I Failed Drug Polygraph Can I Try Again to Be Police
In the moments later ophidian breeder Ben Renick was found dead, investigators thought he might take been the victim of an attack past one of his prized reptiles.
On June 8, 2017, Lynlee Renick called 911 to say her hubby was confront down in a puddle of blood. She said she found him in his snake facility, which was home to more than three,000 reptiles, some worth thousands of dollars.
"Someone being killed by a snake is not something that happens every 24-hour interval, specially in Missouri," coroner Dave Colbert tells "48 Hours."
It turns out that someone being killed by a snake didn't happen that day, either. That'south because Ben Renick was shot multiple times. But past whom?
A SHOCKING DISCOVERY
On a hot Missouri summer day in June 2017, Montgomery County sheriff's deputies were called to a unique and potentially dangerous decease scene — a literal snake pit — a edifice with more than than three,000 exotic serpents.
OFFICER ane (body cam video): I don't intendance if it's a v-inch-long ophidian if something tries to bite me, I'm gonna light its a-- up.
OFFICER ane (body cam video looking at snakes): Holy south---!
OFFICER two: Something got him, and then sentry you're a--.
The first responders aren't sure if i of these snakes may have killed renowned breeder Ben Renick.
OFFICER 1 (torso cam video): Who is?
OFFICER 2: Ben, uh, Ben Renick.
Officeholder one: Oh.
Officeholder ane: Tin nosotros make sure at that place's no snakes effectually the victim?
Officeholder 2: Yeah.
Coroner Dave Colbert had never seen annihilation like it.
Dave Colbert | Coroner: They're holding shotguns in hand. There were guns out. You could just feel the anxiety among everyone there.
No i knew where the killer could be coiled or lurking. Simply while examining Ben'due south body, the coroner made a surprising discovery. Ben's trunk — lying face downwardly—hid the true cause of death. He hadn't been bitten by a giant snake. Ben had been shot eight times, once at close range.
Dave Colbert: This was something that was not just a random act.
LYNLEE RENICK (body cam video): That'due south non a snake.
SAM RENICK: That's a snake honey.
LYNLEE RENICK: That's not a serpent.
Nearby was Ben'due south wife, Lynlee. She had discovered his body.
Dave Colbert: And she was visibly upset. What y'all would describe equally somebody who was grieving and, you know, only lost a loved one.
OFFICER 1 (body cam video): This is Sam, that's his brother, Ben.
Officer two: OK.
Lynlee chosen Ben's brother Sam, who rushed to the scene.
Officer (body cam video): Sam?
SAM RENICK: Lynlee got here before I did and then I don't know
OFFICER: OK.
Sam Renick: He was … shot in the back almost exclusively. I — I don't recall he saw it coming at all. … Ben had such a futurity alee of him. You know, he was 29 years quondam. He was almost — almost 30. … A lot was lost.
Almost a remote stretch of highway, about lxxx miles west of St. Louis, once stood a world-renowned serpent breeding facility, Renick Reptiles, where Ben Renick built his empire of serpents.
BEN RENICK VIDEO: "Welcome to the basement of Renick Reptiles. … we keep detail pythons — blood pythons, white lip pythons, greenish anacondas …"
Sam Renick: Ben had — his starting time snake at a very young age … And that become — somewhat of a passion for him. … became — a hobby to — build into business concern. And he was — he was very practiced at what he did.
At the time of the murder, Sam and Ben Renick were living in separate houses with their families on a seventy-acre spread.
Sam Renick: We lived out there together. And raised our kids out in that location together. The — we went angling on the weekends and — y'all know, nosotros were close.
Ben and Lynlee first met when they were teenagers. They reconnected in 2011, says local attorney Katherine Berger.
Katherine Berger | Attorney: They hit information technology off right away. And their human relationship got pretty serious, pretty quickly. I think they moved in together within the first year of dating.
Lynlee had a son from a previous relationship. Sam says Ben became a second father to the child. In 2014, Ben and Lynlee decided to tie the knot.
Sam Renick: They had a beautiful hymeneals. … It was … beautiful, a pocket-size family event … it was very special.
