Original subtitles

♪

I have a female who's been shot.

Which way?

He went to the right.

Keep going.

♪

For those most affected by a homicide--

The first 48 is just the beginning.

She was, like, laying on the ground.

Freaking executed her, man.

That's like, I'm angry at you,

and I want you dead.

This is the story of the fight for justice--

- And the evidence will show that there is no possibility

that anyone else could have committed that murder

besides the defendant.

But we still have to prove him guilty of murder

beyond a reasonable doubt.

The case was actually gonna depend solely almost

on how well he testified.

And if they believed him,

that could drastically change the outcome of the case.

In the weeks, months, and years

after the first 48.

Off the highway from where a woman was shot--

Did we check this?

Patrols search for a man who fled the scene.

She's not going to be under that.

Hey, you see anybody run by in a red shirt or anything?

All right, thanks.

♪

- Hi, guys. - Hello.

- How are y'all? - We're doing all right.

I was offered detective

right after I returned to work after having my son.

I instantly fell in love with investigations.

I don't work them like a job.

I always work my cases like someone I loved was the victim.

So is the vehicle right there?

♪

We don't know who she is yet.

Yeah.

- Detective Carter and I, as soon as we got there,

we found a female face down deceased

in the dirt next to a crashed-out vehicle.

That right there is puzzling in itself,

because these are things that you don't normally see.

♪

Blood spatter.

She was, like, laying on the ground.

The woman was shot four times.

- Three shots in her back and then

one in the back of her head, and one

went through her throat.

- Oh gosh. - Yeah.

He wrecked out and freaking executed her, man.

Like, it's horrible.

That's like, I'm angry at you, and I want you dead.

And it's just really, really brutal way to die, to be

shot in the back like that.

There's a shell casing.

♪

It look like 9-mil, didn't it?

9, yeah.

- It appeared where the shell casings were laying,

three were outside and one was inside the vehicle in a seat,

that the suspect had exited the driver's side of the car,

ran around the back of the vehicle, and shot the victim.

It shows that she was trying to get away,

and whoever she was with didn't want her to get away.

♪

She looks young.

Sad.

I'm just curious what happened.

It could have been a domestic.

It could have been a kidnapping situation.

It could have been a hostage thing.

I mean, I really didn't know.

♪

Her purse is there, and it's open.

♪

For Quality Inn?

Oh, yeah, 118.

They find a room key for a hotel

less than a mile away.

Let's see if there's a Flock camera

near the hotel.

♪

The way it was sitting up, it was like somebody

went through her.

It's important to identify the victim

as quickly as possible, because that usually will lead us

to our suspect, because we can figure out

where they're coming from, who they may have been with.

Yeah.

We can do a fingerprint scanner.

So if she's ever been arrested for something

before, her fingerprints will identify her.

♪

♪

It's saying error.

- Mm-mm.

The team is unable to ID the victim.

We're going to figure out who she is.

I just would prefer to find out sooner than later.

See who the car is registered to.

Carter runs the BMW's license plate.

♪

Edward Smith.

The witnesses are saying it was a Black, light-skinned male.

♪

He matches the description.

He has criminal history.

Burglary, theft by receiving.

I mean, just because he's the registered owner

doesn't automatically confirm that he is the shooter.

Who is to say his car didn't get stolen?

It was extremely important

for us to talk to him.

We need to know why Mr. Smith's car

ended up there with a young lady deceased outside the door.

♪

Carter reviews the footage

from outside the hotel.

♪

They've been at the Quality Inn three times.

The BMW can be seen entering and leaving

the hotel parking lot multiple times in the last eight hours.

There was a bunch of people that saw him

running through there,

and that's straight to the Quality Inn.

It was important to get people over to the hotel

to identify who was staying in that room.

- And if we could make contact with them,

they could possibly identify the victim.

Calling Sergeant Hagwood.

Hey, can you see who's registered

to Quality Inn room 118?

All right. Thank you.

♪

Jorstad got there.

He talked to the clerk, said that room 118 wasn't rented

because of a roof cave in.

