Original subtitles

‐ FEMALE NARRATOR: A mother and son search for a new start.

‐ She loved being a mom. That was the light of her life.

‐ NARRATOR: But a violent intrusion

brings unspeakable heartbreak.

‐ The amount of blood. This was a horrible crime scene.

‐ You don't take a shotgun to somebody's face

that's a stranger. It's too personal.

‐ NARRATOR: As the investigation into a savage crime unfolds,

dark secrets are exposed.

‐ Could this possibly be someone

who had some kind of retaliation against her work?

‐ NARRATOR: And buried beneath it all is a twisted tale

of obsession and revenge.

‐ He's telling her that if she doesn't do

exactly what he wants, he's going to go to the police.

‐ It shocked me that they had that much rage.

They wanted to make it personal.

‐ This is on a complete other realm of evil.

It was two evil souls meeting each other.

‐ [gunshot]

‐ ♪

‐ [muffled scream]

[gasps]

‐ ♪♪♪

‐ NARRATOR: Broken Arrow, Oklahoma is the kind

of close‐knit community where people take pride in their home

and their neighbors.

‐ Broken Arrow, Oklahoma is Tulsa's largest suburb.

It's generally viewed around Tulsa as being...

safe, quiet, a lot of families.

A lot of people here know each other pretty well.

Everybody kind of keeps an eye on each other.

‐ NARRATOR: But the town's friendly charm is disturbed

on November 7th, 2016.

At around 4:30 in the afternoon, 911 dispatchers receive a call

from a concerned resident.

‐ WILLIAM: He goes into the bedroom,

and then finds his mom there, dead.

Immediately he went out of the house

and to a neighbor to call 911.

‐ ♪

‐ NARRATOR: Born in 1977, Debra Morgan first came

to Broken Arrow as a child in the nation's foster care system.

She was formally adopted by Carl and Cheryl Grace in 1988.

‐ CARL: We adopted Debbie when she was 11 years old.

She was originally from Buren, Washington, and, uh,

she came to Oklahoma about a year before we adopted her.

‐ CHERYL: She got interested in music

and started playing the flute. She started to thrive.

She played that through middle school.

‐ Band in our community is a pretty big deal.

I played clarinet.

So we spent quite a lot of time together.

She was just Debbie Grace, the redheaded flute player

and, you know, just fun to be around.

‐ NARRATOR: But Debra's thoughts rarely strayed

from her foster care roots.

After graduating from high school in 1995,

she enrolled in Northeastern State University

with her eye on a criminal justice degree.

‐ CHERYL: When she went off to college,

she wanted to help children.

I think growing up in the system,

being a foster child herself,

she could relate to these children

kind of on a one‐on‐one basis,

and knew what they were going through.

‐ NARRATOR: One year into her studies,

Debra's plans were put on hold

when she and her college boyfriend

found out they were expecting a child.

‐ CARL: She was very excited.

She always wanted children of her own.

They got married, uh, her second year of college.

‐ NARRATOR: But the young marriage was not built to last.

And two years after the birth of their son,

Debra and her husband decided to part ways.

‐ CARL: After Debra's divorce, she got custody of their child,

and her ex‐husband moved to Texas.

And that's when she went back to school.

‐ NARRATOR: Debra's life was back on track.

But it wasn't long before

she yearned for someone to share it with.

In 2001, she turned to a dating site for help.

That's where she met a local computer engineer

named Richard Spaulding.

‐ After her divorce, I think she was vulnerable,

and started a relationship with him.

‐ CARL: She said that he was very charming,

and that he was what she needed at that time.

Rick was a musician, and she loved her music,

so that‐‐she was attracted to that.

‐ NARRATOR: Debra's chemistry with Rick was undeniable.

And it wasn't long before their casual romance grew

into something more serious.

One year into their relationship,

Debra graduated from college

with her criminal justice degree.

‐ CARL: When she graduated,

she applied with the Department of Human Services,

which was her dream job. She loved what she did.

‐ NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Debra's own family continued to grow.

In December 2003, she and Rick welcomed a beautiful baby boy.

‐ She loved being a mom. She had two boys now.

So, that was kind of the light of her life.