Before long, they had a baby of their ain. A growing family to go with their booming snake convenance concern.
Katherine Berger: Lynlee institute Ben's passion interesting. … She would work 24-hour interval and nighttime helping Ben with the snakes, handling them, cleaning them, sorting them.
In 2016 they opened a second business, Ascensia Spa in Columbia, Missouri, a longtime dream of Lynlee, who once worked as a massage therapist.
Sam Renick: I know that when she started her spa business, information technology's just something that she had always wanted to practise that she — you know, that empowered her quite a bit.
By 2017, Ben Renick'south serpent business organization was wildly successful. He was shipping his snakes effectually the globe from the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland to Nihon and was travelling to reptile conventions across the U.s.a..
He was so successful, Ben realized, that if he sold a portion of Renick reptiles he could make some real money.
Sam Renick: Ben had planned on selling the majority of his brawl python drove … for — from my understanding, it was about a $1.ii million. … Things were gonna be very adept for — my brother and — and Lynlee.
The couple had received their first payment of at least $200,000, simply so Ben was murdered.
Peter Van Sant: When you lot heard that he was dead, what did you think might have happened to him?
Dāv Kaufman: So, the first question that I asked was, "How many snakes were missing?" A facility like Ben's — it — unfortunately, attracts a lotta bad people, bad people that come across these snakes not equally these cute, amazing creatures that they are, but run into them as dollar signs.
To understand the world of snakes that Ben lived and worked in, "48 Hours" spoke with Ben'southward friend Dāv Kaufman, who introduced "48 Hours" contributor Peter Van Sant to a reticulated python, a snake Ben was known for throughout the globe considering of how he bred them in captivity.
Dāv Kaufman (holding snake): Ben loved these snakes because how can ya not dear these (laughs) snakes? I mean, really, when it comes down to it. … They're big. They're beautiful. They're personable.
Dāv Kaufman: She'southward gonna go correct over your shoulder and attempt to become on the cage behind you lot (laughs). Allow's see if I'g right. … no, she's gonna wrap around ya.
Peter Van Sant: It'due south my new scarf.
Dāv Kaufman: There you go.
Kaufman is also a snake breeder and a documentary film maker who also travels the earth tracking rare and exotic reptiles for his YouTube aqueduct.
Peter Van Sant (with snake wrapped around him): This is a first. It is a remarkable sensation.
Dāv Kaufman: It is.
Investigators looked into the theory that Ben'southward murder may have been a robbery gone bad simply ruled it out; no snakes were missing. Dave Colbert says information technology made sense to expect more advisedly at those closest to Ben.
Dave Colbert: We definitely didn't want to exclude anybody from beingness a possible suspect. … I didn't know if Sam was involved. Didn't know if Lynlee was involved.
The day subsequently his brother'due south murder, Sam Renick was brought in for questioning.
SAM RENICK [police questioning] I uh, I don't know where to start.
MISSOURI Expressway PATROL INVESTIGATOR: OK.
And they likewise brought in Lynlee.
MISSOURI Land HIGHWAY PATROL INVESTIGATOR: Do yous have whatever questions for united states of america?
LYNLEE RENICK: What happened?
MISSOURI Throughway PATROL INVESTIGATOR: We don't know all the same.
LYNLEE RENICK: What, I mean what do I do?
MISSOURI Country HIGHWAY PATROL INVESTIGATOR: Lean on your friends and family.
Merely soon enough, those same friends and family would have reason to question everything they thought they knew well-nigh Lynlee Renick.
Sam Renick: The Lynlee that we knew back then was — very sweetness, kind. However, there was — there were other sides of her that we didn't know.
WHO WANTED BEN Expressionless?
With law enforcement discovering that Ben Renick had not been killed past a ophidian and rapidly ruling out the possibility of a robbery gone bad, Sam Renick had one major question.
Sam Renick: Who would've wanted Ben dead?
A Missouri State Highway Patrol detective had the aforementioned question when he spoke with Ben'southward married woman, Lynlee.
MISSOURI Thruway PATROL INVESTIGATOR: Could you lot run into everyone y'all know being upset with Ben to the point to where that may happen?
LYNLEE RENICK: No.
