transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Thank you for subscribing to 48 Hours Plus. Enjoy this episode of 48 Hours Uninterrupted.

Speaker 2:
[00:17] I loved you before this ceremony, and I love you more because of it.

Speaker 3:
[00:21] You may kiss your bride.

Speaker 4:
[00:25] They're inseparable.

Speaker 5:
[00:26] Tex absolutely adored Diane, and Diane adored Tex. I feel like the prosecution has tried to make this out to be about someone who is successful and powerful trying to get away with something like murder. They don't know Tex and Diane personally, like I do.

Speaker 6:
[00:48] A woman died after she was shot inside a car on this block.

Speaker 7:
[00:55] Previously, on Breakdown, welcome back. Before we plunge back into the story of Tex McIver, I want to tell you I'm a reporter with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and we've been covering the Tex McIver case since day one. This was an enormously high-profile case. They were a big-time power couple.

Speaker 8:
[01:14] We're going to have plenty of beverages over here, so just everybody start walking, please.

Speaker 7:
[01:19] Tex under ranch out in Putnam County, which is a pretty nice place for a vacation home. They woke up that morning, Tex made sausage biscuits and coffee and took them upstairs to Diane and Danny Joe, her longtime friend. They spend the afternoon playing golf, and they drive back to Atlanta.

Speaker 9:
[01:46] On their way back to their condo and bucket, they stop on the way at Longhorn to get something to eat. They have some wine at dinner. Danny Joe was driving because she didn't drink. My name is Bruce Harvey, and I represent Tex McIver.

Speaker 7:
[02:03] Tex is seated right behind his wife in the back passenger seat. They're going to hit traffic that just stops them still. So they're thinking, we got to get off of the interstate. We got to find a better way to get to Buckhead. According to Tex, he had been asleep, but when they go down this ramp, he wakes up.

Speaker 9:
[02:25] It says, I think this is a bad idea, ladies. It's a dangerous area. Will you hand me my gun? Honey. And she does.

Speaker 10:
[02:35] He fell back asleep.

Speaker 9:
[02:37] I think he fell into what he said was sort of a between being fully asleep and being fully awake.

Speaker 7:
[02:45] According to Tex, the car comes to a stop. He was jolted awake.

Speaker 11:
[02:51] I was handling the gun. I didn't realize it was in my lap. Right. And it went off.

Speaker 10:
[03:00] Can a 38 Special just accidentally go off?

Speaker 12:
[03:03] Never known it to happen. You have to pull the trigger.

Speaker 10:
[03:06] Jiminy.

Speaker 7:
[03:08] The gun would be right here in his lap, according to what he said. So he was startled. He pulls the trigger, and the bullet goes just to the left of the middle here. If you're trying to kill someone, you know that's going to be devastating to whoever's sitting there.

Speaker 10:
[03:22] Especially if you're trying to make it look like an accident.

Speaker 7:
[03:25] Yes. I would think so.

Speaker 10:
[03:26] Yes.

Speaker 7:
[03:29] I think there are people who absolutely believe that he killed his wife for whatever reason, probably for money. People get killed over money all the time.

Speaker 9:
[03:38] That's the dumbest plan on the history of the planet. And anybody that thinks that that is the way that Tex McIver deliberately killed his wife is just living in a fantasy world.

Speaker 7:
[03:59] They drove back to Atlanta on a Sunday night. They were headed to Tex and Diane's luxury condominium in Buckhead.

Speaker 10:
[04:06] On the night of September 25th, 2016, Tex McIver shot and killed his wife, Diane. They'd been together for sixteen years, married for eleven years.

Speaker 5:
[04:18] I remember the first time I ever met Diane. She just had such a commanding presence about her.

Speaker 10:
[04:25] According to close friend, Anne Schwal, Diane was the love of Texas life.

Speaker 5:
[04:31] She was beautiful and there was such an energy and electricity about her.

Speaker 10:
[04:37] The year was 2000. Forty-seven year old Diane was recently divorced with no children and a thriving career as the executive vice president of a real estate and advertising company. In search of a fresh start, she moved into this luxurious condominium in Atlanta's swanking neighborhood Buckhead.

Speaker 13:
[04:58] Everyone in the building was talking about her.