But he did learn that Edward Smith had rented another room

in that same hotel.

♪

Learning Edward Smith did check into the hotel

was exciting.

We thought it was possible that Edward Smith was inside

the room, that he ran back to the hotel

after the crash and the murder.

As soon as I learned that Edward Smith was

actually registered to a room at that hotel,

that pushed me closer he's probably

going to be my suspect, but you have to follow the evidence.

Thank you.

First thing that we need to do

is try to find him and talk to him.

So we attempted to make contact with Mr. Smith.

♪

If Mr. Smith is in room 113,

we need to get him out safely so we can talk to him.

♪

- All right. Bye.

Hagwood has eyes on the room, and he says

there's potential movement in the room.

I'm typing a search warrant right now for the hotel room.

♪

30 minutes later--

- The situation is very dangerous,

because we don't know if Mr. Smith

is barricaded in the room.

There could possibly be a firearm in the room.

You guys ready?

It was a little disappointing not to find

Smith in the hotel room.

Still a lot of unanswered questions on

why this took place.

We still had not identified the victim.

Five hours into the investigation--

I'm going to the hotel.

Hopefully we can find something with her name on it

in the room.

♪

Hey, guys.

Suspect's room.

Nothing identifying in the room.

It was a little discouraging, but there

was property in there.

We could tell that a male and female were

staying in there, because there was male bags

and then a female bag.

So now we're going to go meet Jorstad on the front,

see what kind of video footage you got.

♪

Inside the hotel manager's office--

This is the time he checked in, like 12:30.

And this is the ID he gave.

- And we needed to get any video footage that

could possibly put Mr. Smith and the victim

together in that car.

♪

Is this our suspect?

Yep, that's him.

♪

Wearing a orange shirt.

Edward Smith.

The hotel had very clear footage of when he checked in.

He gave his driver's license,

all his information to the hotel.

♪

That's her. OK.

And also our victim get out of the passenger seat.

And she was even wearing the same clothing that she

was found deceased in.

- I continued to review the footage.

And right before the homicide, Edward Smith

did leave with the victim.

So the video footage, I think, sealed the deal on this.

♪

So when we get back to headquarters,

I'm going to be taking arrest warrants for Edward Smith.

9 1/2 hours into the investigation--

- So we're going to try to go through her stuff some more.

This is her bag.

It's frustrating.

I still didn't know the victim's name at that point.

I wanted to speak to her family,

because they deserve to know.

Phone numbers.

I don't know what's what.

- See, I knew there'd be more in here.

Hagwood located a printed out driver's license in her purse.

It's going to be Breana Marie Rogers.

And that does look like her, too.

33-year-old Breana Marie Rogers grew

up in Indianapolis, Indiana.

She was a daughter, a sister, and the mother

of her young son.

Breana loved dancing, listening to music,

and playing softball.

♪

- Breana Marie Rogers.

♪

Once we were able to finally identify Breana, it was relief.

We're going to contact the local agency

out there and see if they can make contact with the family.

Marion County Police, how can I help you?

- Hey, this is Detective Carter

with Gwinnett County Police Homicide unit out of Georgia.

We had a homicide out here a couple hours ago.

Their next of kin, they live in Indiana,

but we're trying to get the correct agency to see

if they can make contact with them

to do a notification for us.

Giving death notification to parents

to tell them that their child is never coming home,

it's just something that's very personal

and very sensitive that usually

I would like to handle myself.

Yeah, that's on--

Sheriff deputies from Marion County, Indiana,

will visit Breana's parents to make the death notification.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. Bye.

♪

This is my tattoo I got for Bre.

She loves sunflowers.

Sunflowers represent happiness.

I wouldn't say she was a hippie,

but she would have been one.

She was definitely

a free spirited soul.

She just kind of did her own little thing.

She was fun to be around.

She would write.

She would write stories all the time,

even into adulthood.

♪

That knock on my front door was a nightmare.

♪

It's one I will never, ever forget in my life.

They asked us if we have daughter, Breana.

