Blaine Alexander (4:24)

I want to just talk about how big of a case this was, and this is something that you certainly bring forward in the episode itself. But it was so interesting for me watching this because I remember this whole thing playing out in real time. I remember it's crazy that it was a decade ago, but I was a local reporter when all of this happened. And the biggest thing that I remember, aside from us covering all of it, was you talked about the Corey Towers, this kind of iconic tower in Atlanta, and it's right at the interchange of 70, 25, 85 and 20. So basically, if you're driving down the highway, you're going to see it. And her picture was up there for such a long time. I mean, it was something that everybody knew about and everybody noticed. How did you come to find out about this story, Josh?

Josh Mankiewicz (5:05)

You know, we. I think we read it in the paper, or your station in Atlanta called us, which also does happen. And, you know, as you know, I mean, we get. We get alerts from local stations around the country all the time about stories that they're working on that they think might end up being a Dateline story. And it's the kind of story that makes a great Dateline episode. I mean, the two of them, Tex and Diane, were memorable characters both in real life in Atlanta and sort of in the trial and the aftermath that followed. Did you. Did you ever cover either one of them before this? Did you know about them?

Blaine Alexander (5:46)

Not before the shooting, no, not before the shooting. I was familiar with the company with Corey, but I wasn't familiar with either one of them by name. But certainly after all of this happened, I Mean, and everybody started digging into it. I did. Here's what's interesting, though. I'll tell you the interesting way that this overlapped the property that you talk about, this beautiful property that they had, where they had their ranch. It was in Eatonton, Georgia, Putnam County. I know it well because my husband and I actually used to own property. Certainly nothing like that, by the way. Nothing. Nothing even close to that. Let's be clear.

Josh Mankiewicz (6:17)

Grand.

Grainger Announcer (6:17)

Not.

Blaine Alexander (6:18)

Not even almost that ground, but we had some land and it was literally less than two miles away from where the ranch is. Like, I know exactly where that is. And so.

Josh Mankiewicz (6:27)

And so you know how isolated that is. Absolutely. If you're going to commit a crime, if you want to get rid of your spouse and claim it was an accidental shooting, that's the place to do it. You're not going to have any witnesses.

Blaine Alexander (6:42)

That's the place to do it. But also because, again, there was a shooting range there. Everybody's shooting guns there. Right. So a shooting accident certainly does not stretch the limits of believability. Right. And so something like that would have been easy to cook up out there. But I want to talk about Danny Jo. I love that you were able to talk with her. I love that she was as candid as she was. I loved that we just had her voice in all of this because, I mean, how rare is it that we actually have the person who was really right there when the crime happened? Usually these things happen in isolation or you don't. Whatever it is, you don't hear from the person who was sitting right there when all of this unfolded. And so I'm curious if there are any behind the scenes you can tell us about her conversation. I'm just curious about what her demeanor was like as she was recounting all of this to you.

Josh Mankiewicz (7:27)

So here's the thing about Danny Jo. She was completely unafraid of what might happen in that interview. You know, a lot of people we talk with, you and I. Right. They are worried about how they're going to come off and they're worried about possible legal ramifications that that might follow. Right. Are they going to get charged? Are they going to be implicated in some way? Are they going to get sued? Danny Jo was not worried about any of that. She was completely forthright. And, you know, her testimony, like, did not get Tax off the hook. And although there was rampant speculation at the time that, you know, she was in on it with tax either because they were having an affair, because he was going to, like, cut her in on the money or something like that. None of that turned out to be true either. There was no relationship between Danny Jo and Tex except a friendly one. And she was sort of as much Diane's friend or maybe more so than Text. I mean, there was nothing going on there. Which is, again, as I sort of was talking about before, like, like, if you're gonna kill your wife, you are not gonna do it in front of somebody who is not you. Who, you, who you don't know is going to back up your own story.

Blaine Alexander (9:01)

Sure.