Speaker 10:
[05:01] Linda and Rance Winkler say their new neighbor was hard to miss.

Speaker 13:
[05:05] She wore St. John and Chanel on the golf course. She wore hats just about every day and she had a presence and a way of carrying herself.

Speaker 10:
[05:17] But, says Linda, no one paid more attention to Diane than another popular divorcee in the building, wealthy labor lawyer, Tex McIver. Before he met Diane, did he have a love life that you knew of? Or a dating life?

Speaker 13:
[05:32] No. He was so consumed with his work. He'd been through a very painful, difficult divorce. It wasn't until Diane came along that he was interested in having a romantic life.

Speaker 10:
[05:51] Tex was a decade older than Diane, but they soon became inseparable, spending much of their free time at Tex's weekend home, fondly known as The Ranch. Where the couple was known for throwing parties for Atlanta's rich and powerful, says friend and Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills.

Speaker 12:
[06:12] They were big entertainers. They were always having somebody there for some kind of party or some kind of political thing like that.

Speaker 6:
[06:21] We have had the best yet party.

Speaker 12:
[06:24] Diane was always the life of the party. She was always the boss of the party, too.

Speaker 10:
[06:30] After five years together, Diane agreed to become Mrs. Tex McIver.

Speaker 13:
[06:37] He cared about her, which was probably the very first time she had that experience in a lot of years. He didn't need her.

Speaker 10:
[06:44] That somebody cared about her?

Speaker 13:
[06:45] For her.

Speaker 10:
[06:46] Just for her.

Speaker 13:
[06:46] Just for her. Not for her money. He had as much as she. In fact, in terms of liquid assets, he was further along than she.

Speaker 10:
[06:56] So having both suffered through painful and expensive divorces, the couple decided to keep their finances separate.

Speaker 13:
[07:05] I don't know anyone, actually, who's combined their assets, having married at the age that they married. And you have to remember that Tex had this terrible, painful...

Speaker 10:
[07:20] Expensive.

Speaker 13:
[07:21] Divorce. And he was never going to put himself in a situation like that.

Speaker 10:
[07:27] Was there an issue of money between them?

Speaker 13:
[07:29] Not in the conventional sense, but when they started building this place, you can see this place, you see what it's like.

Speaker 10:
[07:36] Showplace.

Speaker 13:
[07:37] Yes.

Speaker 10:
[07:37] Linda is talking about this guest house on Texas property. Before the wedding, they say Diane insisted on building the massive party house that she named the Saloon.

Speaker 14:
[07:50] Tex really didn't want all this. Diane wanted it.

Speaker 13:
[07:53] The scale of it.

Speaker 14:
[07:54] And he told her that if she wanted it, she would pay for it. And she said, fine.

Speaker 10:
[08:01] But money and who paid for what in that relationship would come back to haunt Tex, becoming a possible motive for murder. Is there any scenario where you can think that Tex would have shot Diane intentionally?

Speaker 5:
[08:17] Never. Never once.

Speaker 10:
[08:19] Anne Schwalz says she admired Diane and Tex so much that she asked them to be godparents to her youngest son, Austin.

Speaker 5:
[08:28] They just adored him, and they just poured so much love into him.

Speaker 10:
[08:32] Tex was all the family Diane had, and after his divorce, he was estranged from two of his children. Too old for children of their own, Anne says they focused all their attention on Austin. And how did Austin feel about them?

Speaker 5:
[08:50] Oh, he adored them.

Speaker 10:
[08:52] The ranch was their special place, and every year, it's where Tex and Diane insisted on hosting extravagant birthday parties for Austin.

Speaker 5:
[09:03] The birthday parties were legendary. A sign of how much they loved him.

Speaker 10:
[09:12] Tell me when you heard about what happened.

Speaker 5:
[09:15] So he called me. It was in the middle of the night. And as soon as I heard his voice, and he said, he lost Diane. And my immediate reaction was, how am I going to tell Austin?

Speaker 10:
[09:31] Anne says Austin never once blamed Tex for Diane's death.

Speaker 5:
[09:36] He actually was just really worried about, you know, how Tex was doing.

Speaker 13:
[09:42] He's never said I didn't shoot her. He's never said I didn't kill my wife. He is profoundly regretful.

