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Yeah, I thought it was a pretty reasonable chance of involuntary manslaughter. I'm sure you've seen the tv. You know, the jury comes out, you know, malice murder, not guilty. And I'm like, that's. That's right. You know, we expected that. Guilty of felony murder. I'm like, what? What? I was shocked by that. I was shocked by that. You know, it was days and days and days of jury deliberation. And the last thing that happened that day was they said to be guilty of. I'll abbreviate it a little bit to be guilty of felony murder. Does he has to? Did it. Does that include intent to shoot? And to us, that question meant we don't find the intent to shoot. So we were thinking, we're about to get an acquittal on that, too, because the judge said, oh, yeah, if you're going to find him guilty of that, you got to find the intended to shoot. Why would they have asked that question, you know? So we were even more emboldened at that point not to ask for a mistrial. Hung jury the jury returned its verdicts, finding McIver not guilty of malice murder. The first count that was read in the courtroom to everyone, including tax. For that brief moment, it was possible tacks was going to be found innocent and become a free man again. But the jury surprised everyone by returning a guilty verdict of felony murder, aggravated assault, influencing a witness, and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The verdict form provided blanks for each count of the indictment. And the jury was instructed that under count one, murder, and count two, felony murder, it had the option for finding of guilty of involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense. And both counts contained such a blank, the jury did not mark either of those blanks. This would become important once the proceedings wrapped. Don Samuel reflected on the case during a visit to my office in late summer of 2024. I think they put together a good set of circumstantial evidence, which they hoped and succeeded at convincing the jury that you shouldn't just find pure accident. They succeeded at that. And I don't have a problem with the jury reaching a verdict of negligence. I'm not a big second amendment fan, to put it mildly. I think someone who has a loaded gun sitting in his lap needs to have his head examined. And conceivably with the trigger pulled back, although it's in a bag, I mean, do you just discount all that? It's in a public grocery bag. Is that the way you intentionally shoot someone, Leave the gun in the bag and it's just so much nonsense. Your theory requires you to find that he's unbelievably devious and smart and unbelievably stupid. And you take the stupid stuff and say, well, that's just because he's stupid. And all the other stuff, you say it's because he's devious. I think that's an unfair way to use our criminal justice system. It's fine for you to believe. It's fine for anybody to believe it. I don't think juries should decide like that. They didn't find that he intended to kill her. I mean, so we don't know what this jury was thinking. There was some kind of compromise. It was obviously a compromise. We're going to find them guilty of aggravated assault without intent to kill. That couldn't have been what was going on at the district attorney's press conference following the verdict. Billy Corey stands next to the prosecutors. I can say that I concur. I concur. Tax is going to prison for the murder of his wife Diane, for the rest of his life. But this story is far from over. From Sony Music Entertainment and Waveland Road, you're listening to Deadly Fortune. This is episode six, Unspawn. The fallout from the case cut deep. Danny Jo Carter, who had been a star witness at the trial, also discovered new information about the day Diane died that still sends chills down her spine. Danny Jo had been out at Tex and Diane's ranch earlier that day, before they met for dinner at Longhorn, we got up and ate breakfast. I'm sure it was probably sage sausage biscuits with fresh jalapenos and drank coffee. And we were talking about planning. Diane was the ultimate planner. Yeah, we were making plans, detailed plans about that. We were getting all of our bags right at the door so that we could, like, stay out and play as long as we wanted to. And then at 6:30, our bags were at the door so that we could leave. I was going over to this judge's. It was a local judge's house, to pick up some venison because I was going to make 36 quarts of chili and dole it out to everybody, because that's what I did until I found out from the trial that was in 2018. So it was almost two years later that he had gone down to the barn and asked Tanner if he could take me home. That. And Tanner said, no, I can't. Diane would have been really, really, really upset. That might not have been a big red flag to other people, but for me, it was. It was not just a red. It was a huge blinking