♪

No parent should lose their child,

especially in such a horrible, horrible way.

And I don't understand it.

I just don't.

I mean, what did she do that was so bad that you

had to shoot her in the back?

♪

11 hours into the investigation--

Before they go home and get some sleep,

I'm going to release a BOLO to our agency

and surrounding agencies letting them

know that Smith has active warrants for his arrest

for felony murder.

I'm also going to release his name and picture to the media,

so hopefully they put some pressure on him.

I just need to get him into custody.

Anytime that you have a

homicide suspect on the run, there is an urgency

to find that individual.

- Edward Smith was definitely a danger to society.

Who knows what else he's capable of

or what he's going to do to stay hidden?

♪

♪

A woman was found dead at a construction site.

Gwinnett County Police have finally told us

the name of the suspect they're looking for.

His name is Edward Smith.

He is being charged with aggravated assault

as well as felony murder.

If you have any information,

you're asked to call Crime Stoppers.

24 hours in, police hit

the streets in search of their suspect, Edward Smith.

And I'm usually starting to think what I would do.

Where would I be hiding?

Where would I go?

Worst-case scenario is, we don't get

Edward into custody quickly, and he harms somebody else.

♪

It's very frustrating not knowing where

the suspect is in your investigation,

especially knowing that he ran on foot

and he was likely somewhere in the area.

We just couldn't find him.

♪

Two days after Breana Rogers was shot dead--

Edward turned himself in.

♪

We are going to the jail to attempt to interview him

and see what he says.

We want to know the story.

The family wants to know the story.

The victim deserves for her story to be told

what actually happened to her.

You have to think about the trial.

Jurors want to know the story, so we want to talk to him.

Hey.

How are you?

So I'm Detective Carter.

Thank you for turning yourself in.

I appreciate that.

That actually says quite a bit.

The appeal that she was trying

to make is that whenever we talk to a suspect,

we want to gain their trust and say

we are not here to jam you up.

We are here as fact finders, and we want to learn the truth.

- I've been doing this a little while,

so I know that there's two sides to every story.

With that being said, I wanted to give you an opportunity

to tell me your side.

Do you want to talk?

♪

OK. I respect that.

♪

If you change your mind and want to talk, let me know, OK?

♪

I don't know what may have led up

to Smith shooting the victim in the back four times.

I can't even imagine what it may be,

because that was pretty intense,

and she did not deserve to die like that.

I would have liked Smith to clarify the relationship

between him and the victim, see how they knew each other

and then see what they were doing at the hotel,

just to get a full picture of what occurred.

♪

In this job, it would eat you up

if you were too intimately connected with every victim.

But some cases bother you.

This one in particular stuck with me for a while.

It was incredibly difficult to know

what happened but not why.

♪

To learn more about Edward and Breana's relationship,

we did reach out to her mother, but Breana made no mention

of being in a relationship or mentioning Edward Smith

by name.

She explained her struggles with drug addiction.

It's something that she had dealt with on and off

throughout her life.

Deanna let us know that Breana,

in the course of her struggles with addiction,

she had been lured into sex trafficking.

It helped to explain how this man came

into the orbit of Breana Rogers and how

they came to be together in the events leading up to her death.

So our focus was, he's going to come up

with a reason as to why.

What could he use as a defense?

Detective Carter listened to his jail calls

while he was in custody, and that gave us

a bit of insight as to his side of the story.

Just because they don't talk in an interview

doesn't mean you're not going to get

some kind of statement from them.

It's like mining for gold listening

to those phone calls.

It's a pain in the rear end.

But when you find that nugget, it's worth every minute.

♪

So this was the first call that Detective Carter

pulled after the initial arrest.

- So at that point, we realized there's a possibility

that there was some type of struggle or attempted robbery,

and he did indeed shoot her, and he ran.

♪

There's another phone call where Edward Smith alleges

that there was another guy there

and that no one else saw him, but Edward did.

Basically, pointing the finger at this unknown individual

and that it was not him.

And now he's just flat out denying any involvement.

And so this is the third jail call.