Josh Mankiewicz (9:02)

You know, you're going to do it with somebody who's going to say, oh, yes, that's absolutely right. There were people running toward the car with guns, and Text took out his gun and accidentally shot Diane, like, but, but there was none of that. I mean, she did not, she did not make Text sound better in her testimony. She did not, you know, back up his story. And, you know, she was, I thought Danny Jo was a very sort of honest broker of all the facts in this case. And then she also, you know, drove around with me through the route they had taken from the shooting scene all the way to Emory Hospital, which is, again, a long way.

Blaine Alexander (9:42)

Absolutely, absolutely. I have to say, one of the things that really struck me about Danny Jo was that we saw the moment that she learned that Diane MacGyver had died. That was what that, that was really. I just felt so bad for her in that moment. One, she's taking her friend to the hospital, and I could see that she thought, okay, she shot in the back. This is wild. This is not good. But she felt comfortable enough, that she was stable, that she, you know, felt okay leaving. But then to get that news via text message, mind you, which I thought was really rough. And then we see her kind of break down. You could just see how close they were. And then I just really felt for her.

Josh Mankiewicz (10:20)

You could. And I mean, this, that, that's, that's the thing that says to me more than any other sort of investigative thing, I wasn't a part of this. You know, I, I, this is a terrible thing that I was a witness to, but that I, I played no role in this. And I think that's right. I think she, she didn't play any role in this.

Blaine Alexander (10:39)

When we come back, Josh will share an extra clip of his interview with some of the jurors at Tex MacGyver's trial.

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Blaine Alexander (12:52)

One of the big characters we always talk about characters in our Dateline stories. Sometimes they're, of course, the people that we talk to. Sometimes it's the location, the city. In this one, I think that an unconventional character is Atlanta traffic. You start with Atlanta traffic. Atlanta traffic plays a big role in the way that all of this went down. For some of our viewers who have never had the pleasure of visiting this fair city, I mean, I want to talk about Atlanta traffic because some people could look at this and say, gosh, is it that bad that you would need to exit and take this roundabout way? Yes. Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

Josh Mankiewicz (13:26)

I lived in Atlanta for three years from 1983 to 1986. Okay, so that'd be 40 years ago that I left, right? It was savage then. I can't even imagine what it was like in 2016 when this happened.

Blaine Alexander (13:46)

It is. It is one of the things that you have to plan sometimes I plan my entire week around how to navigate different things I'm doing around Atlanta. Traffic right between taking my daughter to school, doing interviews, just different things because it is so unpredictable. And the only thing that's predictable is that's going to be bad at different times. And so hearing them say, okay, they had to exit because, you know, the congestion was just so bad, that makes perfect sense. That's not something that raises eyebrows.

Josh Mankiewicz (14:20)

Yeah, I mean, it was. Look, look, you know, we always look for something in, in a Dateline story to sort of get us out of the chair with the, with the other person that we're interviewing. And sometimes, you know, you're walking around the crime scene, sometimes you're, you're, you're visiting some important part of the story. But in this case, clearly, the thing that that was most important was that this shooting happened during a car trip which was then diverted to, to Emory Hospital. So we sort of started where, where they got off the freeway, and we ended at Emory. And we did it at night. And Danny Jo was driving. It was hard for her to drive, much harder for her to drive us than it had been to drive Texan. Diane. Because we had all these lights in the car to light the light the two of us up so that we could be seen on the. All the cameras that we put in the car. So let's just say it was not optimum driving conditions because we would get the stoplights. Right. And you see people in the next car, like, looking at us like, what's going on in there? Why are they. Why is that car lit up like a movie set? Right. But I mean, so, so Danny Jo, I think, remarked a couple of times, like, she's like, she's like, leaning forward. Like, there's a lot of glare here, which there was not that night. Most people don't. Yeah. So that was a, that was the thing. But fortunately, she was. We didn't have a problem with that.

Blaine Alexander (15:50)

But to actually go through that route. What did you think when you were driving that with her?

Capital One Announcer (15:55)

It's a long way.

Josh Mankiewicz (15:56)

It's a long way. And there is a hospital that is not only closer, but that handles gunshot wounds at a far greater number than Emory Hospital does.