red light. Oh, it gives me goosebumps right now. You guys shot guns a lot? All the time. Was there a target range at the ranch? There was a huge. Yeah, we called it a range. It was a big mound of dirt, a small little mountain of dirt. And we would carve out shelves on there and put plastic bottles or targets or, you know, whatever and shoot. Perhaps that's where it was supposed to happen. That could have been a possibility that. That certainly would have fit in with something that we did all the time. Craig Stringer, also with Tex and Danny Jo that night at Longhorn, absolutely believes his old friend Tex intentionally killed Diane. Oh, I think. I think it was completely planned. I think that he had everything set up the way he wanted it set up. And I think in his mind, he knew how he was going to do it. And then when he did it, and they went through all that stuff at the hospital, and he'd already told me she had an accident. He had to change his story. He literally had to change his story. But I know what the problem was. I think you, too. Tex had borrowed $350,000 for her from her and told her that if he didn't pay it back, she would get the second part of the farm, and the farm was his. Originally, knowing Diane, she probably said, tax. You got five days to pay me, Tex. You better get some money, Tex. All on the farm. And that's the way Diane treated him, I think he got him snapped. But I also think he predestined her death. And what kills me is that they had money, but their money, this is from the forensic accountant said Craig said neither one of them had a lot of cash money. They had land, they had buildings, they had houses that, you know, stuff like that. So said either one of them, if either one of them passed away, the other would not be able to get money from. From the bank or from. Because there just wasn't that much there. It all had to be in property being sold. So what did Tex do? He had a four day auction of all of her furniture at all or all of her clothes. Tex was very intelligent, but. But he got. I think she got the best of him nagging on, especially when he thought he was going to lose his ranch. His brain just started working too fast and he said, I'm not going. I'm not going to let this happen. I'm not going to owe her that $350,000 on September 30th. I'm going to take care of this. And he did. Rachel Stiles, for one, still believes tax absolutely, because there was, you know, no definite proof that, you know, it was intentional. If Tex wanted to kill Diane, he would not have killed her in the backseat of a car with her best friend driving. Tex is a smarter guy than that. And any man, I mean, if he wanted to kill her, there was too many possibilities and he would have never done it that way, so that it was definitely an accident. And he loved her. He wouldn't have shot her because they had so many plans that they were going to do together. And, you know, one was the fact that, you know, Tex was retiring. And, I mean, that was never any doubt in my mind that it was an accident. And that's why I still have become Texas friend, because I believe in him. With the trial and headlines now seemingly behind everyone, the Georgia Supreme Court stepped in and made a shocking ruling overturning Texas conviction. Ruling from the Georgia Supreme Court as justices overturned the murder conviction of the prominent attorney who shot his wife to death as they drove through Atlanta. Tex McIver's attorneys say this 7 to 0 unanimous reversal shows that all the justices who heard this case are in agreement that the evidence against Tex for murder are, quote, not overwhelming or even strong. Hi, this is Jesse, host of the podcast Dinners on Me. The holidays are always hectic, and by the time January rolls around, I am craving simple, healthy meals that don't take hours to prepare. That's where Whole Foods Markets meal hacks come in. Last week, after a long day at work, I grabbed one of their salad kits, I paired it with one of their famous rotisserie chickens and dinner was done in under 10 minutes. No stress, no mess. Just good food made easy. And the best part? It's all high quality. No questionable ingredients. Just fresh, wholesome options that I can feel great about eating. They're ready to cook veggies and heat and serve. Soups are lifesavers as well. 