Speaker 10:
[09:49] It was all a tragic accident, according to Tex's defenders. But here's the biggest problem. No one, including Tex, can explain how his gun went off and killed his wife.

Speaker 13:
[10:04] We just asked him that day before yesterday.

Speaker 14:
[10:06] He still cannot give an answer to exactly what happened.

Speaker 11:
[10:11] What do you remember after the gun was off?

Speaker 10:
[10:17] Two days after Diane's death, Tex and his then-lawyer met with Atlanta Police Department homicide detectives.

Speaker 3:
[10:25] I immediately called out and said, is everybody all right?

Speaker 11:
[10:28] And Danny Joe said, yes. And Diane, it was kind of flabby. She said, I've been shot.

Speaker 10:
[10:37] As detectives set out to investigate the shooting of Diane McIver, they focused on their best witness.

Speaker 15:
[10:44] You ever take any safety glasses or anything like that? No, it was nothing.

Speaker 3:
[10:52] Don't worry about it for a long time.

Speaker 10:
[10:53] And they focused on their best piece of evidence.

Speaker 11:
[11:14] Almost made the SUV, the two women in the front seat. I said, you know, I'd like, if you don't mind, please hand me my gun.

Speaker 10:
[11:25] There is no doubt that Tex McIver pulled the trigger on the gun that killed his wife, Diane. The question is why?

Speaker 7:
[11:34] Previously on Breakdown.

Speaker 10:
[11:36] Reporter Bill Rankin's Breakdown podcast takes a deep dive into the Shakespearean drama surrounding Tex McIver. He's a 48 Hours consultant on the case.

Speaker 7:
[11:47] Holding a loaded handgun, pointing at your wife, falling asleep, seems pretty reckless.

Speaker 10:
[11:53] Using a similar car, Rankin showed us how the bullet that killed Diane McIver traveled through the passenger seat of Texas SUV.

Speaker 7:
[12:02] It hits there and it goes from right to left through the seat.

Speaker 10:
[12:07] And exits out here.

Speaker 7:
[12:08] Right. And goes down slightly downward path through his wife's body.

Speaker 10:
[12:15] The bullet went through Diane's left rib cage and diaphragm, severed a vein and artery in her spleen, and then hit several organs, including her left kidney and stomach.

Speaker 16:
[12:28] And she started breathing funny and she kind of passed out.

Speaker 10:
[12:36] That night, detectives were anxious to hear Danny Joe Carter, the car's driver, explain what Tex did after he shot his wife.

Speaker 16:
[12:45] I was thinking between the hospital and the hospital. I don't even know how to get there, and he said, no, Anne-Marie's closure.

Speaker 7:
[12:53] Tex decided to go to Emory University Hospital.

Speaker 10:
[12:57] There were four hospitals, all approximately less than five miles from where the shooting is believed to have taken place. Emory was the farthest, at about 4.3 miles. But one of the best trauma centers in all of Georgia, Grady, was only about 3.2 miles away.

Speaker 7:
[13:17] Anybody who lives in Atlanta knows about Grady Hospital and it's a level one trauma center. There were people who have said that he went to Emory Hospital because it was going to take longer and maybe let her bleed out.

Speaker 10:
[13:31] Family friend, Sheriff Howard Sills, who is not involved in the case, says no way and explains that Grady just was not on Texas radar.

Speaker 12:
[13:41] If you're rich and you're affluent, then you don't want to go to Grady Hospital.

Speaker 10:
[13:48] This dramatic surveillance footage shows the SUV arriving at Emory's emergency room and Tex helping Diane into a wheelchair. Then before surgery, Diane made a critical statement to her doctors. Her husband did not mean to shoot her.

Speaker 11:
[14:09] She said it was an accident.

Speaker 10:
[14:11] But two hours later, Diane McIver died on the operating table at 12:49 a.m. You want to have the worst feeling in your life?

Speaker 11:
[14:23] To be sitting in one of the waiting rooms, two surgeons and scrubs and a chaplain come around the corner and start walking toward you.

Speaker 10:
[14:32] Now, it was up to detectives to determine was it truly an accident or was it cold-blooded murder? This Smith & Wesson.38 caliber revolver that killed Diane was in the car's center console inside a plastic bag when it was handed to Tex by Diane.