Blaine Alexander (16:08)

It's a level one trauma. It's great that she would take you on that drive, too. I think that that really helped and brought a lot to the story. Let's talk about guns and how guns fire. I love seeing you kind of demonstrating it at the end. Right. The difference between buying it when it's cocked versus when it's not pulling the trigger. Do you have a lot of firearms experience, knowledge?

Josh Mankiewicz (16:29)

I don't know. That's, that's, that's why we, we, we worked with a real firearms expert on this. And you see him with me in the episode shooting the shooting the exact same model of gun that Text used. And here's the thing. You've got to pull that trigger very hard for that gun to go off. That is the thing I was, I was surprised by when we sort of did that, that test, which is that is not a hair trigger. You have to, you have to pull, you have to put quite a bit of pressure on that trigger to get that gun to go off. When you go over a bump on the road, it's not that kind of hair trigger. You have to pull that trigger.

Blaine Alexander (17:14)

Sure, Absolutely. Let's talk about the trial. Initially, he was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but prosecutors gathered more evidence. They charged him with murder. Did they run the risk of overcharging him here, kind of taking that next step?

Josh Mankiewicz (17:29)

I mean, that's always a risk, you know, and that's always, that's always a risk the prosecutors have when they have a case that's very high profile. And, you know, there is some significant part of the, of the, the population and wherever it is that you live and wherever you're trying this case that, you know, sort of wants the book thrown at this person. And that's when people do get overcharged because you have, you know, I'm not saying this happened in this case, but in a lot of cases you have, like, an elected DA who wants to appear tough on crime and is asking for the maximum penalty on everything. And the evidence doesn't always support the maximum penalty on everything.

Blaine Alexander (18:05)

Before we get to the jurors, I want to. There was one piece that stood out to me during. I mean, several things about the trial stood out to me. But let's talk about the use of the prop, the prosecutor's use of the prop. He came out, he had that jar of muddy water.

Josh Mankiewicz (18:19)

This was a thing that Clint. Is Clint Rucker no longer a prosecutor in Atlanta? I think he's in private practice now. He. This is the thing Clint was famous for, was he would take this jar of, of water. I'm not sure from where, maybe out of the Chattahoochee. I'm actually not sure where it came from. But he would put this jar of muddy water on the wall that separates the well from the jurors, and he would say, this water is Muddy. By the time I finish my closing argument, it will be clear. You will be able to see it. Then he talks for a while, and he gives his closing argument. And then, of course, the silt has settled in this jar, this Mason jar, and you can see through it. And so it's kind of a. Kind of a metaphor for what he's trying to achieve. You know, Texas attorney Bruce Harvey, who has a long ponytail, despite the fact that he's a grown man. Sorry, he has. I mean, come on. He has on his shirts. He has a monogram on his shirts. Bruce Harvey does. And the monogram is. Let me just make sure I have this right. I believe this is it. It says 13 and a half. 13 and one half. And that's his sort of mantra as a criminal attorney, which is 12 jurors, one judge, half a chance.

Blaine Alexander (19:56)

Hmm, right.

Josh Mankiewicz (19:57)

That is up to 13. In other words, everything stacked against us. We have half a chance. That's the. That's the whole sort of attitude of criminal defense attorneys, which is not entirely wrong. Prosecutors like Clint Rucker tend to go into cases like this with the. The deck stacked heavily in their favor. It's why prosecutors in murder cases around the country, like, you talk to them, and they have records. One lost records in murder cases of, like, you know, 28 and 1, 29 and 2. I mean, these are. These are. They go in with. With. With the deck overwhelmingly in their favor. So Clint uses the. The Mason jar with the silt and mud in it, and. And the passage of time. And then Bruce Harvey has 13 and a half monogrammed on his shirts.

Blaine Alexander (20:50)

Can I just say that everything you just ran down. That's so Atlanta. I love Atlanta. I mean, these are. Both of these guys are fixtures in the legal community here. I've dealt with them a number of times. They're folks who are very familiar, you know, with the process. But, yes, they have their. Their ways that they go about arguing cases. And so it's always interesting to watch. We've got some characters down here. Let's. Let's talk about the jurors. We have an extra clip of you talking to some of them about their choice to convict Tex MacGyver, not of malice murder, but of the lesser charge, killing someone in the process of committing a felony.