‐ NARRATOR: But Debra's life wasn't immune from challenges.

Three years after the birth of her second son,

her family became aware of a noticeable change in Debra's

typically bright and happy personality.

The once talkative and outgoing 29‐year‐old

had suddenly grown more withdrawn and secretive.

‐ CARL: It was a period of time

where we didn't hear from Debbie at all.

No text, no calls.

We'd call her and it'd go to voicemail.

And we‐‐we didn't really know what was going on.

‐ NARRATOR: Finally, in 2006, her family discovered the reason

for the sudden shift in Debra's demeanor.

‐ CARL: She just called us one night and said that, uh,

she'd like to bring the boys down to see us.

And she did, and then, uh,

she explained that she and Rick had separated.

‐ NARRATOR: At the time, Debra had been tight‐lipped about

her reason for the breakup,

other than explaining that after five years,

she and Rick had reached a point

of irreconcilable differences.

While she and Rick continued

working out a custody arrangement for their son,

Debra decided it would be best

if her oldest child went to live with his father.

‐ She called her ex‐husband and asked him to drive in from Texas

to pick up the oldest son,

just to get him away from the situation.

‐ NARRATOR: In the meantime, Debra focused all her energy

on providing a stable environment

for her youngest son, Aiden.

She eventually settled into a comfortable home

in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow.

‐ ANNE: Everything she did, she did for her son, 150%.

So that was the main goal in her life,

was to keep her son safe and raise him right.

‐ ♪

‐ NARRATOR: But now, 39‐year‐old Debra Morgan has been found dead

inside her home.

And Broken Arrow police

are trying to find out what happened.

‐ Debra was alone until her son found her.

And initially, the speculation

was that she had committed suicide.

‐ WILLIAM: That was one option that we were looking at.

However, we were not able

to find a gun anywhere near the body.

That told us that this was a homicide.

This was a horrible crime scene. Debra was laying on her bed

and obviously had the significant wound to her head,

indicating that this was possibly a shotgun blast

that had, uh, caused this wound.

There was nothing to indicate there was any signs of struggle.

It appeared that she had been laying in her bed asleep,

someone walked up to her

and put a shotgun to her face and pulled the trigger.

‐ KENNETH: There's no signs of forced entry, no broken locks,

no broken windows.

Nothing was missing from the house.

So that starts to rule out a robbery.

‐ NARRATOR: The excessive force used by the shooter

also suggests the crime was likely personal in nature.

‐ You don't take a shotgun to somebody's face

that's a stranger. It's too personal.

‐ WILLIAM: "Who could've done it?"

I don't know, but it's my job to determine who did this

and the reason they did this.

‐ NARRATOR: Coming up: police track down their first clue.

‐ NARRATOR: And a new discovery from Debra's past

points to a potential suspect.

‐ WILLIAM: He was visibly upset.

We asked him what happened with Debra.

‐ ♪

‐ ♪

‐ NARRATOR: Police in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma

are investigating the murder

of 39‐year‐old single mother Debra Morgan...

after her 12‐year‐old son, Aiden, returned home from school

and found her shot to death in her bed.

‐ WILLIAM: From what we can tell with‐‐this person probably was

clothed head to toe to avoid, you know, leaving DNA.

We dusted the entire house trying to find fingerprints,

but, uh, we were unsuccessful.

‐ NARRATOR: Police next canvass Debra's neighborhood,

in search of anyone

who may have seen or heard anything suspicious.

‐ WILLIAM: We did make contact with a neighbor whose‐‐

their house backed up to Debra's.

‐ KENNETH: She heard a loud pop or bang,

which we believe to be the‐‐the gunshot blast

coming from the direction of Debra's house.

‐ WILLIAM: She was in her bedroom sleeping at 3:00,

3:30 in the morning. She heard what sounded like

someone walking through the backyard.

Based on this information, it would indicate that someone

had gone into Debra's house, shot her with that shotgun

between 3:00 and 3:30, and walked through that yard

to make their getaway.

‐ NARRATOR: Unfortunately, no one got a look

at the individual.

And without any other leads to follow,

homicide detectives turn

to the 911 call with Debra's son, Aiden,

to see if there's any additional information

to glean from it.