Speaker 11:
[14:52] We've had some break-ins in our office.

Speaker 3:
[14:54] In response to that, I had wrapped my gun in a public-interest paper.

Speaker 14:
[14:58] The gun was still in the bag when it went off.

Speaker 10:
[15:01] The gun was still in the bag?

Speaker 14:
[15:02] Yeah. I mean, he might have had his finger on the trigger.

Speaker 17:
[15:06] The first rule of firing a gun is, don't put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to pull and you have your target in sight.

Speaker 10:
[15:13] Law enforcement analyst and former police officer Vincent Hill says, a guy like Tex should have known better.

Speaker 17:
[15:23] So to wake up out of this sleep, you're startled. Your finger's automatically on the trigger. You pull this trigger and you do one shot, a kill shot. In my mind, it's not likely.

Speaker 12:
[15:32] Lean into it, cock the weapon.

Speaker 10:
[15:35] And Hill is not alone, in his opinion. That's why I asked former Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Burt Davis to take me out to a gun range, not far from Texas Ranch. I wanted to understand the gun.

Speaker 12:
[15:54] See how well you're doing? You know, the revolver can be fired two ways.

Speaker 10:
[15:59] The handgun, which only shoots one bullet at a time, can be fired in two very different ways, single action or double action. Either way, it does not look good for Tex, because experts say this gun only goes off if the trigger is pulled. In single action, the shooter pulls back the hammer, like this. With the gun already cocked in this position, it hardly takes any effort at all to pull the trigger. It only takes about two pounds of pressure to actually pull the trigger, which is why experienced gun owners say you only cock this gun if you know you are about to use it.

Speaker 12:
[16:46] No one that I know of would...

Speaker 8:
[16:48] Just sit with your gun in single action.

Speaker 10:
[16:51] A double action is a different story. This gun is not loaded, but I want to show you what happens. In double action, you pull the trigger, and the gun automatically pulls the hammer back, rotates the cylinder and fires. But it's not easy because it takes about 12 pounds of pressure to actually pull the trigger, making it much harder to fire it accidentally.

Speaker 8:
[17:15] It would be difficult.

Speaker 10:
[17:16] But not impossible. But somehow, that gun was fired. And to this day, Tex cannot answer this question. Was the gun in single action or double action?

Speaker 9:
[17:27] Good question.

Speaker 10:
[17:29] Tex's lawyer, Bruce Harvey, is one of Atlanta's most successful and sought-after defense attorneys. What is your challenge with this gun?

Speaker 9:
[17:37] Clearly a trigger was pulled, right? The question is, was that a voluntary knowing and intentional action or an involuntary action based upon an accident?

Speaker 10:
[17:53] But Tex was clearly no stranger to guns. Out at the ranch, he had what many would consider an arsenal of weapons. After Diane's death, Tex asked his buddy, Sheriff Sills, to go out to his ranch and collect his guns for safekeeping. So you cleared out how many guns?

Speaker 12:
[18:11] As I recall, it was about thirty-five guns.

Speaker 10:
[18:14] Including rifles, handguns and AR-15s. Would you describe him as a gun guy?

Speaker 12:
[18:22] Yes and no. Here in the South, everybody's got a lot of guns.

Speaker 8:
[18:29] We're getting ready to put on a rodeo demonstration with real cows.

Speaker 10:
[18:34] But the idea that Tex McIver should have known better was about to become a central and recurring theme for the seventy-five-year-old lawyer. It gets really crazy.

Speaker 7:
[18:46] I think we've called it a textbook example of what not to do after you kill your wife. Bruce Harvey is one of the most distinctive members of the Atlanta Defense Bar. He has worn a braided ponytail down his back for decades.

Speaker 10:
[19:01] Bruce Harvey was not Tex McIver's first attorney. How did you first hear about it?

Speaker 9:
[19:07] It was all over the media.

Speaker 18:
[19:09] It all started September 25th. Startling new information in the shooting death of Diane McIver.

Speaker 10:
[19:14] Harvey, who knew Tex through mutual friends, says he watched the news coverage for almost a year, while McIver made a mess of the case and his reputation.

Speaker 9:
[19:25] A complete ongoing disaster, mismanaged from day one, I think resulting in the reason that we're sitting here to start with.