Both Lynlee and Sam were cooperative in their initial interviews.
MISSOURI State HIGHWAY PATROL INVESTIGATOR: Are yous willing to submit to a shotgun or, non shotgun, a gunshot residue?
SAM RENICK: Yeah, annihilation yous want, yous got.
Sam says he understood why police would first focus on them. And he told investigators he could never imagine Lynlee existence involved.
Sam Renick: I didn't think that Lynlee would accept been capable of murder like that.
Lynlee also agreed to a gunshot residuum test. But in her one-on-ane interview with a detective, Lynlee made a startling claim, saying that Sam might have had a motive to kill his brother.
MISSOURI Superhighway PATROL INVESTIGATOR: Was at that place any family issues?
LYNLEE RENICK: Um, like betwixt Sam and Ben? Yes.
At issue, Lynlee said, was Ben's plan to possibly sell the property where they all lived. She claimed Sam was upset about information technology.
Ben had inherited the property later another tragedy on the Renick family farm just five years earlier — the suicide of Ben and Sam'due south begetter, Frank Renick.
Sam Renick: Ben constitute him. He came and got me, and we went there together and — it was a tough day.
Frank Renick shot himself in 2012 after being implicated in a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme involving fraudulent stock certificates.
Sam Renick: There's a lot of people that lost a lot of coin, y'all know, due to my male parent.
Unaware that Lynlee was implicating him, Sam wondered whether Ben had been killed in an deed of revenge confronting their male parent.
Sam Renick: We were concerned, however, that, you know, someone could have been upset plenty to have waited and washed something similar this.
Merely that theory never took off and Sam, who had tested negative for gun residue on his hands, was ruled out later cooperating fully with investigators.
Sam Renick: I — provided them, you know, everything I had. My cell phone, the shirt off my back, my excuse as to where I was when the murder happened. I — I gave a polygraph.
Every bit Highway Patrol detectives connected their investigation, the reptile customs stepped up to assist Ben's married woman and children. They held an online auction of donated snakes, raising more than $40,000.
Peter Van Sant: You guys banded together, and y'all got thousands of dollars to Lynlee to help her during this fourth dimension of crisis.
Dāv Kaufman: Tens of thousands. Yea. We raised tens of thousands of dollars to help Lynlee and the kids.
Peter Van Sant: Because you lot felt she was a victim.
Dāv Kaufman: That's right.
But that supposed victim had a startling confession when Lynlee spoke with detectives again, just 11 days after Ben's murder.
MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL INVESTIGATOR: So, have yous been talkin' to anyone, or did yous have a relationship?
LYNLEE RENICK: Aric.
MISSOURI Throughway PATROL INVESTIGATOR: How often did you guys hook upward?
LYNLEE RENICK: Like, maybe in one case or twice a month.
Lynlee admitted she had been unfaithful.
MISSOURI State highway PATROL INVESTIGATOR: Information technology was but — but sex activity?
LYNLEE RENICK: Yes.
MISSOURI Thruway PATROL INVESTIGATOR: Did he think the same way?
LYNLEE RENICK: Yeah.
Detectives checked that homo'south alibi and cleared him of any suspicion. Investigators so interviewed Ashley Shaw, i of Lynlee'due south employees and a shut friend, who she had confided in— which may take been a mistake.
ASHLEY SHAW [police force questioning]: I mean I'chiliad sure that you know she was having, um, an thing.
MISSOURI Country HIGHWAY PATROL INVESTIGATOR: Uh-huh.
ASHLEY SHAW: A couple diplomacy, actually.
Ashley Shaw, the director at Ascensia Spa, said that Lynlee had also been seeing another man named Brandon Blackwell who she had met on a dating website. She said Lynlee was hooking up with Brandon before Ben's murder.
ASHLEY SHAW: I know Brandon was like really a short fourth dimension before that …
Along with Lynlee's affairs, investigators had discovered Facebook messages between Ben and Lynlee. They revealed that Ben had found out the spa was losing coin, and that Lynlee had lied to him about it. Ben sent a message to Lynlee just hours before he was murdered:
BEN'S FACEBOOK MESSAGE TO LYNLEE: No more lying, no more keeping things from me, no more non paying people and thinking it'south okay to pay afterwards.