‐ NARRATOR: In the call, Aiden mentions that he had spent

the weekend with his dad, Rick Spaulding...

but that Monday, as usual,

he took the bus to his mom's house after school.

‐ WILLIAM: When he got into the house,

it was sometime around 4:15 to 4:30, in that time range.

He didn't have his key because he had lost it

at his dad's house, uh, some time prior.

He used the keypad on the garage to open the garage door.

As he made his way to the house, he noticed that the door

that led from the garage into the house was ajar.

‐ NARRATOR: To learn more about Debra's relationships,

police reach out to her next of kin,

who are devastated to learn of her passing.

‐ They just said that‐‐that she had been found dead and that,

uh...uh, they didn't know‐‐ at this point,

they‐‐they were keeping the investigation

pretty much under wraps.

‐ We were in shock. Uh, we were in disbelief.

‐ NARRATOR: When detectives press them for information about

Debra's love life, they confirm that she had in fact been dating

a man named Tony in the months leading up to her murder.

‐ He had been friends with Debra for a short time.

And they've kind of had

an on‐again and off‐again, um, relationship.

We did make contact with him.

We asked him if he knew anything about what happened with Debra.

Once we had informed him that Debra had been killed,

he was visibly upset, and, uh, it seemed to us

that he had no idea what had taken place.

He explained to us that he had just tried to call her, uh,

a few minutes before we had, uh, made contact with him,

indicating that he wasn't aware that she had been killed.

‐ NARRATOR: Tony provides an alibi

for the night of the shooting that police are able to verify.

Once he's cleared of any connection to Debra's murder,

detectives ask if he had witnessed any recent conflicts

in Debra's life.

That's when one particular incident comes to mind.

‐ SAMANTHA: Debra actually had a roommate

with whom she had a disagreement.

And the roommate had moved out pretty recently before she died.

‐ WILLIAM: The argument ultimately ended up

with the roommate moving out.

This was something that we needed to look at.

‐ NARRATOR: Later that day, detectives meet with Debra's

former roommate at her new residence across town.

‐ WILLIAM: From talking to her, the falling out

was simply a verbal argument

over keeping the house clean, and paying bills,

and typical things that roommates argue about.

‐ NARRATOR: When an alibi for the roommate checks out,

detectives are able to cross her off the potential suspect list.

‐ She had an alibi, and, uh, obviously from talking to her,

we could tell that she did not do this

from the answers that she gave us.

‐ SAMANTHA: Broken Arrow Police Department didn't have a lot

of leads or information to go off of.

Debra was not known as a person who got in trouble,

either legally or otherwise.

‐ WILLIAM: Debra worked for Child Protective Services.

One thought was could this possibly be someone who had

some kind of retaliation against Debra for, uh,

something she may have been involved in with her work.

‐ NARRATOR: To follow up on the theory,

detectives head for Debra's Tulsa office

to meet with her coworkers...

who confirm that Debra's work

could occasionally put her in intense situations.

‐ KERI: Debra was a Child Welfare Specialist IV,

which is a supervisor.

They supervise field staff who work cases

with families and children who are in DHS custody.

‐ CARL: Debbie would interview parents and children,

and sometimes she was actually forced to remove children

from their parents for a period of time.

‐ LAURA: Typically when kids are removed from their parents,

it's for a variety of reasons.

It can be abuse. It can be neglect.

It can be substance abuse.

Something that puts them at imminent risk.

‐ Maybe taking a child away from a family,

someone was disgruntled about that.

‐ KERI: I don't know of anyone that didn't like her.

She was a hard worker. She always seemed happy.

‐ WILLIAM: If Debra had any enemies, we couldn't find any.

It appeared that she was very well liked, um,

with both friends and coworkers.

‐ NARRATOR: But when investigators begin to ask

Debra's colleagues about her life outside of work,

they have much more to say.

‐ KERI: When I heard that her son found her,

I broke down crying. And I just immediately thought,

"Oh, my gosh, where is he? Where's‐‐where's her son?

I hope that he's not with Rick."

I just felt so strongly that

Rick had to have something to do with it.

‐ NARRATOR: Coming up: police uncover dark secrets about

Debra's former relationship with Rick Spaulding.

