Johnny moore came to me.

He had this cold case that was six years old,

The murder of john and ruth high.

So myself and johnny moore

Drove out to kingwood where robbie was living.

He greeted us, invited us in, was very cordial

And almost like a weight was off of his shoulders

Because he was cooperating with law enforcement

And doing the right thing.

He's willing to talk, but he has concerns.

He wanted immunity.

[tense music building]

And we decided to offer him limited immunity.

If he didn't commit the murder...

He would not be prosecuted.

Robbie was granted limited immunity,

Meaning that anything he would testify to under oath

Couldn't be used against him.

It made him feel safer,

Which helped further the prosecution of the case.

He said during their life together,

Chuck would bring up the subject of

If the highs would just die.

♪♪♪

According to robbie, chuck believed

That the highs were millionaires.

So, if gary came into the inheritance

From his parents,

Chuck would definitely benefit

Through his relationship with gary.

Robbie admits that chuck was talking about

Committing the murders to benefit them financially,

But he claims he didn't know when it was going to happen.

One day on October of 1987,

Robbie and gary decided to go to seattle

To see if it was good to move their company there.

Chuck duncan calls up to seattle.

[sinister music playing]

Chuck tells robbie,

"I did it. I did it. It's over.

John fought like hell.

And ruth went peacefully."

[sinister music intensifying]

Then robbie said "talk to gary," handed the phone to gary.

Gary has a blank, sharp stare,

Not speaking much.

There wasn't a sense of excitement

That they're finally dead

Or that there was trepidation

That they were going to get caught,

It was more of a realization

That the murders had been carried out.

During my 16 years in homicide,

I've come across a lot of killers.

Chuck duncan is evil to the core.

You know, they were friends with him,

He doted over them,

But he doted over them with a sick purpose,

To worm his way into their money.

I mean, he had to plan this.

This is just cold-blooded murder.

Knowing about a crime

After it's been committed,

Knowing who did it and knowing what happened,

But yet not reporting it to the police

Does not make robbie guilty of a crime in texas.

And so, choosing not to come forward to tell on chuck

Doesn't make him guilty of anything.

It makes a jury not like him.

It doesn't make him guilty.

[mysterious melody playing]

There was no physical evidence, no fingerprints

Or video recordings or anything of the crime,

And so, we formulated a plan

On how to get incriminating information

To build a stronger case against chuck.

Let's see if we can get robbie to make a phone call

To gary high and chuck duncan.

And hopefully get chuck duncan to make some sort of admission.

If you have someone, a civilian like robbie,

Acting on behalf of the police

That might not be allowed if you're calling somebody

Who's locked up in prison behind bars.

You gotta remember, duncan is in the free world.

The same rules don't apply.

That's why this is not entrapment.

There's always a danger

To tipping off the suspect in the case

When you have someone

Who is not an actor play this role.

[calling tone ringing]

Chuck answered the phone, they started talking

And I'm standing there writing notes to robbie on what to say.

Robbie: Is gary still living with you?

Chuck: He had a lot of trouble.

After the situation, gary went into a deep, deep tailspin.

And then robbie said, "there's a private investigator

Who's looking into this matter,

He's going to ask questions, what should I say?"

Robbie: I don't know if he's going to ask, you know.

Chuck: Don't.

You don't have to answer anything.

Robbie's trying to be really good about

How he handles him, but when he says,

"I wish you wouldn't have done that."

Chuck says "I didn't do nothing,

I'm not guilty of anything."

But somewhere a long way down in there,

He indicates that he did it for the family unit.

[tense music playing]

Chuck: We've gone through it, it's over with, it's behind us.

And even if-- even if, for instance,

There was something that I had done

And I confessed to it,

Do you think you and gary wouldn't be unscathed by it?

I mean, y'all be dragged-- be dragged right down with me.

[tense music playing]

The most incriminating thing that chuck said was,

"law enforcement has no evidence.

Just stick with the story.

You gotta be strong because if I go down and confess,

Then everybody goes down."

Robbie: Well, yeah, you know, that's why--

Chuck: I won't allow that to happen, I won't.

He was threatening

That they could all be implicated

And that was essentially making a tacit admission

That he was involved

In the murder of john and ruth high.

Kelly: I remember listening to those tapes,

Listening for that juicy slip-up that chuck duncan made.