So he turns around and says, well,

yeah, they did see me there.

In every jail call, his story changed.

And I knew at that point that we would have

to make the case as strong as possible,

because Edward Smith would be prepared

to say anything that would absolve him of his crime.

♪

♪

- Based upon the jail calls, we believe

that Edward Smith's defense would be that he wasn't there,

that it wasn't him.

We went into trial thinking, OK,

he's going to defend that there's another person there.

We could refute that.

We had eyewitnesses, two of them.

We had a video at the hotel of him getting into the car

minutes before the murder.

We were ready for a lot.

♪

All rise and come to order.

- You may be seated. Thank you.

You can bring Mr. Smith out.

- When you start a trial,

you may learn all kinds of things

in opening statements.

I had to do my best to prepare the Rogers

that we may hear things that you and I know are not true.

- We'll start openings with the State.

- Thank you. Good morning. Good morning.

In my opening statement, I try to frame the case for the jury.

There will be eyewitnesses who saw this shooting.

There will be video surveillance cameras

who saw the victim--

And the evidence will show that there is no possibility

that anyone else could have committed

that murder besides the defendant,

Edward Rodley Smith.

♪

However, the defense's opening statement

cut mine down pretty much immediately.

- He started with my client did it.

Edward Smith committed the crime.

However, there's going to be argument of self-defense.

- I did not expect that he would assert that at trial,

that she pulled a gun out on him and pointed it at him

and tried to rob him.

And we did not have enough evidence

to combat those issues.

- He went to self-defense.

Now, there's some logic to that.

We could disprove the third person.

We could only circumstantially disprove

that it wasn't self-defense.

But you don't have the ability to say, time-out, Judge.

We need to refigure and replan.

You don't have that. You're on trial.

♪

The defense opening was not what we expected,

but we still have to prove Edward Smith's guilty of murder

beyond a reasonable doubt.

And to do that, we've got to prove

that it wasn't self-defense.

The prosecution calls their first eyewitness,

a driver who was stopped at a red light

next to Edward Smith's car.

- Why did you call 911 that day?

- I wanted the jury to understand that Breana tried

to escape from the car on two occasions,

and that set the baseline that she's not attacking him.

She's not the aggressor.

♪

The 911 call and her testimony,

we looked at it for a timeline.

But once opening statement happened,

it became important for yet another reason.

And that reason was, this witness saw Breana

trying to get out of the car.

Edward Smith is claiming she's the aggressor.

On cross-examination--

Defense counsel, he was trying to set

the scene for Breana possibly

being the aggressor and by Breana possibly attempting

to rob the defendant.

- She wasn't close enough to see faces

or to hear every word that was spoken between them.

So the defense attorney tried to expose that.

Ok, Thank you.

- She really saw and heard very little.

And it's witness by witness.

Everything is in the moment, pretty much.

But as Patton once said, the best laid plan

goes to crap at first contact.

You've got to have a plan B, a plan C, a plan D.

♪

♪

Day two of the trial.

- Your Honor, the State calls Dr. Carol Terry.

The prosecution calls

the chief medical examiner.

- It was important to tell the jury how Breana died,

because Breana was executed.

And the only person that could really

prove that by physical evidence was the medical examiner.

- She was shot four times.

The one thing that the wounds had in common were,

all of them were back to front.

However, the gunshot wound to her head

had a bit of a downward trajectory

that was indicative of she was down and on the ground.

So essentially, she's not fighting.

She's trying to flee.

The defense cross-examines

the medical examiner.

- OK, it--

this is evidence that I look for around gunshot wounds

to help establish a rough range of fire.

- The defense was trying to find a nugget of gold.

If they found anything that could possibly support

or be consistent with their story, they could see,

aha, the medical examiner says Mr. Smith could be right.

- When a firearm is discharged,

there are things that come out of the barrel of the gun

other than just the bullet.

Depending upon the mass or the weight of these items

dictates how far they're going to travel.

- The range of the shots would be relevant for the defense,

because they could make the argument that the shots were

fired from far away because maybe the victim was getting up

or approaching him or advancing on him

or the shots were fired while the victim was still standing

and that created a threat for him.