‐ Debra would talk about some of the reasons why their son

wasn't safe at Rick's house.

‐ NARRATOR: And a new suspect pops up on detectives' radar.

‐ Her and Rick had been in a romantic relationship

in the past, and we weren't sure

exactly what she was willing to do for Rick.

‐ ♪

‐ ♪

‐ NARRATOR: After 39‐year‐old Debra Morgan is found

shot to death inside her home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma,

her coworkers are convinced police

should be looking at her ex, Rick Spaulding.

‐ We were still, you know, just thinking

that Rick murdered Debra.

‐ WILLIAM: We learned that there had been

a lengthy custody battle between

both Rick and Debra over child custody,

and this had been going through the courts for some time.

‐ NARRATOR: The bad blood between the couple

had been deep‐rooted.

At the time of their break‐up,

Debra hadn't told anyone why she'd left Rick.

But she had recently revealed to both her parents

and a few of her closest friends

just how ugly things had gotten before she decided to leave.

‐ She was in a domestic violent relationship

with Rick in the past.

Physical abuse and mental abuse, emotional abuse.

‐ Debra would talk about some of the reasons why their son

wasn't safe at Rick's house.

Mostly because of the‐‐the violence that she incurred.

She believed that her son just wasn't safe to be around that.

‐ NARRATOR: For the timebeing,

Debra had full custody of the couple's son.

But Rick had denied the abuse claims

and was fighting her in court.

And the longer the custody dispute dragged on,

the uglier things got.

‐ CHERYL: There was times when she would just call us,

and she would just be, you know, totally in tears.

Things were coming to such a head that I don't think

emotionally she was able to handle much more if he continued

to treat her in this way.

‐ Rick hadn't paid her child support in a very long time.

She felt like Rick was trying to regain custody of their child.

‐ EDWARD: He was $10,000 behind in child support.

I remember trying to counsel him and say,

"You got every other weekend and one night a week.

"Make the best of it and let this stuff go.

Put it behind you."

And he just wouldn't seem to do that.

‐ From the conversations that Debra and I had was that Aiden

wasn't Rick's, um, priority. The priority was to win.

The priority was for Debra to lose.

‐ He kept accruing more child support debt.

‐ KENNETH: At that point in time,

the judge started to fine him a‐‐a certain monetary amount

per day for his failure to comply.

‐ KERI: About two weeks before Debra died,

she came to my office and was talking to me

about upcoming court hearings.

She was concerned because she was told

that at the next court hearing,

he would either be ordered to pay a certain amount

or he would go to jail.

‐ NARRATOR: Police learn the next court date

was November 8th, one day after Debra was found murdered.

The timing is too eerie for detectives to ignore.

So they arrange for Rick Spaulding to meet them

for a formal interview.

‐ WILLIAM: Rick described his relationship with Debra

as being somewhat, uh, difficult

and that there had been some issues from their past

that were ongoing with Rick.

‐ NARRATOR: Outside of courtrooms,

Rick tells police he has

little to do with Debra recently.

For the last year, he's been happily seeing another woman:

34‐year‐old Sonia Weidenfelder.

‐ WILLIAM: Rick described Sonia as his fiancée,

and they did live in Sonia's house together.

‐ SAMANTHA: Sonia was born in Tulsa.

When she turned 20, she got married,

but divorced 10 years later, and had a daughter.

Then she met Richard Spaulding,

who she had been dating since 2015.

‐ NARRATOR: In fact, it was plans with Sonia's daughter

that Rick says took up much of his time

on the day Debra had been murdered.

He, Sonia, and his son, Aiden, had spent that afternoon driving

Sonia's daughter to her father's home in Arkansas.

‐ Sonia's daughter had stayed with them, uh,

on that Saturday night.

So they drove to Arkansas to return Sonia's daughter

back home to her dad's house on Sunday,

and then returned home sometime

between 9:00 and 10:00 o'clock at night.

‐ NARRATOR: Rick tells police he hadn't been home long

before an old friend called,

looking for help with her computer.

‐ Rick went to visit a woman named Kathy Trevino.

‐ KENNETH: Rick had an explanation for going over

to Kathy Trevino's, about trying to help her

set up some computer thing.