There's not one.

There's more little subtle innuendos,

Things that you wouldn't say if you were completely innocent.

But the context of these tape-recorded conversations

Along with the financial incentive

With ruth and john's inheritance,

The fact that the company was really crumbling

And not doing financially well at all,

You have your motive.

The fact that chuck duncan

Was the last person to see them alive,

And that along with all the other circumstances

About how the house was left that day,

That's enough to move the case forward.

Sgt. Belk: We then secured an arrest warrant

For chuck duncan for capital murder.

[suspenseful music fading]

[tense music playing]

After getting our recordings

Of the telephone conversations

Between chuck, gary, and robbie,

We obtained an arrest warrant

For chuck duncan.

Sergeant belk and I flew to seattle

Where gary and chuck are now living.

We met with a fugitive task force.

I approached the front door

With a couple of police officers

And they banged on the door.

There was a long delay, they keep banging on the door

And then eventually looked up on the second floor

And a white male looked out the blinds at us.

Eventually, chuck came to the door

And he was told he was under arrest for murder.

There was not much reaction from chuck duncan

When we took him into custody.

Gary high and chuck duncan.

Our information was that they were living together,

So I was not surprised that he was there.

My goal was to try and talk to gary

While the tension was high

And see if I could get him to cooperate.

Gary asked, "am I under arrest?"

And I said, "no, you're not under arrest."

He said, "well, if I'm not under arrest

And you don't have a search warrant,

Then y'all need to leave the town home."

I mean, gary's parents were murdered

And he refused to cooperate,

Refused to talk to us, ordered us out of the house.

We have nothing whatsoever to indicate

That he helped plan it

And we know he didn't participate in it,

So...

He gets to walk.

[somber music playing]

[train screeching]

Kelly: When your dad realized that

His own brother could be involved,

Can you talk about how that affected your dad?

Never have seen him so sad in all my life.

-No. -Wow.

And I think he just felt so deceived and so,

You know, how could this happen?

Kelly: I think I'd be mad too.

Mad and sad and just want to scream at your brother.

-It was more about chuck. -Kelly: Really?

Really? What do you think he ended up thinking about it?

Chuck just had control over gary.

Kelly: Even before all this you could tell?

-Oh, absolutely. -Kelly: Really?

Wendy: Mm-hm.

Chuck was taken to a local law enforcement agency

And read him his legal warnings.

He acknowledged that he understood the warnings

And waived them and was willing to talk,

Which was no surprise because he was a talker.

I mean, he thought he could talk his way out of everything.

He thinks he's smarter than you are,

So he's trying to figure out what I might have

Or might not have on him

And so, he's really curious.

I told him that robbie fully cooperated with us

And also told him about the phone calls were recorded.

You could see his wheels are turning.

Now he's trying to think through the conversation.

Setting up this recorded conversation with chuck duncan

Is kind of like what we do on cold justice

Every case we work.

You try to get them to give you a statement,

A version of what happened

And then they're locked into it

Because they've said it.

Then if they change that version,

That can be pretty damning.

He knew he was in a lot of trouble

And so, in typical fashion,

Chuck concocted another story.

"I didn't do it, but I helped do it.

Ruth told me she wanted a mercy killing.

She wanted somebody to kill her and her husband

Because they were old, getting frail,

And she didn't want to suffer."

Chuck: And ruth was paranoid about that.

She says, "I need to be able to rely on you, chuck."

She says, "if I can--" she says "I would-- I would--

I would do anything in the world for you and gary and robbie,

But I got to have peace of mind if I can find a solution."

She says, "I don't want to wait until I'm in a wheelchair

Being given tranquilizers at a nursing home."

She says, "I can't face that."

And she said, "I would rather pick and choose

The time of my death."

And that's exactly what she said.

According to chuck,

Ruth asked him to find someone to kill her

And she would pay for it,

Kind of like an assisted suicide or whatever.

He called it a "mercy killing."

He says, "I wasn't there, so I really don't know what happened.

I hired two yard guys to go do it."

And one guy's name was oscar

And that he mowed the facility where their business was.

Chuck: I told the boys, not rob and gary,

But these hispanics,

That they were old

And they wanted to go out peacefully

And this is the sum of money

And the money would be there waiting in the house,

For them to pick it up

And that was how the arrangement was.