Speaker 10:
[19:36] It started right after the shooting. Atlanta's media immediately began clamoring for an answer to why on earth Tex had been sitting right behind his wife in his SUV with his finger on the trigger of a loaded gun. Four days after the shooting, Tex had an explanation in a statement made through a spokesman.

Speaker 7:
[19:59] He said that Tex told him that he asked for the gun because there were either homeless people, carjackers or Black Lives Matter protestors.

Speaker 10:
[20:08] What do we want? That gave Tex an air of being rich, white and oblivious, igniting a real life bonfire of the vanities.

Speaker 7:
[20:19] Why would you equate Black Lives Matter protestors with carjackers? Why would you inject race into this? That put the story into a whole other realm and it went national because of that.

Speaker 17:
[20:34] You have this very rich, very powerful white guy in a city that's predominantly black. I think that's why this case is so appealing to the public.

Speaker 10:
[20:46] Texas attorney at the time publicly denied that his client ever said he was afraid of Black protesters, but the damage was done and things were about to get even worse.

Speaker 18:
[20:59] CBS 46 has an exclusive look tonight at the diamonds, the furs and the designer bags about to go on auction.

Speaker 7:
[21:05] This was pretty stunning.

Speaker 10:
[21:07] Just two months after shooting his wife, Tex started selling off Diane's extensive collection of valuable belongings. Her most expensive jewelry, fur coats and handbags would go to the highest bidders at an auction. The district attorney's office filed motions to block the sales, but a judge denied their requests. And as the executor of Diane's estate, Tex said he had no choice. Why?

Speaker 7:
[21:37] According to Tex, he said that in her will, Diane had left a lot of money to some of her employees and some of her friends, so he needed that money to pay them.

Speaker 9:
[21:48] Now, all that money went into the estate and not to him.

Speaker 10:
[21:52] But timing in this case was everything.

Speaker 6:
[21:55] Tex has come under fire for holding the two sails while still at the center of the homicide case.

Speaker 9:
[22:00] Should it have gone forward at that time? Could it have waited? The answer clearly is yes, and that's something we just have to deal with.

Speaker 10:
[22:08] At least Tex still had Danny Joe Carter. Danny Joe was his best witness, the only other person in the car when the gun went off. The night of the shooting, Danny Joe told detectives, in no uncertain terms, she believed Diane's death was an accident.

Speaker 16:
[22:29] There is not a doubt in my mind that it was completely one of the trouble accidents.

Speaker 10:
[22:37] But on February 2nd, 2017, a little over four months after the shooting, Danny Joe changed her story.

Speaker 4:
[22:46] He's not been nice to me and tried to manipulate me.

Speaker 10:
[22:50] In a third interview with the investigators, conducted inside of Tex's SUV, Danny Joe alleged that on the night of the shooting, Tex told her to lie.

Speaker 4:
[23:03] He tried to get me to lie, supposedly to protect me from getting all wrapped up in this.

Speaker 7:
[23:09] Danny Joe said Tex walked up to her and said, why don't you just tell police you weren't in the car?

Speaker 9:
[23:16] There's no question she was in the car. There's no question she was driving. There's videotape at Anne-Marie Hospital.

Speaker 10:
[23:23] Bruce Harvey concedes that it is possible Tex was just trying to protect his friend.

Speaker 9:
[23:29] Danny Joe, at that particular time, was being hounded by the media. And I think a lot of this effort was to try to allow her to avoid the media crunch, not designed for her not to talk to the police and not to give a particular statement.

Speaker 10:
[23:50] But there was no media yet at the hospital.

Speaker 9:
[23:52] There was going to be.

Speaker 10:
[23:54] Are you saying that Tex may have told her to tell the cops she wasn't in the car so that people would stop hounding her?

Speaker 9:
[24:00] Yes.

Speaker 10:
[24:01] So Tex may have told her that?

Speaker 9:
[24:03] If he did.

Speaker 10:
[24:05] But there is no denying this. Days after the shooting, Tex orchestrated a meeting with his lawyers and two reporters, where Danny Joe was to make a legal and public statement that the shooting was an accident. When she was a no-show and stopped taking his calls, Tex left this frantic voicemail for her husband.