Rick was good with computers and technology.

‐ WILLIAM: He arrived there sometime approximately at 10:45,

stayed for approximately 45 minutes, and then returned home.

On his way home, he did stop at a gas station nearby

and went inside and paid.

‐ NARRATOR: After his stop at the gas station,

Rick says he then returned to Sonia's house in Tulsa,

where he says he remained for the rest of the night.

‐ Rick says, "I have no connection to this.

"I have nothing to hide.

You know, ask me what questions you want."

‐ NARRATOR: Detectives know that if Rick's alibi checks out,

it would've been impossible for him to commit the crime.

But is Rick telling the truth?

In an effort to find out, police turn their attention

to his fiancée, Sonia Weidenfelder.

‐ Sonia did come in a few hours after we had interviewed Rick

and spoke with us.

We began to ask her about her relationship with Rick.

‐ NARRATOR: Sonia tells detectives that she and Rick

had met the same way he'd met Debra Morgan,

on an online dating site.

‐ KENNETH: It seems things were‐‐were going well.

She said, you know, he was very charming, very personable.

That their relationship had moved pretty fast.

‐ SAMANTHA: She had a pretty stable job in the medical field,

had a normal life.

But Rick, his employment was less stable.

So the money that Sonia would make would end up getting used

for...things related to Rick.

‐ NARRATOR: Sonia admits that the biggest of these expenses

was the ongoing custody battle with Debra.

‐ KENNETH: She was voluntarily dedicating all of her funds

to try and to help Rick's legal case, to keep him out of jail,

and to see if they could prevail in the‐‐in the custody battles

with Debra Morgan.

Whatever it is that will help Rick was Sonia's goal.

The way that Sonia had described, you know,

the‐‐the custody battle itself was entirely contrary

to what everyone had told us. It was not that big of a deal.

"It's gonna be fine. Our life is peachy."

‐ NARRATOR: But as detectives press Sonia about

Rick's impending court date,

she eventually admits that Rick was feeling stressed.

And she says he'd seemed particularly anxious

on the night of Debra's murder...

after he returned home from his friend Kathy Trevino's house.

‐ WILLIAM: After Rick got back home around midnight,

Sonia described Rick as being agitated,

and he was pacing back and forth.

She finally insisted that Rick come to bed and go to sleep

because she had to go to work the next day.

‐ NARRATOR: Detectives ask Sonia if she left the house

at any point that night.

She admits she did make one trip.

‐ WILLIAM: She stated sometime around 4:00AM, she woke up,

realized that she didn't have bread to fix school lunches

for tomorrow,

and got out of bed and went to the convenience store

that was close by to their house.

We thought this was odd that she would leave the house at 4:00 AM

instead of just waiting until she would normally get up

to start her day.

‐ NARRATOR: The timing is especially interesting

given the witness testimony that suggests

Debra Morgan had been killed between 3:00 and 3:30AM.

Detectives can't help but question if the store

wasn't Sonia's only stop.

‐ WILLIAM: We knew that someone had made entry into the house

without forced entry.

And Debra's son had mentioned that he had lost his key.

‐ SAMANTHA: So the police in turn asked Sonia

if they were able to find that key,

and she said she found it in the laundry.

‐ KENNETH: Once you have that piece of information,

it gives you the evidence that Rick and Sonia had access

to a key which would unlock the back door.

‐ NARRATOR: For detectives, it's all too convenient.

But so far, the evidence is only circumstantial.

Police will need more to build a case

against either Sonia or Rick.

‐ WILLIAM: At this time, our job

was to eliminate these persons of interest.

We did request a search warrant for Rick Spaulding's cell phone.

‐ NARRATOR: As they wait for a judge to approve the warrant,

detectives look into Rick's alibi

for the night of the murder.

‐ WILLIAM: We met with Kathy Trevino,

the person that Rick had met with

the evening before Debra was killed.

She stated that he arrived at her house

sometime around 10:45 in the evening time

and was there for approximately 45 minutes.

‐ NARRATOR: Kathy also tells police that there was more

to her relationship with Rick than he had let on.

‐ WILLIAM: Kathy had told us that her and Rick had been

in a romantic relationship in the past.