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The state would be allowed to retry Tex, but the Georgia Supreme Court also prevented some aspects of the prosecution's case to be used as evidence in any new trial. The court held that the jury should not have been told about the Georgia Slayer statute, the law that prevented Tex from inheriting Diane's estate if he was found guilty of intentional homicide. The state had argued that the Slayer statute demonstrated Tex's financial motive for the killing, but the Supreme Court reasoned that the existence of the law actually cut against such a motive. The state failed to explain why Tex killed Diane under circumstances where he was clearly responsible for her death. If he had done so intentionally for financial gain. A new jury in a retrial was would not be allowed to hear the state argue that Text tried to make Diane's death look like an accident to avoid the Slayer statute. Nor would the new jury be allowed to hear about Diane's purported second will, which was never found. Brett Zimbrick, who was an investigator on this case, shares his experience with convictions being overturned by the Georgia Supreme Court. When I first started working murder in the 90s, we were probably getting 160, 170 cases a year. And then, you know, that's 21 detectives. So you're getting eight, nine, 10 cases a year. And, you know, back then we were working kidnappings, officer involved shootings. We had. Those were part of it. So. Hundreds. Hundreds, yeah. How many of those were overturned by the Georgia Supreme Court? I don't think I've had any overturned based on. If they get overturned, it's, you know, because of something that was omitted intentionally or direction by the, you know, the judge says something wrong in closing or in sentencing or whatever, and they get a resentence. So there's a couple minor ones like that. But this one, the fact that it got overturned, that it was, you know, Robert McBurney was the judge who I have huge respect for. I think he's a very intelligent and very fair judge. You know, he getting overturned on that one was kind of a shock. In reversing the conviction, the Georgia Supreme Court walked back some of its own reasoning from previous cases, reasoning Judge McBurney had specifically relied on in setting up the instructions and the verdict form for the jury. Remember how the verdict form had given the jury the option to find Tex guilty of involuntary manslaughter instead of murder? The jury had been instructed that involuntary homicide was the felony version of the offense and required a finding that Tex had acted with criminal recklessness. The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the jury should have also had the option to find that Tex was only guilty of a misdemeanor version of involuntary homicide and that he had acted only with criminal negligence. Our producer, Jason Hoak, had an opportunity to sit in person with Judge McBurney on a wide variety of topics around this case, in his quarters and on the record. Here's what Judge McBurney had to say about the Georgia Supreme Court ruling. I respect their judgment. It seemed to take a whole lot of legal maneuvering to get around the existing precedent of that same supreme Court upon which I relied in concluding that a charge on lawful conduct legitly performed would be appropriate. The only other observation I'll make is that the jury rejected recklessness as a level of mens rea, or intent in finding aggravated assault. And so it struck me as even if the correct legal answer going forward is given certain evidence, you must charge on that lowest level of intent. If a jury concluded that a higher level of intent didn't apply either, then it was harmless error. I think that's my most profound reaction is that if error, how was it Harmful. And that wasn't addressed in the opinion, but it controls. And the conviction was reversed, and we got back at it. You don't see too many. Too many cases like this being overturned one level up to you. You don't see a lot of people like Mr. MacGyver and all his connections either. Here's more from my conversation with Don Samuel on the Georgia Supreme Court ruling. So they. The jury leapfrogged a lesser charge. Yeah. Went for a more serious charge, but did not go for the most serious charge. That's right. Beyond the instruction error decision, which is very clear and I think makes sense. I think it's debatable. But I saw the logic of the Supreme Court saying, you should have. That's right. He should have offered involuntary manslaughter. Both involuntary manslaughters. Two different grades of involuntary manslaughter. Right. But the reversals seem to carry a good bit of opinion from the justices. Like, as you mentioned, the motive evidence was weak. It didn't make sense for Mr. McIver to shoot Diane downtown Atlanta. I was kind of surprised by the personal or the personal opinions in that decision. Did you find that interesting? It. It was a little strong, I thought. The opinion, for example, the opinion said all this hospital business was baloney. There was no reason to. I mean, that's just. That doesn't belong in a courtroom. That kind of weird speculation that he chose Emory over Grady, you know, in order to make sure she died, you know, and then the whole second will and, you know, we're going to spend days talking about maybe there was a second will. We don't know. We haven't found it. We haven't seen it. We haven't found the drafter. We haven't. Nobody saw her looking at or reading a second will. You know, one