Four months after Ben's murder, Lynlee was in forepart of cops again and agreed to have a polygraph test.
MISSOURI Superhighway PATROL INVESTIGATOR [interrogation]: OK, how practice you think you did Lynlee?
LYNLEE RENICK: I call up I did well.
Not exactly. Lynlee'due south polygraph test was a dismal failure.
MISSOURI State highway PATROL INVESTIGATOR [interrogation]: Then, the results of the polygraph show that yous failed the exam. … When I asked yous" did you lot shoot that man?" you failed the exam.
LYNLEE RENICK: I can't explain why I just failed that, but I didn't kill Ben.
But investigators suspected she did and may accept had aid from even so some other homo in her life. His name is Michael Humphrey, an onetime ex-boyfriend and ex-con fresh out of prison on drug possession charges, who she texted and called numerous times — including on the day her hubby was murdered.
LYNLEE RENICK [police interview]: He was coming in for massages.
OFFICER: Yeah, but the matter is that that correct at that place is very suspicious.
LYNLEE RENICK: (Cries)
It appeared Lynlee was close to breaking. But she continued to deny any interest, dozens of times.
LYNLEE RENICK: I don't accept anything to practice with this.
MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL INVESTIGATOR: At that place is then much coexisting prove confronting you in this case it'due south listen-boggling.
But Lynlee's gunshot balance examination had come up back negative. With no witnesses, no murder weapon found or direct show linking her to Ben's murder, she left that interrogation room a free woman.
LYNLEE RENICK: I need to go go my children.
MISSOURI Throughway PATROL INVESTIGATOR: I'll walk you out.
The investigation went cold for about three years until, unexpectedly, someone came forward with everything Missouri Highway Patrol investigators were looking for.
A JAILHOUSE TIP
The boas are long gone, the pythons packed up, and the snakes are in new homes. The reptilian paradise-turned crime scene, now a vacant frozen field. Eight fatal shots unanswered.
Sam Renick: I wasn't sure what to retrieve.
Unaware that investigators suspected Lynlee, Ben Renick's brother Sam was left more than a niggling uneasy.
Sam Renick: It was very, very tough knowing that someone was out there that had essentially gotten away with murder. I was concerned for my own prophylactic.
And without an arrest, snake lovers were as well left rattled.
Dāv Kaufman: So, when the case went common cold, we would all contact each other, request if anybody had any data on what was going on. … It was frustrating, it was frustrating to accept all this fourth dimension pass and not have a culprit in custody.
All Dāv Kaufman knew for certain …
Dāv Kaufman: Humans do things other than what y'all expect. Snakes do not.
And the most unexpected behavior came from the homo closest to Ben Renick: his widow Lynlee.
Sam Renick: We wanted to be as understanding equally possible … Nonetheless, in time, when she refused to talk to u.s., or allow the kids, or even receive my brother's property, nosotros knew something was incorrect.
In fact, simply weeks subsequently Ben's murder with her spa business organisation failing, Lynlee had sold the family property, closed upwardly shop and left boondocks in a hurry.
Beth Mayberry: So, like one mean solar day she was at that place and the next day simply left. … then never came back.
Today, Beth Mayberry works at that same location. Only dorsum then, she was merely one more truthful-law-breaking buff in Columbia Missouri, riveted to a case without a conclusion.
Peter Van Sant: How much is this Renick case talked most around here among —
Beth Mayberry: Information technology's a lot. Information technology's a lot.
Peter Van Sant: ...And what do people say? What do they recollect?
Beth Mayberry: Crazy — it'south crazy. … And people did commencement to wonder … Maybe Lynlee did it. Possibly she had someone practice this. Information technology did become a question.
A question without an answer. Until Jan 2020, when cops followed up on a jailhouse tip.
MISSOURI State highway PATROL INVESTIGATOR: We're investigators with Highway Patrol. I'm here considering you used to be dating Lynlee.
BRANDON BLACKWELL: That's correct.
Dave McKenna: Outta nowhere comes what investigators would retrieve is a godsend.
Journalist Dave McKenna was following the case for Defector Media, that was almost to modify fast for investigators.