Rick treated her as a confidante and, uh, would confide in her,

which threw another wrench into our investigation.

We weren't sure exactly what

Kathy was willing to do for Rick.

‐ NARRATOR: Coming up: a new admission

exposes a deadly conspiracy.

‐ She talks about she has a plan that's real and it's permanent,

but she can't put it over text.

‐ NARRATOR: But will police be able to make an arrest

before it's too late?

‐ We had concern that they may try to run.

‐ ♪

‐ ♪

‐ NARRATOR: Oklahoma police investigating the murder

of Debra Morgan have focused on her ex, Rick Spaulding.

And they're hoping Rick's ex‐girlfriend, Kathy Trevino,

can tell them more about what Rick had been up to

on the night of Debra's murder.

‐ SAMANTHA: One of Rick's ex‐girlfriends, Kathy,

sees him around 10:30PM on November 6, 2016.

Kathy was aware that Rick and Debra

didn't have a very good relationship,

and that they had a pretty lengthy custody battle

going on in court.

‐ NARRATOR: Contrary to what Rick had told detectives,

Kathy says it was Rick who wanted to meet that night.

‐ Rick had said he wanted to come over and see her.

‐ SAMANTHA: During this conversation,

he seems to concede that he's gonna spend time in jail

for failure to pay child support.

And so he asks her to look after

some guitars of his while he's away.

‐ KENNETH: He also made some comments about Kathy going

to school to pick up his son, which was...

interesting, because it wasn't his day to have the son.

She's never done this before.

So for some reason, Rick is now involving her in the son's life.

‐ SAMANTHA: This worries her.

She thought that he was possibly suicidal.

‐ NARRATOR: Despite her concern, Kathy says she found it strange

that Rick contacted her again when he got home.

‐ SAMANTHA: She gets a text from Rick that says

that he's made it home safely.

And she thought that was unusual

because he didn't text her that kind of thing.

‐ KENNETH: For us, it appears to be this is the timeline

Rick was trying to get himself an alibi,

for Rick to be able to say, "Look, I was at her house.

I couldn't have done it."

‐ NARRATOR: Detectives are growing more suspicious

of Rick Spaulding with every new development.

And when they finally get approval for their warrant

to subpoena Rick's cell phone records,

they make an even more startling discovery.

‐ On the initial, uh, review of his cell phone,

we did find a screenshot of a text message

that had been deleted.

We were able to retrieve that deleted text message,

where this was a thread of conversation

between Rick and Sonia.

Apparently they had been in a lengthy argument.

‐ KENNETH: The argument was about Rick not being polite

in the morning and not getting out of bed.

And from that, he had spun things out to Sonia about

how she's crazy and telling her

that if she doesn't do exactly what he wants,

if she doesn't come and apologize,

then he's going to go to the police.

‐ NARRATOR: Rick never says outright what reason

he would have to report Sonia to the police.

But as detectives look farther back in the phone records,

it's not too difficult to read between the lines.

‐ Even in September, before the murder,

whenever Rick is very despondent,

Sonia talks about she has a plan that's real and it's permanent,

but she can't put it over text.

And Rick's response is always something to the tune

of, "It's a fantasy, it's not reality."

Everything in writing is her pushing this idea

and Rick trying to talk her out of it.

‐ NARRATOR: Detectives quickly obtain a search warrant

for Sonia's cell phone

and uncover even more disturbing details.

‐ SAMANTHA: Sonia had texted Rick

with an idea to poison Debra.

She also had over a dozen Google searches

for photos of gunshot wounds to the face.

Pretty consistent with the injuries shown on Debra's face.

‐ NARRATOR: Arrest warrants are issued for both

Richard Spaulding and Sonia Weidenfelder.

From their review of the couple's text messages,

detectives know there is no time to waste.

‐ We had found text messages on their phones where they had

spoken to each other about do they need to activate their plan

or do they need to circle their wagons,

which gave us some concern that they may try to run

or that they had some kind of‐‐of a plan to get away.

‐ NARRATOR: The following morning,

detectives make their move.

‐ WILLIAM: We waited for Rick and‐‐and Sonia to leave

that morning for their day and followed them to the school,

where they dropped off their son.