person says, she asked me to make a copy of something and said it was my second will, but she never looked at it. And nobody ever said Tex had any knowledge of the site. Nope. And the Supreme Court said, that's not the way we're going to decide guilt or innocence in this state. You know, this isn't, you know, a stupid TV show where you just throw in all the stuff and at the end it turns out the guy's guilty and he confesses. Why such a dramatic ruling? Was there some other influence happening amongst the legal and political players tied to this case? I'll just say it. Diane's friends believe the Georgia Supreme Court handed a get out of jail free card to their once prominent and powerful legal colleague. A black robe Back scratch. Regardless, the prosecution would have their hands tied with a retrial of Tex. But they pressed ahead anyway. Fani Willis tells Billy Corey the DA's office is ready to prosecute Tex again, and they move forward. The retrial of Tex MacGyver was set to begin. Dressed in a dark pinstripe suit, 81 year old Claude Tex McIver was back in a Fulton county courtroom Monday. And we are here to start the trial of Mr. McGyver. In 2018, a jury convicted Tex of killing his wife Diane. But last year, the state Supreme Court threw out the conviction, saying on the first day of jury selection, Judge McBurney issues an order that says to the prosecution, because of the opinion of the Supreme Court that the evidence was insufficient, you're not going to be able to allege that he did this intentionally. And number two, you can't bring up his finances as a motive either. So that order by the sitting judge after jury selection had started is a mystery. Why did Judge McBurney wait until jury selection started to issue these orders that came from him, not the Supreme Court? Now, some might say that he thought that if that evidence was introduced again, the Supreme Court might very well reverse him. Again, there's an argument that he was removing what led to the reversal in the first place. In the ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court, they argued the Slayer statute, which would have prevented Tax from gaining access to Diane's fortune because he had intentionally killed her, did not pass muster. They said if he were trying to avoid the effect of the Slayer statute while intentionally killing Diane for financial gain, would do so in a circumstance where there could be no question that he shot Diane in the presence of her best friend. Without Moore, this evidence was not relevant to demonstrate a motive for McIver to murder Diane or his intent to kill her. And it should have been excluded. But right as the jury was being seated and the retrial of Tex MacGyver was set to begin, Tex took a plea deal. And along the way, the Slayer statute provision, the one that would have prevented Tax from inheriting Diane's fortune, was mysteriously removed. And so James, he gets to the front door, he puts his key into the lock, he unlocks it, and with a sledgehammer in one hand, he attempts to push the door open. And so James, as he's pressing the door barely open, he's staring into this crack, trying to make out what's going on inside of his house. And then suddenly, a set of eyes meet his from behind the door. And before James can do anything, this man that is standing inside of his house says to James, hey there, I'm Mr. Ballin. And what you just experienced is just a taste of what you can expect when you listen to the Mr. Ballin podcast. In every episode, I peel back the layers of the strange, the dark and the mysterious. From unexplained phenomena that challenge everything you thought you knew about reality to true crimes that keep you up at night. I cover it all. Listen to the Mr. Ballin podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories for free on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad free on the Amazon Music app. Tex and Diane had it all until the night neither of them wished to relive Denied only one of them, she said, tex, what did you do? You shot me. Join us as we dive deep into a world of power, money and greed and one man's secret quest to grab the million dollar fortune of his deceased wife. From Sony Music Entertainment and Waveland Road, this is deadly fortune. Listen wherever you get your podcast. The plea deal Tex MacGyver cut that day is the reason why I'm here today telling the story because unbeknownst to anyone who loved Diane, including Billy Corey, a variable called the slayer statute had been removed from the new plea deal Tex took January of 2024. Back in 2018, former district attorney Paul Howard offered Tex a deal. If he pled guilty, then that plea included the provision that Tex could not gain financially from Diane's death, he could not inherit her estate, he could in no way benefit financially from shooting Diane. That provision was mysteriously removed from the 2024 plea deal without anyone's knowledge other