MISSOURI Superhighway PATROL INVESTIGATOR: Your dad gave me a phone call today and said that you lot wanted to talk to us.
BRANDON BLACKWELL: Yeah.
Dave McKenna | Announcer: But lays out the whole story. And it is very detailed.
Information technology was Brandon Blackwell. The homo Lynlee met online — the lover she was hooking upward with the very week Ben was murdered.
Dave McKenna: Her husband is freshly expressionless … body is still warm, and she's institute another warm body.
Only a year-and-a-half after Ben was killed, Blackwell and Lynlee had a child together. Just Lynlee alleged Blackwell had become threatening, and they had broken upward. Lynlee got an order of protection and he was then charged with violating that order and stalking her — charges he denies. He was jammed upward, in jail, and looking to make a deal.
BRANDON BLACKWELL: My main concern is getting outta that cell …
MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL INVESTIGATOR: Now y'all're coming to us when you lot're in a pickle so …
BRANDON BLACKWELL: Right.
Blackwell'due south tale began weeks before Ben Renick was shot dead — when he says Lynlee and spa employee Ashley Shaw whipped upward a toxic shake for Ben.
BRANDON BLACKWELL: He was given a protein drink ane dark that was laced full of enormous amounts of narcotics … and somehow lived through information technology, but the program was for that to exist the final 24-hour interval of his life.
A poison potion served to a husband, by his wife. Brandon says Lynlee confessed that, and much more to him.
BRANDON BLACKWELL: My information is out of the equus caballus'due south mouth.
MISSOURI State HIGHWAY PATROL INVESTIGATOR: OK.
So, when pills failed to kill, Brandon says Lynlee turned to ane-fourth dimension boyfriend Michael Humphrey.
BRANDON BLACKWELL: They drove to the farm, he had gloves, he had a firearm, the plan was for him to do it. They go there he hands her the gun and says he doesn't experience comfortable doing … it's something she'south gotta have care of. She walks in with a gun … and just shoots him a bunch of times.
And according to Blackwell, Lynlee's spa employee Ashley Shaw was once once more involved.
Dave McKenna: Brandon Blackwell told the law that Ashley was in on it intimately from the start of the planning.
The cold case was blown broad open up. On January 16, 2020, cops made their moves. Lynlee Renick and Michael Humphrey were arrested, charged with the murder of Ben Renick. Loved ones and friends never saw it coming.
Peter Van Sant: What was that moment like for yous?
Dāv Kaufman: Disbelief. I idea they got the wrong person.
Sam Renick: It took us years to discover out that Lynlee was lying and that she was living a double life. … Sociopath. If you wait that up, Lynlee'south picture'll be sitting correct there with it.
But what motive could Lynlee have to murder the man she had built so much with? Some say it was as cold-blooded as a cobra. Coin.
Sam Renick: Lynlee stood to gain millions from the death of my brother. Between the life insurance, the auction of the snakes, and the family unit farm that she would inherit … it was significant.
Nevertheless, investigators needed someone to flip. They arrested Ashley and fast permit her know exactly what her future reality might look like.
MISSOURI State HIGHWAY PATROL INVESTIGATOR (to Ashley Shaw during questioning): Now is the fourth dimension, y'all're either on Squad Lynlee or you're on Team Missouri. And Team Lynlee's going to jail. They're going to prison for first-degree murder.
In exchange for leniency, Ashley turned on her onetime boss, starting with the toxic ingredients in Lynlee's venomous smoothie. Ashley would say that Lynlee told her Ben had abused her.
ASHLEY SHAW: She asked if I could get any, um, matter, any prescription pills or annihilation in the amount that could, um, help her impale him and so I got her, um, perc, it was Percocet I'yard pretty sure and in that location was, um, I retrieve xv of them.
According to Ashley, after the shooting Lynlee claimed Michael Humphrey was the triggerman. But, she says, a few days later on Lynlee changed her story. Ashley now claimed that Lynlee confessed to being the killer.
ASHLEY SHAW: … and she said, "Oh, no, once nosotros got at that place I, I was fine to exercise it and so he handed me the gun and I did it."
MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL INVESTIGATOR: After the murder, she ever seem remorseful?
ASHLEY SHAW: Never.
MISSOURI Freeway PATROL INVESTIGATOR:: She ever seem distressing?
ASHLEY SHAW: Never. No.
Just as it headed to trial, Lynlee'southward legal squad insists that Michael Humphrey was the real shooter. And they contend the land'southward instance isn't based on truth, simply on the fearful, coerced testimony of Ashley Shaw.
Tim Hesemann | Defense attorney: "You lot're either on Team Lynlee or yous're on team Missouri. And Team Lynlee is going to jail."
Peter Van Sant: How would that impact somebody, a adult female similar Ashley Shaw, do y'all call back?
Tim Hesemann: Well, if Ashley Shaw e'er wants to leave that interview room for the rest of her life or for the indefinite future … She'south going to modify her story.
Katherine Berger | Defense chaser: Information technology was merely later that threat that she changed her story and implicated Lynlee Renick.
WHO PULLED THE TRIGGER?
LYNLEE RENICK [law questioning]: I don't know what happened with him. I don't know
Sam Renick: Information technology took a lot of time to just process, you know, the lies that we were given by Lynlee.
In late 2021, Sam Renick was bracing himself for the trials of his brother'south declared killers.
Sam Renick: My biggest concern was keeping my composure during the whole time.
Get-go up, Lynlee'southward old boyfriend, Michael Humphrey. The prosecution said Lynlee fired the gun and that Humphrey was in on the plan.
Dave McKenna: Prosecutor said he was — in on the plotting, he provided the weapon. … he helped knock off her husband.
Just that murder weapon had not been recovered. Humphrey's defense force argued that Humphrey had been lured to the snake farm past Lynlee, who claimed she wanted protection when asking Ben for a divorce. Lynlee had so surprised him and pulled out a gun and shot her husband.
Dave McKenna: They painted him as kind of — a fawning suitor of this pretty, blond, petite — snake salesman."
The jury didn't believe Humphrey'southward story of existence an innocent spectator. Subsequently deliberating for just v hours, jurors convicted him of first-degree murder.
Sam Renick: Lynlee is a manipulator. And I truly believe that he was manipulated into where he is right now.
So, facing life behind bars, Michael Humphrey changed his story. Lynlee's trial attorneys Tim Hesemann and Katherine Berger.
Peter Van Sant: He decides to flip. Why does he do that?
Katherine Berger: He's convicted of outset-caste murder afterwards a jury trial. He agrees to cooperate with the state in the hopes that he might be able to parole out eventually.
Humphrey now admits that he provided the gun that Lynlee used to shoot her married man.
Katherine Berger: And he tells them where they tin can observe it, which is in his girlfriend'due south female parent'south attic.
With the murder weapon in hand, jurors in Lynlee'southward upcoming trial would have to answer one unresolved question: who pulled the trigger?
KELLY KING | PROSECUTOR: The defendant, Lynlee Renick, shot her married man, Ben, eight times, killing him … we're going to come dorsum and ask that yous to detect her guilty …
The prosecution painted Lynlee as cold-blooded equally one of her husband's snakes. A killer who shot Ben and and so went most her daily routine as if aught had happened.
KELLY Rex: She goes to the school, picks up her ii children, and drives them back to the place where she knows she is going to observe their father's dead body because she killed him.
TIM HESEMANN: Lynlee is being deceptive to Ben.
The defense counters by saying that while Lynlee lied and cheated on Ben, that doesn't brand her a killer.
TIM HESEMANN: She is non planning a murder. She'southward planning a divorce.
They pointed the finger at the human already convicted of murdering Ben Renick.
Tim Hesemann: Michael Humphrey took it upon himself acting completely independently … took Ben's life himself.
But Just Lynlee's employee and confidant, Ashley Shaw—now the prosecution's star witness—swears Michael Humphrey and Lynlee were full partners in criminal offence.
ASHLEY SHAW: Michael was going to come to the spa, and they were going to go together to her — her firm, his business organization — to impale him at home, or at — at work.
Shaw says afterwards the murder, Lynlee returned to the spa—non for a massage—but to wash away her sins.