Then Rick drove Sonia to her place of employment,

and then we took them both under arrest simultaneously.

‐ ANNE: I was ecstatic that they were arrested.

It was like, "Finally. Finally, some form of justice

is gonna start coming through."

‐ NARRATOR: The day after the arrests,

police get another big break in the case.

‐ WILLIAM: I was happening to be driving down the street

when I got a call from our dispatch.

A city street worker had found a shotgun

down the street from Debra's house.

So I immediately drove to the stormwater drains

where they found a shotgun.

The shotgun was placed there on the street.

And I observed it, and the shotgun matched

what I had learned from these text messages from Rick.

So at this point, I believe this may be our murder weapon.

The shotgun was still loaded,

and there had been a spent shell casing,

meaning a round that had been fired, but not ejected,

still in the gun itself.

We determined that these rounds were .12‐guage birdshot

that would be consistent with what we found at the crime scene

and found both within Debra Morgan's head and her pillow.

‐ NARRATOR: Detectives decide to keep the discovery

of the shotgun out of the media and under wraps.

But later that week, they get a surprising call.

‐ Days after the shotgun was found is when Rick Spaulding,

with his attorney, reached out and wanted to make a statement.

What is it that Rick is gonna try to tell us?

‐ NARRATOR: Coming up: Rick makes a stunning confession.

‐ He had some type of epiphany.

‐ NARRATOR: But is he telling the truth?

‐ I just thought, "That's something

that just can't happen."

‐ ♪

‐ [gunshot]

‐ ♪

‐ ♪

‐ NARRATOR: Police in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma

have found a shotgun they believe was used

in the murder of Debra Morgan.

Her incarcerated ex, Rick Spaulding,

has no way of knowing about the discovery

when he asks to speak to investigators days later.

‐ WILLIAM: I went down to the Tulsa County Jail

to speak with him at his request.

He stated that he had an opportunity to read

my affidavit for his arrest.

And within that, he now has discovered

some of these internet searches

that Sonia had conducted on her phone

that he was not aware of.

‐ NARRATOR: Rick maintains that he is innocent.

But faced with the contents of his fiancée's phone data,

Rick says he can longer stay silent

about Sonia's involvement.

‐ WILLIAM: He had some type of epiphany which made him realize

that Sonia was indeed the person who did kill Debra.

He wanted to give us assistance in investigating Sonia instead.

He then started to describe

how Sonia would have used this shotgun.

‐ KENNETH: Rick was trying to speculate

where that shotgun might be.

And it's like watching a‐‐a toddler caught in a lie

as they try to theorize and guess their way to where it was.

"Did you look in the fields around the house?

"It might be in the field. Or if not there,

"she might've thrown it down a storm drain in the house.

You should check by there."

‐ WILLIAM: Rick had given me a‐‐a very detailed description

of this gun.

He described the ammunition perfectly to me,

the types of shell casings that were in the gun, the birdshot.

And he even went to describe

where a screw would be missing on that shotgun.

‐ That definitely shows he was in the loop

as to what happened and what transpired.

‐ NARRATOR: Even though police are convinced

both Rick and Sonia were involved in the crime,

prosecutors still have an uphill battle

as they prepare for trial.

‐ KENNETH: When it comes to looking at the evidence

left behind at the murder scene, there were no fingerprints,

no DNA, no hair follicles, no eyewitnesses,

and no electronic footprints putting them at that residence.

‐ The state had a challenge in the case

because it was a circumstantial case.

‐ This is one of those few cases to where the motive became

such a driving cause

that that was a key piece of evidence for us.

‐ NARRATOR: And for prosecutors, it's clear that

Rick's mounting troubles with his unpaid child support

were the catalyst for both he and Sonia

to commit coldblooded murder.

‐ Rick had a court case coming up on the 8th,

which was the day after we found Debra dead.

‐ LAURA: He was gonna go to jail.

He was gonna have to pay a lot of money.

He was gonna lose.

And I think that that was the motivating thing.

‐ NARRATOR: On April 16th, 2018,

Sonia Weidenfelder's trial begins.