than the prosecution, the defense and the judge. As I sat in the courtroom that day and as the plea deal evolves, the court, the prosecution and the defense make a point of saying that there had been a substantial wrongful death award during the process. When Diane's estate sued Tex's insurance company for wrongful death, they settled out of court and it was a large sum of money, $2,250,000. I remember watching Judge McBurney confirm that Tex McIver was waiving his right to that settlement. Both Don Samuel and Adam Abate agreed. As long as this negotiated plea agreement is going to be made part of the record, it need not be part of the final disposition, but it needs to be enforceable should something change. And what the state could point to would be paragraph that indicates that the settlement is going to be supervised by person X for the benefit of persons Y and Z, and that will all it's all in there. But the important part is not where it's going, where it's not going, and that is that Mr. McIver is abandoning any claim he might have, colorable or otherwise, to those settlement proceeds. Exactly right. Okay. Your understanding as well? Yes, you, Honor. Okay, got it. Then I think I understand the contours. Next, Tech stood in front of the judge and addressed the courtroom, where he finally acknowledged his responsibility in the death of his wife publicly. Mr. McIver, when you're ready. Yes, sir. Thank you. I have to apologize for my hearing at Long Prison, where I was for almost five years. All of us, every one of the inmates, had Covid at some point, and it took about half my hearing. Bunk mate next to me lost all his hearing. Really rather a shame, but those situations come and go. I wrote Diane's obit. It took me three days because I couldn't stop crying for the entire time that that obit was there. It's been circulated. It's on the net for time immemorial. Guy is the best friend I ever had. And I've had a lot of good friends for a long time, and places where you make friends very quickly, like in war and places like that. But she. She. She won my heart quickly. She, again, was the best friend. She's the best partner I could have possibly imagined, and I will always, always love her in that regard. She died as a result of my actions, plain and simple. I've stood up to that over and over again. I can't remember a day I didn't cry for the first two years I was at the prison. It makes me very, very, very angry. It makes me nervous because I know that he thinks that if it weren't for me and Billy Corey, that he would never have been incarcerated. I mean, he asked a lot of people at different times to fall on their sword for him. The fact that he has even been recorded saying I was going to send him to prison makes me very nervous for him to be out with some extra money, that something might happen to me day of the plea deal, that it was only $70,000. I like Adam. I like him a lot. And, you know, it is very possible that he didn't know exactly how much that was in there. I don't know what his relationship with Mary Margaret Oliver, but she. I don't think she had to give anybody any information, especially the prosecutors, about how much money there is. So I don't really know. I don't know what to think about that. That day in court when Tex finally had something to say. Still sticks with Danny Jo Carter, me and you and friends of Diane's, Billy Corey, that we were all getting what we wanted because Tex finally had to admit that he killed her. Well, everybody knew that he killed her. He was the only one sitting in the backseat with a gun. He did it. That was never a question. I mean, but he never would say it. He never. Well, he never said he was sorry, but, I mean, when he said, yeah, you know, I'm responsible for her death, that meant absolutely nothing to me. Immediately afterwards, I felt like, you know, I didn't quite comprehend everything because it's all so wordy about what was actually going to happen to him. And I didn't realize until later that even if he goes to serve the rest of his time in prison, that he gets out in the middle of 2025. The judge directed the proceeds of that settlement to go to Tex and Diane's godson, Austin Schwall. But what happened next seemed to take everyone by surprise. Judge McBurney went on to say that he was appointing Austin's father, McBurney's fellow Fulton County Superior Court Judge, Craig Schwall, to be the trustee of all that money. Georgia law gives the trustee 100% confidential control, so the public will most likely never know how that money is spent. The last condition that I'm aware of, that needs to be part of your sentence and will be in the final disposition, is that you are forfeiting, waiving, giving up whatever the right term is. I'm going to say waiving any and all rights that you may have to the settlement from the lawsuit that was brought by the administrator of Diane MacGyver's estate against you, and a settlement