KEVIN ZOELLNER | PROSECUTOR: So, Lynlee goes dorsum there and she tells you to do what?
ASHLEY SHAW: To requite her a shower … and she asked me to scrub her body and her easily actually well.
Then, Ashley tells the jurors what Lynlee told her about what really happened at Renick Reptiles the day Ben was killed.
ASHLEY SHAW: She said that Michael got — too nervous, or didn't want to do it, and and then he handed her the gun, and she actually killed him, she said that she put the gun to his back and shot him several times.
But the defense force claims Ashley Shaw—only similar Michael Humphrey—made up this story in order to avert life in prison.
TIM HESMANN: How are yous able to be so at-home when you're being questioned about murders that you obviously claim to be and so involved in, how is that Ashley?"
ASHLEY SHAW: I don't know.
Tim Hesemann: There are so many aspects of Ashley Shaw's story that simply are not credible.
And now, in a strange twist of judicial fate, the prosecution called an unlikely, key witness to the stand.
KEVIN ZOELLNER: Now, what am I belongings up?
MICHAEL HUMPHREY: That's my gun.
KEVIN ZOELLNER: That's what your gun is?
MICHAEL HUMPHREY: Yes.
Convicted murderer Michael Humphrey, who at present swears he'southward telling the truth about how Lynlee killed her husband.
MICHAEL HUMPHREY: I heard a shot come out … so I kinda ducked a little bit, and I looked down through there. And she was at the end of the— corridor or whatever yous want to call information technology, posted up like this with the gun.
Every bit the trial neared its end, the defense force took a hazard, on a star witness of their ain. Lynlee began past detailing the troubled and sometimes trigger-happy union she claims she was trying to escape.
KATHERINE BERGER: Lynlee, was at that place e'er whatsoever other occasion where an argument with Ben turned physical?
LYNLEE RENICK: Aye.
LYNLEE RENICK: Ben and I had been arguing at the house. … and he grabbed my arm and pushed me into the refrigerator and was similar" I'm not done with this, we're gonna finish it now."
Lynlee Renick never filed any police reports about the declared physical corruption.
Sam Renick: Abusive is a word that I would not use with Ben … he was very kind, very loving.
Then, came her run a risk to explicate why she asked Michael Humphrey to accompany her that fatal solar day.
LYNLEE RENICK: "Hey, my marriage is falling apart. Volition you delight just go with me just to make certain, like, you know, I'm safe and I can get some stuff and go?"
KATHERINE BERGER: Did you lot ask Michael to help yous impale your hubby?
LYNLEE RENICK: No.
KATHERINE BERGER: Ready the scene for me and the jury.
LYNLEE RENICK: I walked up (exhales) right— right behind Michael. … And so (exhales) Michael turned around, and I saw a gun in his hands, and then I heard shots ring out. And I screamed and I ran outside. And then I heard more shots go off, and everything merely went numb. And I call back staring at the copse, (exhales) and so Michael running out of the facility and pushing me towards the machine and telling me, "Nosotros have to go, Lynlee, arrive the motorcar, we have to go now."
Claiming to exist in shock, Lynlee admitted she didn't tell the truth to investigators, but said that didn't add up to murder.
LYNLEE RENICK: And I empathise what that means and how this looks. I but — I don't know how to fully limited that I — I never wanted Ben dead.
The prosecution was ready to strike.
KEVIN ZOELLNER: You were interviewed a bunch by a buncha cops. Correct?
LYNLEE RENICK: Yes.
ZOELLNER: And yous lied to them every time.
LYNLEE RENICK: Yes.
ZOELLNER: Just deep downward in that heart of yours and in that brain of yours, you know who killed him. Right?
LYNLEE RENICK: Yeah.
Lynlee's lies to cops included a terrible slander: accusing Sam Renick of killing his brother.
LYNLEE RENICK: Then anytime the police asked me who I thought, I just told them, "Sam." (cries) I'thou so deplorable."
Sam Renick: Her trying to repent to me on the stand and garner sympathy with the jury didn't sit down well with me … there's no low too low for — for that one.
KEVIN ZOLLNER: Why should these jurors at present believe you? … Y'all now want these 12 people to believe you. Right?