Josh Mankiewicz (21:26)

All right, so you go in, and how quickly do you take a vote after deliberations begin?

Juror 1 (21:31)

Pretty much right away.

Josh Mankiewicz (21:32)

What was the first vote?

Juror 2 (21:34)

Five guilty and then seven lesser charged counts, one and two.

Juror 3 (21:40)

And I felt like when we walked into the deliberation room that he was guilty, and we all thought he was guilty of something. We had a difficult time agreeing on what that was. And when you add all of the things up in this case, too many things happen right next to each other to just say, well, he's not guilty.

Josh Mankiewicz (22:02)

Did tempers fray, voices raise?

Juror 2 (22:05)

There was some crying on some days.

Juror 1 (22:06)

Crying, there's yelling. There was temper tantrums, people storming out. We weren't making progress. And then the error in the jury room was a defeat of, you know, we're 12 grown people, respect for each other. How come we couldn't come to a decision? And we came back in. We agreed as a group that we were going to give it one more shot. We went back to our notebooks and found the evidence. And that was, I think, the pivotal moment, actually, where we said, look, Tex himself is the only person that said, I woke up, had the gun, and just went off. And his own attorney. The only testimony we had was it wasn't caught, so he had to pull the trigger. And I think that's what did it.

Josh Mankiewicz (22:46)

Not guilty of malice murder. Not guilty of trying to kill his wife, but guilty of trying to shoot her. What he was. Tex was trying to shoot Diane but not kill her. I don't get it.

Juror 2 (23:00)

One of the things that we had to do. Do with the murder charges, you know, we had to determine, particularly for those of us who were in the guilty camp, can we truly find the intent? And we couldn't.

Blaine Alexander (23:13)

Yeah.

Juror 1 (23:14)

I mean, for aggravated assault, there's an intent to cause bodily harm. Right. And when we looked at the evidence, that's the only action that we had actually any testimony around. And for the actual malice and hatred and the intent to murder his wife, there was a lot of reasonable doubt

Josh Mankiewicz (23:34)

in my mind, but there was no doubt that he intended to shoot her.

Juror 3 (23:40)

Well, again, I think when you look at the moment where the gun goes off, did it go off unintentionally or did it go off on purpose?

Josh Mankiewicz (23:47)

You think justice was done here?

Juror 3 (23:49)

Yes, I do.

Juror 2 (23:52)

I do. I remember once we came to that, to the final decision, I think everybody felt not a sense of relief that it's over, but a sense of relief that we made the right decision.

Blaine Alexander (24:05)

Lot to consider there. That's interesting to hear that.

Josh Mankiewicz (24:07)

Yeah. You know, and I mean, I think one of the things you can tell from that conversation is that they would have loved to be able to consider a charge of involuntary manslaughter, but that wasn't one of the things that they were offered. And that's the, one of the, that's, I think, the reason that the Texas case was eventually overturned, that the belief that jurors should have had that option to consider a lesser charge because it felt like they wanted to convict. It was something. Something short of actual deliberate murder.

Blaine Alexander (24:37)

Sure. And that conviction being overturned, that happened in 2022. Tex eventually pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter rather than go back to trial. And now he's out. He's been released on parole.

Josh Mankiewicz (24:52)

Yeah. Well, you know, he's how old now?

Blaine Alexander (24:57)

I mean, he's, he was 82 when he was released.

Josh Mankiewicz (25:00)

Yeah. So he's like what, 82 years old? 82. 83 now.

Blaine Alexander (25:03)

83. Yeah.

Josh Mankiewicz (25:04)

Yeah. I certainly understand the decision to take that plea because he's, he's out now and whatever years he has left, at least he won't have to live them behind bars.

Blaine Alexander (25:13)

Okay. And after the break, Josh and I will answer some of your questions from social media.

