← Devil in the Ditch
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- [00:00]
Dale Cardwell
Hey, Devil in the Ditch listeners. Dale Cardwell here, journalist and host of the latest series to drop on the Deadly Fortune. Like Devil in the Ditch, Deadly Fortune digs deep into a family mystery where shocking truths lie just beneath the surface. And if you're a subscriber to the binge, you can listen to all episodes ad free right now. Tex and Diane McIver were Atlanta's perfect power couple. An accomplished attorney and a charismatic, high powered business executive. But one fateful night, their storybook marriage came to a sudden, tragic end. Tex shot Diane in the back. Their community was stunned, reeling from what appeared to be a freak accident. But was it? That's where I come in. Tex and Diane were friends of mine, and I still remember the visceral shock when I got the call that Diane was dead. Dead. Something about it didn't sit right and I set out to dig into this case. As the evidence and circumstances surrounding that night came to light, more and more pieces just didn't add up. And now, after spending six years behind bars, Tag spends six years behind bars only to have the verdict reversed, putting him in line to walk free and inherit Diane's $4.5 million fortune. Was Diane's killing part of a schemed and carefully calculated set of events hidden in plain sight? Join me as we unravel this case on Deadly Fortune. Here's a sneak peek. The ranch was Texan Diane McIver's 85 acre estate in Edenton, just outside of Atlanta. The place is spectacular, surrounded by a beautiful white fence and stone columns and woods for miles to ride horses. The ranch is truly beautiful and totally fit with who Diane and Tex were hanging on the wall, a sign that said we don't dial 911 with an old rusted pistol mounted right under Danny. Joe Carter had been out at the ranch on September 25, 2016, and Danny Jo, Diane, Tex and Craig Stringer left for a night of steaks, red wine and laughter at the Longhorn Steakhouse. This was a nice outing for the friends, especially for Danny Jo and Diane, who were still working on repairing old wounds of some bumpy moments in their friendship.
- [02:40]
Danny Jo
Diane and I had a falling out because I had developed a drinking problem and she knew that I needed to quit. I knew that I needed to quit. And we got crossed up one day and she said she had to distance herself from me. So the wedding. Yeah, was blowout. It had been planned. We had meetings every Monday night for a year about the food and the dress and da, da, da, da, da. Everything. Yeah. There most of the people that were there. Could not figure out why I wasn't there that night. And I'd kind of been. Well, when she distanced herself from me, it was. I figured I was uninvited. I don't know, it might have been a better thing had I shown up. But, you know, that's. That's in the past.
- [03:23]
Dale Cardwell
But tonight, things were good. And Danny Jo was acting as the designated driver, taking Diane and Tex to Atlanta after their dinner in the MacGyver's Ford Expedition SUV. Diane was the passenger. Tex sat behind her. As they approached the connector, traffic was backed up for miles.
- [03:44]
Danny Jo
I'm driving. And Diane says, well, get off here. We get off. And about that time, she starts yelling at Tex to wake up, because obviously he dozed off in the backseat to look at ways. I thought, we don't need to look at ways. You know exactly where we are. And she says, well, get off here. Get off here. And the ramp to get off at Edgewood is kind of a long curve and goes down the hill a little bit. And Tex woke up, and. And he said, well, girls, I wish you hadn't done this. This is a really bad area. This is a bad area. And I thought, it's not really that bad of an area. I wasn't paying attention. I was paying attention to driving. So we got to the bottom of the ramp, and the light was red. And he asked Diane to hand. He said, darling, hand me my gun. And I knew that there was a.38 that was in the console right below my elbow. And she said, tex, I don't even know where your gun is. Well, I knew that it was there because I'd driven that vehicle a lot, and I just knew it was there. I had both hands on the steering wheel because it's dark, it's a huge vehicle. And he said, it's in the console. Well, she went to lift up the console, and I glanced down, and I don't see it. He said, it's in the bag. There was a Publix bag, one of those brown ones. And it was in that bag, which was odd, I thought. I started to reach down and. And get it, but I had. I thought, no, you just. She doesn't have anything to do. Let her hand it to him. If that's gonna make him feel like he's Mr. Protector or, you know, whatever. Let her hand it to him. So she did. She handed him the gun. But I did notice some people on the sidewalk. I guess they could have been walking from dinner or whatever. And Diane says, turn Here. So I was going down Piedmont and I thought, that's great. We can just, you know, take a straight shot. And she and I were just talking about the debates, and, you know, I tattoo eyebrows. And she had decided to find she'd worked up the nerve to do it. We were talking about that. And of course, it was the time of year that you switch out your closets. And she was doing that. And that was a two or three day project because of the amount of her clothes she had gone from the two closets to storage units. So we were talking about when that was going to happen. And we got around Piedmont park and I stopped at a traffic light. Diane was playing with the door locks. And I said, what are you doing? She says, I'm making sure it's locked. And I was like, okay, she's just playing. She was a little tipsy. And then within seconds, I heard this loud explosion. I didn't realize that it was in the car, which amazes me, but I didn't. I just turned to the right and I was thinking, what? What exploded? Did somebody hit us? And I'm thinking, no, nothing's jarring me or the car. About that time, Diane sat up and turned around to look toward the center of the console. And she said, tex, what did you do? And he said, the gun discharged. I turned around and looked at the same place she was looking. And I could see his hand moving. I could see the bag and I could see the gun and the poof of smoke. I'm thinking, there's a bullet hole in the bottom of the car. I put both my hands on the steering wheel and I thought, she is getting ready to tear him a new one. And I just want to get home, want to get home, get my car. And they can have it out because. Because there's a bullet hole in the bottom of this car. And within still seconds. It seems slower now to talk about it. She turned around and sat straight up in the seat and was just facing forward. I thought, turn. I wanted the light to turn green. And she sat forward and kind of moved, turned around toward me. And she said, text. You shot me. I realized that I didn't know where that bullet was.