- Correct.

Yes, that's true.

- Correct.

The defense attorney was trying to create

that doubt by having the medical examiner

say, yes, that's possible.

And that's really all the jurors

need to hear to call into question

whether the cause and manner of death are truly correct.

- In my report, under my opinion,

I indicated that Miss Rogers died

as a result of multiple gunshot wounds

of the head and the back

and that it was of an indeterminate range of fire.

But in trying to determine whether or not

a case is self-defense, I can only

entertain hypothetical questions

and say whether it's consistent or inconsistent

with the evidence.

So I cannot say definitively whether this is

a case of self-defense or not.

♪

As the prosecution rests,

the defense calls their only witness to the stand,

Edward Smith.

- The case was actually going to depend solely

almost on how well he testified

and how well we could refute

his testimony with the evidence.

- Edward Smith was the only person who could definitively

explain to the jury what happened that day,

and if they believed him, that could drastically change

the outcome of the case.

- Shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but

the truth, so help you God.

- I do.

- Well, Mr. Smith, when he was called,

it was the first time that the State

was going to hear his story.

- How did you meet her at that time?

Under what circumstances?

Edward Smith describes meeting

Breana Rogers for the first time

the day before she was murdered at a different hotel.

- She was just walking by, and really,

I was having a conversation outside of the room

that she overheard. Let me say that.

- OK, and how did you meet her based on that?

- Well, the conversation that I was having,

I needed money for another night in the room,

and she came out and gave me five 20s.

Edward explained

that Breana had helped him pay for a hotel room

and that they went to another Quality Inn hotel,

and that is the hotel they were staying

the night of the murder.

Did you guys have sex in that room that day?

- Yes.

But there's more to Edward Smith's story.

- We was having a conversation about the whole reason

why we came over here, really.

Or not the reason why we came over,

but what did she say that she was going

to do when we came over here? That was the problem.

Which was what?

- She said that she was going to do what she do.

OK, I don't want to just jump around.

What did she say she was going to do, sir?

- Sell her body.

He planned to use Breana's struggle,

I believe, as a justification for why he murdered her.

Is this going to be an effort to throw my victim,

who's not even here to defend herself,

throw her under the bus and make her the bad guy?

So she attempts while you're at this intersection

to get out of the car. - Yes.

Edward Smith says he drove Breana

to a fast-food restaurant,

where she tried to get out of his car.

Why don't you let her out of the car?

- Because she has my wallet and my keys in her hand.

- He was trying to mitigate

his actions by stating that she was trying to steal from him.

- After I made the left turn, when I looked back up,

I have a gun in my face.

OK, she has a gun on you?

- Yes. - OK.

- He had one gun, and she grabbed it,

and they fought over it. That was new to us.

What kind of gun does she have on you?

- A Glock. - OK.

How do you know it was a Glock? - Because it was mine.

OK.

Where was your Glock at in the car?

- In my bag.

- Self-defense is an all or nothing.

If I was in self-defense, I'm innocent.

I didn't commit a murder.

- And if the defense can create doubt in the jurors' minds,

that could result in the defendant having an acquittal.

♪

♪

So why did you make a U-turn instead of pulling over

if she has a gun out on you?

I was making the U-turn going this way.

And as I did that, she pulls the wallet out of my hand.

And when she did that, my hand jerked that way to the right,

and that's when we ran up on the curb.

The defendant was lying.

There was no other gun, no other gun found.

- And what happened after that?

- I got out, ran around to the other side,

and I shot at the first thing that I seen.

- OK.

- I didn't know if she was on her knees.

I know that--

I figured that she might have been Columbo or something.

Like, she was up on the car trying to shoot me

from up under the car. I don't know.

I just shot at the first thing that I seen.

- There's absolutely no evidence to support

a self-defense claim.

But because the burden is on the State,

I have to address these claims,

because ultimately it's not up to me.

It's up to the jurors to make the decision.

And so now I have to get the jury back on my side

and understand the narrative that the State

is trying to assert.