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Blaine Alexander (27:57)

Well, as you can imagine, a lot of people had a lot of thoughts about this episode. So let us go to our favorite part of any talking Dateline episode and listen to some viewer questions. So let's get this from Allison Silcox Ledman on Facebook, who writes, my biggest problem is that it wasn't his decision to get off the freeway at all. Did he just decide to shoot her right there, right then, zero planning involved? Had he told her to get off, that would be one thing. But he didn't. It just doesn't seem plausible to me.

Josh Mankiewicz (28:26)

Look, as we talked about this, there is not one single explanation of this. It was murder. He thought of it at the time. It was planned. He thought about it for a long time. It wasn't planned. It was. It was a complete accident. Right. None of that really makes any sense. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I it there is no theory that fits the facts perfectly in this case.

Blaine Alexander (28:55)

Sure. Here's a username that's appropriate for this time of year. Marching Madness says on X Texas trying to be smooth. Too smooth.

Josh Mankiewicz (29:05)

Well, you know, as you heard the jurors, I mean, like they, they did not believe Texas story.

Blaine Alexander (29:12)

Okay, good. Let's hear from this genuine Laurie on X says, I'm sure I've said this before, but I will never pass judgment on anyone because of how they grieve or respond to a tragedy. Well, that's always something that comes up in our episodes.

Josh Mankiewicz (29:24)

Laura, you have not seen enough Datelines. Because what America does is pass judgment on anybody who grie outside the norm. I mean, we all say that. We say, you know, you know, people grieve differently. Right? But if you grieve by selling off your dead wife's possessions in a very short period of time, you're going to get judged for that. Not just by your friends and neighbors, not just by people watching on tv, but by people whose job it is to lock you up. So, yeah, get ready. We. We do all grieve differently. I got a podcast out right now called Trace of Suspicion, in which how someone grieves is a huge part of the story. So, yeah, I would urge you to listen to that.

Blaine Alexander (30:10)

Here's one from Rara. 1875. 1937. Who writes on X? Let's just say I don't think that you can shoot your wife on accident.

Josh Mankiewicz (30:18)

Yeah, well, many Dateline viewers would argue exactly that.

Blaine Alexander (30:23)

Yeah. Interesting question from Misty Hargrave, who writes on Facebook. I'm wondering why the jury was able to completely discount the medical testimony regarding the defendant's sleep disturbances. It seems much more likely that the gun was discharged after text jolted himself awake.

Josh Mankiewicz (30:40)

And of all the possible explanations, that certainly makes as much, maybe more sense than anything else. Again, that feels like involuntary manslaughter because it's still, you know, if you don't have your gun in your hand, then it doesn't make any difference. You know, if you're jolted awake, you don't kill anybody in the process. I mean, that is exactly, I think, where the jury ultimately came down, but they weren't able to consider that charge. Yeah, I think that's right. I think he probably was jolted awake and, you know, didn't. Didn't realize that he was clenching his hand at the time. I don't think he meant to shoot. Again, if you're going to shoot somebody, you don't shoot them through the seat of a car, which might deflect the bullet and maybe not kill the person. And then you've got someone sitting right next to your victim who you can't count on to tell your version of the story. So that's sort of where I come down.

Blaine Alexander (31:39)

It's not a sure way. If that was your plot to kill your wife, it's certainly not a surefire way of doing it. Well, the last question, Josh, is actually from me. After dipping your toe back into Atlanta traffic for this episode, would you ever move back?

Josh Mankiewicz (31:54)

Well, I did love Atlanta. I mean, it was. I don't know that Atlanta. Blaine, I don't think Atlanta's big enough for the two of us, so I'm gonna let that be your battlefield. But I did love it there.

Blaine Alexander (32:10)

You're welcome to come visit anytime.

Josh Mankiewicz (32:11)

Thank you. Thank you.

Blaine Alexander (32:13)

We'd love to have you. And thank you, of course, for talking Dateline with me, friend it was always a pleasure anytime. And that is it for talking Dateline this week. Remember, if you have any questions for us about our stories, you can always reach us 24. 7 on social media. Aine NBC. You can DM us your audio or video questions on socials or you can always call and leave a voicemail. That number is 212-413-5252 for a chance to be featured right here on the podcast. Thanks so much for listening.

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