Despite the evidence against her,

Sonia's lawyers maintain that Rick Spaulding was the only one

responsible for Debra Morgan's murder.

‐ Sonia's theory at trial was this was clearly Rick.

Rick was the one with the motive.

Rick was out to get her. Rick set her up.

This was all his doing.

‐ NARRATOR: But prosecutors counter by unveiling

new incriminating evidence discovered on Sonia's phone

the night before the trial began.

‐ KENNETH: It's late at night on that first Monday

that I'm still trying to go through and just make sure,

one last check, that we didn't miss something.

And so I was listening to some audio files on the phone,

and we find one that is Rick and Sonia

apparently talking about the murder.

‐ WILLIAM: They were arguing again,

and Rick was giving her an ultimatum again,

that she needed to do something

or he would tell the police basically what she had done.

She would spend the rest of her life in prison.

‐ KENNETH: And he starts talking about how he and his son

are going through this problem because of her and what she did.

Her response to that was, "I did this for you.

I did this for both of you."

‐ NARRATOR: Prosecutors theorize that while Rick had likely been

the mastermind behind the plot, Sonia had been the executioner.

‐ KENNETH: Looking at their personalities,

it's our opinion that Sonia was the one who was either

supposed to pull the trigger

or who did in fact pull the trigger to kill Debra,

because it seems the entire theory from Rick was,

"They're never gonna suspect you.

They're always gonna suspect me."

And he was trying to give himself an alibi.

‐ KERI: I think Sonia was so entranced by Rick

that she was concerned

about what would happen if she lost Rick.

If she did this to stop Debra

from causing problems, then she would be okay,

and everything would be fine with them,

and they can get married and‐‐and have their family.

‐ ♪

‐ [gunshot]

‐ ♪

‐ NARRATOR: After four hours of deliberation,

the jury returns their verdict.

‐ CHERYL: Sonia Weidenfelder was found guilty

of murder in the first degree.

Life in prison with the possibility of parole.

‐ ANNE: It is shocking as a mom,

to know that she didn't think twice about it,

um, because I couldn't‐‐ I couldn't imagine

putting another child through

what Debra's son has gone through.

I mean, it just‐‐you know,

it absolutely breaks my heart for her son.

‐ NARRATOR: Three months later,

Richard Spaulding's trial begins.

‐ His defense was, "Sonia's the killer."

There's nothing showing that

he was pushing this death or this murder.

But we tried to show the jury,

when you take a step back and you look at everything,

it clearly shows that not only did he know what happened,

but it showed the manipulation that he used.

‐ CARL: Richard Spaulding is‐‐is very controlling.

He controlled Debbie for a long time.

And it seemed he had a talent for picking women

that‐‐that he could control.

Anybody that opposed him or keep him from getting what he wanted,

uh, he would go after them.

‐ KENNETH: Leading up to the murder,

you have these conversations between Rick and Sonia

that get more and more desperate.

It is a ticking clock, because Rick is about to go to jail.

When you look at all of that together,

he clearly was setting her up.

‐ NARRATOR: On June 7th, 2018,

Richard Spaulding is found guilty of first‐degree murder.

Like Sonia Weidenfelder, he is also sentenced to life in prison

with the possibility of parole.

‐ CARL: After the brutality of what they did,

we‐‐we felt life without parole would‐‐was what we wanted.

But they're essentially gonna spend

the rest of their life in prison.

‐ ♪

‐ CARL: It's never gonna be the same without Debbie.

Their son, he's been through so much.

First with the custody disputes,

and‐‐and now he's lost his mother.

‐ Some days are easier. Some days I still lay in bed

and think about that night for Debbie.

‐ ANNE: I don't think I'm ever gonna make sense of what he did.

What he did was just‐‐just wrong and‐‐and on so many levels

just‐‐just so evil.

You just‐‐you don't know people.

You don't know what they're capable of.

So the best thing you can do

is protect yourself as well as you can.

‐ KERI: I'll never forget the conversations that we had

prior to her death, and the things that Debra told me,

and, you know, the knowledge

of what domestic violence looks like.

What kind of monster would do this to someone?

‐ ♪

‐ NARRATOR: For more information, go to Oxygen.com.

‐ ♪

‐ [scritch‐scratch]