We had no other choice but to pursue names

Of all the yard men.

[sorrowful piano playing]

We interviewed them and we knew it was a bogus story,

But you still had to close that door.

Sgt. Moore: In his mind, the fact that he presents it

As a mercy killing,

He would only do a little bit of time

In the prison

If he was found guilty.

Chuck is putting himself directly responsible

For the deaths of john and ruth high

But not admitting that he physically killed them.

It didn't matter to us.

We didn't need the truth.

We just needed an admission and he made an admission.

Chuck duncan is charged with capital murder

In the deaths of john and ruth high.

Kelly: This case was actually filed two different ways.

One is it's a double murder,

Two people were killed,

And also it's a murder for remuneration.

When a murder is committed over money because of money,

You can also file capital murder charges that way.

I think that when you listen to every line of every word

That came out of chuck duncan's mouth,

Chuck duncan did not help himself

By talking that day to billy belk.

Billy, sergeant belk, he's a very good interrogator,

Very good interviewer.

He's a hostage negotiator.

Since I had dealt with duncan before,

I thought billy would be a good fit.

-And it worked. -And it worked.

As we get ready to go to trial,

I remember because I looked at the date.

I was five months pregnant then...

-You were. -...With my daughter

Who just became a prosecutor a month ago, isn't that funny?

-It's been a lifetime, johnny. -Yes, it has.

Kelly: But this was my first cold case

Where it had this twist to it.

And I think the big thing for me was

How much the whole case came down to robbie.

I knew that I had to figure out a way to let robbie

Get up on the stand and testify against chuck duncan,

But the main challenge of trying this case with robbie

Is that I didn't know

What our jury was going to think about him.

I didn't know what a jury of 12 people

Would think about a grown man being involved

In this odd relationship and knowing full well

That two wonderful people have been murdered

And never telling anybody

In law enforcement the whole truth for six years.

How are we going to make sure

That the jury understands he's credible?

Because if the jury hated him,

We were going to lose.

[eerie melody building]

One thing I had to deal with with the case

Once y'all passed it on to the da's office,

From the very beginning I was always

Very stressed about robbie.

When he came forward, thank god he did,

But it took six years.

Was the jury going to hate him?

You know, getting the jury ready to understand

Where he was coming from and he did the right thing,

Even if you think you would have handled it differently,

-Let's see if he's credible. -Right.

He was the foundation in crux of the whole case.

Sure, sure.

I was taught a long time ago

As a baby prosecutor, every case has a theme.

You take the weakness of your case

And you make it your theme.

So in this case,

The issue with the case was

What are we going to do about robbie?

You have to take that and make it your theme

And deal with it head on.

He comes kind of tainted, he comes kind of muddy

Because of the way he came around

To finally tell them what he knows.

[sinister music playing]

My opening statement,

I brought up that chuck duncan committed the murder,

But in August of 1993,

Robbie could no longer live with what he knew

And he called and came forward.

And maybe he took too long to get here

And maybe he didn't do it like you,

But we are only in this courtroom

Because that man came forward,

And the bottom line here was to make the jury believe him,

Even if they still didn't like him.

My plan was to have robbie testify last

So that by the time he hit the witness stand

Hpd, the investigators would have already explained

The rest of the physical evidence

And all the other incriminating factors against chuck duncan.

On the off chance that maybe a couple of jurors

Might not like robbie,

They still understood the lay of the land

And his part to play in all of this.

Kelly siegler is a rock star

And she was excellent in the courtroom before a jury.

Very persuasive, methodical in building her case,

But the biggest impact that my testimony had

Was kelly siegler playing the confession

I had with chuck duncan and in his own words,

Him explaining that he's ultimately responsible

For the deaths because he did a mercy killing.

I told the jury,

"if this was really a mercy killing,

Why would you need to hit john high

Six times in the head?"

So, the whole story was just stupid in the first place

And it even ended up being kind of laughable.

Like, if the jury's going to buy that,

Come on, no one's going to believe this story

Just to show yet again what a manipulative liar he is.

He was too big for his own britches,

As my mother used to say.

So, as much as I could present evidence-wise,

It was time to call robbie duncan to the stand.

Before the trial, he came down to my office

And we sat there for hours

Going over the questions for direct.

We practiced it.

He knew what he needed to do and say.