Good afternoon, Mr. Smith.

- How you doing?

- My strategy was to address all of the inconsistencies

to make that clear to the jury that this individual

is not credible.

You testified that she told you to pull over.

Is that right? - Yes.

Was she trying to rob you

or was she trying to get out of your car?

- She was trying to get out over here.

She was trying to rob me, which is what she said.

- OK, so she tried to get out of your car

at the stoplight before you made a left.

- Yes.

- And she pointed the firearm at you

and asked you to pull over? - Yes.

- But you continued to drive?

♪

That's a yes or no question. - Yes.

He just kept driving.

And Diamond kept just pulling it out

over and over that it didn't make sense.

His testimony was preposterous,

and she made it even more so with her cross-examination.

It was classic.

Did she have your wallet

in her hand at that time?

- Yes.

OK, so she was holding your wallet

and you swerved off the road?

- No.

Please explain.

- I swerved off the road as, how do you say,

an effect of her snatching the wallet from me.

That's how we crashed.

OK, so when she was pointing the gun at you,

that didn't have an effect on you?

- She got two hands.

So she was pointing the gun at you

and holding your wallet.

Is that right? - Yes.

Next, the prosecution

brings up Edward Smith's jail calls.

- In none of those jail calls did you ever mention

that Breana pointed a gun at you, did you?

No.

The first time you're mentioning that

is today. Is that correct?

- Yes.

- She made him admit things that he didn't want to.

You also, in one of your jail calls,

said that, "Just because they see me right there

don't mean I did."

Do you recall making that statement?

- Yes.

And considering your testimony today,

in your words, you did do.

Is that right? - Yes.

You did shoot Breana Rogers.

I did.

- Before we're done, we have to show he's a liar.

So we actually really loved that testimony.

Instead of shooting and killing

Breana Rogers, you could have ran,

just like you did after you shot her.

- I did run.

You did after you shot her, right?

- I did.

Thank you.

No further questions from the State.

♪

Day three of the trial.

After closing arguments, Edward Smith's fate

is in the hands of the jury.

We believed we had proved guilty from the start,

but that's always up to 12 people to agree with us

or disagree with us.

That is the hardest time,

waiting for the jury's verdict.

And I have to be very careful not to promise the Rogers'

what 12 strangers in a jury box are going to do,

because I can't.

♪

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

my understanding is that you have reached a verdict.

Yes, Your Honor.

- All right. Mr. Smith, please rise.

♪

"We, the jury, find the defendant

guilty of felony murder."

♪

- Almost every juror came back into the courtroom to sit in

and hear the sentence in the case, and several of them

waited to speak with Deanna and Rick on their way out.

The jury's verdict showed that they were not

going to be dissuaded or confused

by any of the struggles that Breana had in her life.

As I investigated this case

and I dove into who Breana was and what she liked to do,

I was very impressed.

She often wrote journals about her life and her experiences.

She would write about her son, about her parents.

She wrote about her struggles with drug addiction.

She had lists of what she wanted to accomplish.

♪

There was a portion of the journal

kind of has a list of items, things that had some meaning

to her in her life.

Number four, she says, "To ask God to reveal what he feels

"I am ready to handle and ask him

"to help me sit through my pain

in order to feel and heal."

♪

Breana had her struggles,

but she had tools and ideas for how to navigate them,

that she had plans for the future.

♪

You got the books.

I feel like she had a lot of hope.

And Breana's parents also have created book boxes

to provide books to children in Indiana,

just as Breana always wanted to do.

♪

When all of this took place,

we had decided as a family that we were

going to work on Bre's book box.

OK, we're coming up on it.

She would be so excited.

Oh, we've got some new decorations.

- Oh, how cool.

Oh, you know what?

All the original kid books are gone too.

Yay.

For Bre, that's what it was about.

It was just-- it didn't matter.

An act of kindness, did not matter how big or small.

She meant the world to us.

So this is very rewarding for us

as a family to know that this was a dream of hers.

And we're going to make it happen.

♪