resulted. You are. I guess what I need to say is not that you're waving. You are assigning the rights that you have, any rights that you may have, you are assigning them to Judge Schwall for the benefit of his two sons, which means you are abandoning and relinquishing the rights you have to that settlement amount. Your assignment is a condition of your probation. You may have already done it, and you'll have complied and completed that term of probation. But that's something you don't get to unwind or undo so long as you are on probation, do you, Mr. Abate? Did I miss any conditions of probation that you had expected and negotiated would be part of this resolution? You covered all of them. All right, Mr. Samuel. I did not intend to make them any more severe or restrictive than were negotiated in other words, I am going along with the plea agreement. Billy Corey is sitting there also and realizes that okay, something's not being said here. They've made such a big deal out of saying that Tex is waiving what we believe to be two and a quarter of a million dollars of insurance proceeds to go to his godson. And it was arguable that that's what Diane would have wanted. But the hanging chad, the elephant in the room is, well, wait a second, what about all of Diane's element, other money that's left in her estate? After the proceedings, I go out into the hall and Mr. Corey is standing there, Danny Jo standing there with a handful of people that were there to Support Diane. And Mr. Corey asks the prosecutor Adam Abate, what happens to the rest of the money in Diane's estate. And Adam says, well, I think there's only about $70,000 and I'm pretty sure the attorneys are going to gobble that up. Billy Cory was placated. I guess he felt a little better. He's like, well, 70 grand's not a lot of money. And if that's all there is, then that'll definitely go to the attorneys, end of story. Billy was stinging from the fact that Tex is going to be released from prison after serving six years for killing his wife. The jury saying, murdering his wife. But at least he's not going to benefit from her death. Except for one small, incredibly important and nearly overlooked detail. The trustee of Diane's estate, Ken Rickert, works for Mr. Corey. He's an in house attorney for Cory Companies. By law, Ken Rickert is allowed to know how much money is in Diane's estate as well as how it's going to be distributed. Imagine Billy Corey's shock when Ken Rickert found out the actual value of Diane's estate is not the $70,000 discussed that day outside the courtroom. Instead, her fortune is estimated to be worth between 1 and $4.5 million. After his original conviction Tax had been removed as the executor of Diane's estate because of an obvious conflict of interest, the jury found that he killed Diane so he couldn't get her money even if he was named heir to her fortune. To resolve any conflicts of interest with the distribution of Diane's finances, the state appoints a non partial neutral party in Mary Margaret Oliver to be the executor of the estate and to distribute the proceeds of the estate as to the directions of Diane's will. Since Tex is no longer the heir. Well, with Tex's verdict reversal and the new plea deal that has now removed the Slayer statute. Guess who's first in line for Diane's estate? Tex MacGyver is next time on Deadly Fortune. Oh, Lord, she would not be happy. And thank God she's in heaven and not having to worry about this that they were trying to rush something through behind the scenes in order to make this whole thing go away and put the money in Tex McIver's pockets. Yes, she. She did tell me that she wanted Austin to have the range. Diane would have wanted Austin to have money. Yes. So it's the craziest case I've ever seen in Georgia history. Unlock all episodes of Deadly Fortune ad free right now by subscribing to the binge Podcast channel. Not only will you immediately unlock all episodes of Bing this show, but you'll get binge access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts. All ad free. Plus, on the first of every month, subscribers get a binge drop of a brand new series that's all episodes all at once. Search for the binge on Apple podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page, not on apple. Head to getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. Deadly Fortune is a production of Sony Music Entertainment and Waveland Road. I'm your host and reporter, Dale Cardwell. Jason Hoke wrote and produced the series. Our associate producer is Marnie Zambri. Production support provided by Tim Millard. Audio engineering by Shane Freeman. The original score for Deadly Fortune is by Thomas Avery. Jason Hoak is the executive producer. On behalf of Waveland Road, executive producers for Sony Music Entertainment are Jonathan Hirsch and Kathryn St. Louis. If you love the show, tell your friends and don't forget to leave a review. Thanks for listening.