Speaker 11:
[24:26] Let me just be plain. Danny is about to send me to prison. Please erase this voicemail message, but call me right away. Y'all have no idea the problem this is causing. It's innocent, but it's absolutely nuclear for me.

Speaker 10:
[24:41] So what does he mean by that?

Speaker 9:
[24:42] When we examine, well, we don't have to explain what he means, they have to explain why it is a crime for him to do that or how it relates.

Speaker 10:
[24:52] Bruce Harvey was still watching from the sidelines when on December 20th, 2016, Tex got some good news. The Atlanta Police Department concluded the shooting was not an intentional act. Based on their findings, the Fulton County District Attorney charged Tex with involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct.

Speaker 6:
[25:14] After spending his birthday behind bars, Tex McIver bonds out of jail just before Christmas weekend.

Speaker 10:
[25:22] But with the case now in the hands of the District Attorney's Office, they decided to launch their own investigation into the shooting.

Speaker 7:
[25:31] There was a bond hearing where the lead prosecutor, Quint Rucker, strongly hinted that they didn't believe it was accidental. That made everyone think, whoa, okay, this is getting even more serious now.

Speaker 10:
[25:53] A little over a week after Tex McIver was charged with involuntary manslaughter, there was more breaking news in this case.

Speaker 6:
[26:02] Startling new information in the shooting death of Diane McIver.

Speaker 10:
[26:06] Our Atlanta affiliate, CBS 46, uncovered evidence that at the time of Diane's death, Tex owed his wife $350,000.

Speaker 6:
[26:17] He was supposed to pay her back with interest by December of 2014. That never happened.

Speaker 10:
[26:24] Tex said that the money was Diane's contribution to the construction of that saloon on his ranch, and that for tax purposes, Diane wanted it to look like a loan.

Speaker 14:
[26:36] There was $350,000, but it wasn't ever actually going to be paid back by him.

Speaker 13:
[26:41] The $350,000 was a function of nothing more than taxes.

Speaker 10:
[26:47] But on paper, it does look like a loan, and one that Tex was expected to pay back.

Speaker 7:
[26:53] That could be argued that he didn't want to have to pay that off.

Speaker 10:
[26:57] Meanwhile, the Fulton County DA's office was looking for a possible motive for murder. When they heard that Diane may have had a second will, subpoenas were obtained to search the couple's financial records. And that's when this happened. During a search of their condo, Tex was found to be violating the terms of his bond, with, of all things, possession of a gun.

Speaker 7:
[27:24] They found a gun in his sock drawer that he probably went to all the time when he was getting dressed, and they found ammunition in the drawer right above it.

Speaker 10:
[27:31] Tex insisted that the condo had already been searched for and cleared of any weapons. So the Glock pistol, which he claimed had once belonged to Diane, must have been planted. The judge didn't buy it.

Speaker 19:
[27:45] Mr. McIver possessed the gun. I am going to revoke Mr. McIver's bond.

Speaker 10:
[27:54] After four months out on bond, Tex was back behind bars when the very next day, there was yet another stunning announcement by the DA's office. A grand jury that had been hearing testimony for weeks concluded there was enough evidence to charge Tex McIver with the murder of his wife.

Speaker 7:
[28:17] It was surprising that it leapt so far from an accident to cold, cruel, intentional killing.

Speaker 10:
[28:27] Tex would spend the next eight months in jail, seeing loved ones only through video screen visitations.

Speaker 3:
[28:35] Hello, Austin, Mommy, how are y'all?

Speaker 10:
[28:38] And desperately trying to get out on bond again.

Speaker 3:
[28:42] Well, I love y'all, and I hope to see everybody on Wednesday if things work out. I love you, Austin.

Speaker 10:
[28:50] Then, Bruce Harvey took over the case.

Speaker 9:
[28:52] I don't believe, I don't believe in my heart or hearts, I don't believe as we're sitting here, that Tex McIver had any deliberate intent to do any harm to his wife.

Speaker 3:
[29:04] We're going home.

Speaker 10:
[29:05] Harvey got Tex released and put on house arrest. Then, he set about preparing for trial on a case where there had been one public blunder after another. Are you concerned about being able to seat an impartial jury?

Speaker 9:
[29:19] Yes, I am. I think Tex has been unfairly vilified in the court of public opinion.

