He looked uncomfortable now, hesitant. I found the police reports from your case, the original investigation, and the man who was killed, Gerald Witmore. He wasn’t just some random businessman. David pulled out another document. He was Dian’s boyfriend. They’d been seeing each other for almost a year before his death. The room went silent. Margaret felt the blood drain from her face. What? According to the police reports, they were having an affair. Whitmore was married, but he and Diane were planning to run away together.
He was going to leave his wife, liquidate his assets, and start over with Diane in another state. But but Diane testified against me. She said I was the one who wanted Whitmore dead. She said I had a grudge against him. She lied. David’s voice was flat hard. She lied about everything. And I think I know why. He pulled out one more document, a life insurance policy. Gerald Whitmore had a $2 million life insurance policy. David said his wife was the primary beneficiary, but there was a secondary beneficiary listed, someone who would receive the payout if the wife was also deceased or if she was convicted of involvement in his death.
Margaret’s hands were shaking. Who? A woman named Diana Wilson. Except Diana Wilson didn’t exist before 2005. She was a fabricated identity. David met Margaret’s eyes. The social security number associated with Diana Wilson was issued to Diane Marie Ellis in 1972. The room spun. Margaret grabbed the edge of the table. “Diane killed him,” she whispered. “She killed Gerald Witmore, framed me for it, and collected $2 million in insurance money. That’s what the evidence suggests. Yes. $2 million plus the $400,000 she’d stolen from Margaret, plus whatever else she’d accumulated in the 16 years since.
Diane hadn’t just betrayed her sister. She’d executed a perfect crime. She’d gotten away with murder, literally, and built a new life on the wreckage of everyone she’d destroyed. And Margaret had spent 20 years in prison paying for it. The legal aid attorney’s name was Jessica Huang. She was 29 years old, 3 years out of law school, and she worked for the Tennessee Innocence Project. When David Chen sent her Margaret’s case file, Jessica read it three times in one night.
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