I tried to play defense lawyer

And throw cross-examination questions at him

And things that I thought that

Connie williams would pick on him about.

Connie williams was

Richard charles duncan's lead defense lawyer.

He was very well respected,

He was very well known,

And duncan was very lucky to get him to be his lawyer.

That was the single longest written out prep

For a witness of any case I ever had

Because usually you have,

You know, like, ten civilian witnesses with a little piece.

-Right. -But robbie was the motive.

Without robbie's information though, think about it,

You know, getting the jury ready to understand that

Chuck killed the highs for their money

Would be pretty much impossible.

Robbie was the relationship and dynamic.

Robbie's the one that shed light on chuck's control over them

Even after confessing to the murder.

He was the last witness.

He was almost a whole day.

He told the truth, told it like it was

And then connie williams cross-examined him

And I remember thinking, "past the witness.

Okay, here we go. How's this going to go?"

And connie started cross-examining robbie

Thinking as he went on, "he's doing okay."

You know, you just had to sit there, right?

Being cool. "he's doing okay."

And I thought, "oh, he did all right."

He always came across like

-He was telling me the truth. -Yeah.

Some of it was my prep,

But robbie was pretty good.

Every kind of way they could insult him,

Connie did a good job of trying to do.

"why did it take you this long?

Isn't it true that you're mad at them

And you're paying them back?

Isn't it true you helped?

Isn't it true you're involved?"

He might have gotten a little defensive,

But even when he got defensive, his answers made sense.

He owned that he should have come clean sooner.

He owned that he should have been

Less of a mouse around chuck duncan,

That he should have been more of a man

And done the right thing, he owned all that.

You just have to hope that at the end of the day

That came across as credible to the jury.

[tense piano playing]

On may the 25th, 1995,

After six days in trial,

I rested my case against chuck duncan.

The evidence was mostly circumstantial,

But it was a strong case.

And I remember telling the jury in final argument,

"you know now what kind of a man he is.

And so you go back there and you ask yourself,

Is this man who sits before you today

Guilty of capital murder?

Because if you don't believe he is,

Are you going to let him go home with you?"

I don't remember chuck looking very concerned.

I think he thought

"I'm going to keep getting away with things."

It was very hard to see him there

Knowing that...

He was the one that took my grandparents' life.

The jury went out

And I think it only took him about 20 minutes

And they came back with a guilty verdict,

Guilty of capital murder.

After that, chuck was sentenced to death.

After all this time, john and ruth got justice.

When the jury came back with the death penalty,

I felt happy, I felt vindicated.

I was glad for my dad

And I was thinking that my grandparents were in heaven

Shouting "hallelujah."

Whatever you think of him,

If it weren't for robbie,

Charles duncan wouldn't have been executed.

-You're right. -Because of him.

-Because of him. -The whole case.

The whole case.

And that's not an easy thing to have to

Let your whole case rest on one person.

-No, it's not. -That's what happened.

Charles duncan was executed

By lethal injection in 2003.

Chuck's last words was, "I'm innocent."

Wow. You'd think at the last minute,

The defendant, the killer will say

They're sorry and admit it, and they never do.

[suspenseful music playing]

I've asked a lot of families

After they go through an execution.

You know, I was-- the first time he got scheduled,

I was supposed to come with y'all

And it got reset because they always do

And then it finally happened in '03,

Eight years later.

There's no comparison of what happened to chuck

And what happened to my grandparents.

Kelly: Right.

Even though there's not full closure,

It is closing a chapter

And feeling like there's been justice

That's been done for sure.

I still run into way too many families

That never get justice.

They're still waiting to get justice.

So, what would you tell somebody?

Don't give up, have hope,

And be there for each other so that you can get through it.

After the trial,

Ken high never tried to fight gary high

In court over the will, over the estate.

They let him have his share, but they never spoke again.

And when he passed away, they didn't go to his funeral.

My very first cold case

That was a death penalty case was far from easy.

This case revolved around the issue of having

A not sympathetic witness

And so, addressing that head on

Were the keys to the prosecution of this case.

Not what a lot of people think

Are the problems with the death penalty case,

Especially today in the age of dna and forensic evidence,

But it boiled down to something that simple.

Justice for the high family did not come quickly.

It took a lot of years.

The "waiting on god" drawer came into play

And they finally did get justice.

[emotional music fading]