Speaker 10:
[29:28] Jury selection in the trial of Tex McIver began on March 5th and took a whole week.

Speaker 4:
[29:34] Well, today, jury selection got underway in a Fulton County courtroom.

Speaker 10:
[29:38] And a pool of more than 140 potential jurors.

Speaker 20:
[29:42] Good morning, everyone.

Speaker 10:
[29:44] When the trial began, Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney, Salida Griffin, delivered the state's opening argument.

Speaker 20:
[29:52] The day that the defendant shot his wife in the back, his life was spinning out of control.

Speaker 10:
[29:57] And what became fairly clear is that the prosecution believes Tex McIver's motive for murder was money.

Speaker 20:
[30:05] The easiest way for him to gain control was to kill Diane.

Speaker 10:
[30:11] Is money a motive here? No.

Speaker 9:
[30:15] Very simple answer. He is much worse off without her. I think that is a huge red herring. You know why? Because they've got nothing else.

Speaker 20:
[30:27] Now, this is a case about maintaining an image of wealth and power that the defendant created for himself and the lengths that he went through to keep it.

Speaker 21:
[30:44] All rise for the jury.

Speaker 10:
[30:46] Testimony in the murder trial of Tex McIver began on March 13th and lasted twenty days. By closing arguments, the jury had heard two very different theories of why Tex McIver shot his wife.

Speaker 22:
[31:04] I'm gonna talk to you about the facts.

Speaker 10:
[31:06] Prosecutor Clint Rucker and his team painted an ugly picture of a man who they say was broke and so desperate for money that he murdered his wife.

Speaker 22:
[31:16] He was taking her money and he was regaining control.

Speaker 10:
[31:20] Evidence showed that McIver's salary at his law firm had been cut by more than half, while the state says he was living way beyond his means. And remember, the McIvers kept their finances separate.

Speaker 22:
[31:33] Remember this email? This is a couple of months before the murder. This is what the defendant says to his wife. I am seriously trying to reduce my monthly expenses. Why? Because his monthly expenses at the ranch alone were 20 to 25,000 dollars a month. What does he say? I plan on hitting the lotto sometime this week.

Speaker 10:
[31:57] The state believes that Tex was using Diane for her money. But what drove him to murder is this. Before they were married, Tex borrowed $750,000 from Diane. As payment, the state says he deeded her half of his ranch.

Speaker 22:
[32:14] What that meant was that now the property was no longer owned solely by the defendant.

Speaker 10:
[32:21] In 2011, Diane loaned Tex another $350,000. But this time, she made Tex sign a promissory note that gave her the right to foreclose on the ranch if Tex didn't pay up.

Speaker 22:
[32:34] So when the loan didn't get paid, she said, I'm going to put another clause in here that says, you know what? It's not that I don't have to wait until you don't pay me. I can foreclose at any time. And as we sit here today, the loan is in default. By killing Diane, the defendant will regain sole ownership of the ranch.

Speaker 10:
[32:55] The jury heard Danny Joe's claim that Tex asked her to lie. They also heard about the Black Lives Matter statement and the auction. But there was more. They heard what happened to Diane's ashes after she was cremated.

Speaker 22:
[33:09] It took him forty-two days to pick up his wife's remains. That's why I found them. Tucked back in a closet, in a cardboard box, it's just not right.

Speaker 10:
[33:22] But the defense team told a very different story, a love story.

Speaker 22:
[33:27] They were in love.

Speaker 1:
[33:28] Nobody ever saw them arguing. Nobody ever heard her say, I'm gonna foreclose if you don't pay me my money.

Speaker 21:
[33:36] This is the big one.

Speaker 10:
[33:37] Bruce Harvey and the defense team tried to show that Tex did not need Diane's money.

Speaker 9:
[33:43] Tex was not broke, nor was he in dire financial straits. The state's calculation put Tex's net worth at 1.7 million before Diane died.

Speaker 10:
[33:56] But what the defense tried hardest to hammer home was that the shooting was nothing but an accident. And remember, that's what Diane said before she died.

Speaker 9:
[34:07] The three people that were in the vehicle all said it was an accident.

Speaker 10:
[34:15] And as for the gun?

Speaker 9:
[34:18] Remember the expert?