LYNLEE RENICK: Yes.
KEVIN ZOLLNER: I bet you do.
Katherine Berger: While I regret that it took her ii-and-a-half years to tell the truth … I remember she was relieved that the full story had finally been told … and at present it was in the jury's hands.
A JURY DECIDES
Information technology had been almost five long years since Ben Renick was murdered. Exhausted, Sam Renick waited for a jury to weigh the evidence confronting his younger brother's bride.
And after 12 hours, the approximate revealed the verdict.
Gauge CRANE [reading verdict): As to count 1, we the jury detect the defendant Lynlee Renick guilty of murder in the 2d caste … Verdict as to count 2, we the jury find the defendant guilty of armed criminal action.
In that moment, 33-year-old Lynlee Renick became a convicted killer.
Sam Renick: She really believed that she was gonna get away with all this. And she really believed that she was gonna become what she had planned afterwards murdering my blood brother.
The time still to be measured … the length of her stay in a Missouri prison house.
Approximate CRANE (to jurors): You may now retire to consider punishment in this instance.
For that, jurors gathered again, for a separate sentencing hearing. While life was an pick, the jury would settle on something considerably less.
Approximate CRANE: Penalization for murder in the second degree at 13 years. … Punishment for armed criminal activeness at three years.
Xiii plus three years for Ben Renick's life. Jurors never said why they chose such a seemingly light punishment. But half dozen weeks later on, Sam would tell the courtroom that the sentence itself was an injustice.
SAM RENICK: I beg the common person to watch the trial again and ask themselves if my blood brother'south life was worth only sixteen years. Xvi years is why I'm hither today.
He would recount that hideous day that changed everything.
SAM RENICK: The web of destruction travels far …
And spared no i.
SAM RENICK: She put the children through this experience. Here I am, covered in my brother's claret, attempting to comfort the children despite them asking me if their daddy is expressionless.
Sam'south frustration at the judgement seemed to be shared by the approximate. But nether Missouri law, he could not increase Lynlee's penalisation.
Guess CRANE: You're awful lucky ma'am. You're gonna go out in your 40s. And my 40s weren't too bad. I but promise you lot don't impale again. That's it.
Some reflected on the cast of bad characters: ii convicted killers and Ashley Shaw, granted immunity later plotting with Lynlee twice.
Dave McKenna: These people, these creeps and dark characters … behaving very desperately, and behaving inhumanely towards humans.
Ben Renick had created an Eden for serpent lovers. But information technology was people, not a snake that destroyed his paradise.
Dave McKenna: You lot tin reduce it to a story of greed … it may be every bit elementary as that.
Greed that left in its bloody wake children and a blood brother determined to carry on.
Sam Renick: The kids lost their father … My babies, and Ben'southward babies, and — I'm here to … take care of them for the rest of my life.
And around the world, wherever reptiles coil, slither and slide, the loss of a superstar is still felt.
Dāv Kaufman: What happened to Ben was a tragedy that absolutely did not need to happen. And … (sighs).
All the same Ben Renick lives on, in a way he would surely have loved — celebrated, with a new breed of snake named just for him.
Dāv Kaufman: The Renick Ghost. And what ghost is is a slight reduction of blacks, colour. It gives the snake a ghosty appearance to it. … And that is such a testament to what Ben meant to this community, that he now has a mutation of a snake named after him.
Peter Van Sant: You miss your friend.
Dāv Kaufman: Every single expo that we would see each other at, in that location is a vacancy there that will never exist filled again.
The stalking and related charges confronting Brandon Blackwell were dropped.
Lynlee Renick will be eligible for parole past 2035.
Produced by Chris O'Connell, Jamie Stolz and Alicia Tejada. Elizabeth Caholo is the development produce. Marlon Disla, George Baluzy, Grayce Arlotta-Berner, Gregory F. McLaughlin and Jud Johnston are the editors. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer
Wild weather reported up and down East Declension
U.S. and Europe continue to sanction Russian federation
President Zelensky accuses Russia of terrorizing his country
Source: https://news.yahoo.com/rock-star-reptile-breeder-murdered-042800837.html
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