Speaker 8:
[34:19] With the firearm.

Speaker 10:
[34:21] Harvey used the state's own gun expert to show that anyone can fire the gun accidentally.

Speaker 9:
[34:29] Remember him demonstrating the weapon and pulling the trigger when he testified right here.

Speaker 8:
[34:37] You notice the trigger.

Speaker 9:
[34:46] Oops, he's demonstrating it for you on the witness stand. He accidentally pulls the trigger. He says, oops.

Speaker 10:
[35:02] The shooting could not have been premeditated, says the defense, because it was Diane who told Danny Joe to take that exit when they hit traffic. And after Tex was handed his gun, he fell back asleep. The defense also presented an expert who said Tex suffered from a long documented sleep disorder, which might explain why he unintentionally pulled the trigger and can't remember how.

Speaker 23:
[35:30] Oftentimes, when people arouse from these, they don't arouse quickly. They frequently have amnesia for this.

Speaker 10:
[35:39] As the case was about to go to the jury, the defense suggested that the state had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 9:
[35:48] We do not convict people in fogs of speculation, but on the bedrock of fact.

Speaker 22:
[36:01] Diane tried to stand up for herself.

Speaker 10:
[36:03] And on behalf of the state, Clint Rucker pleaded with the jury to punish Diane McIver's killer.

Speaker 22:
[36:09] Who will stand for Diane McIver? A great woman she tried to be.

Speaker 10:
[36:23] The jury deliberated for about twenty-nine hours. At one point, each sat in the back passenger seat of McIver's SUV, holding the gun that killed Diane. On their fourth full day of deliberations, the jury sent a note to the judge saying they were deadlocked.

Speaker 15:
[36:41] We don't see it.

Speaker 10:
[36:45] But the judge told them to try again. Then, just two hours later, they reached a verdict. Was it malice murder? Meaning Tex intended to kill Diane. Felony murder. Tex shot Diane with the intention of causing her bodily harm, but had not intended to kill her. Felony and voluntary manslaughter. He acted recklessly. Or not guilty.

Speaker 3:
[37:11] On count one, murder.

Speaker 11:
[37:13] We find the defendant not guilty.

Speaker 7:
[37:15] Well, when the jury came back and the foreman read, not guilty on malice murder, I was like, Oh my goodness.

Speaker 10:
[37:22] But then they said this.

Speaker 17:
[37:25] We find the defendant guilty of felony murder.

Speaker 10:
[37:28] Guilty of felony murder. Tex was clearly stunned. The jury felt that he shot Diane without malice of forethought, but intending to do bodily harm.

Speaker 7:
[37:41] Might have been a compromise for the jury. It's no compromise for Tex McIver because malice murder and felony murder both carry a life sentence.

Speaker 10:
[37:50] A mandatory life sentence.

Speaker 9:
[37:52] It's a complete tragedy. I mean, that closes the circle. Everybody loses.

Speaker 10:
[37:59] Tex handed over his belt and was handcuffed. Fulton County DA. Paul Howard brought it back to the victim, Diane.

Speaker 21:
[38:09] We would like to say to Diane, we hope that you are watching and we hope that you felt that we stood for you and we stood for the things that you represented.

Speaker 11:
[38:23] Given these shackles, if you don't mind, I would like to say this.

Speaker 10:
[38:26] At his sentencing hearing, Tex spoke directly to Diane.

Speaker 24:
[38:31] I know she's here. I feel the presence of God. Donald, you have brought me more joy and fulfillment than few men on this earth have ever known.

Speaker 10:
[38:42] But it's what he didn't say that stood out.

Speaker 19:
[38:47] I didn't ever hear you say you're sorry for what you did. To me, that silence speaks volumes.

Speaker 10:
[38:57] Prosecutors say this is justice for Diane. Tex McIver's supporters disagree.

Speaker 5:
[39:05] She didn't need justice when it's a terrible accident. She's in heaven right now, just heartbroken.

Speaker 25:
[39:15] Tex McIver won his appeal for a new trial in 2022 with the Georgia Supreme Court ruling that jurors should have been able to consider the lesser charge of misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter on January 26, 2024. He pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in exchange for a prison sentence of eight years. With credit for time served, McIver was released in January 2025.