Talking Dateline: Deadly Detour

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I've always been a glass half-volt kind of guy, and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that we too.

Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges, their stories, their funny, and my candy. So I hope you'll join me each week and who knows. You might just come away with your own. A glass half-volt. Search Glass Half-volt with Craig Melve from today. On YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. I am Blaine Alexander, and today we are talking "Date Line."

“I'm so happy to be joined by my good friend Josh Mankowitz. Hi, Josh.”

Hello.

We are here to discuss your episode "Deadly Detour" and what an episode it was.

So if you haven't seen it, you can watch the episode on peacock or listen to it in the "Date Line" podcast feed, and then come right on back here for this conversation. Later we'll have an extra clip from Josh's interview with several jurors from this case. Then Josh will answer some of your social media questions about the episode. All right, Josh, my friend, let's talk "Date Line."

Just for our viewers who may not be as familiar. Just kind of give us a quick rundown of what happened here. Well, you know, textbook it out of her was an attorney in Atlanta in a very big deal. Had been for a long time, and he was married to Diane, and he was also a very big deal in business in Atlanta. And so they were sort of this power couple. And they had this property way, way, way outside of town, and they had been there for the weekend,

and they were coming back. And as they were getting off the freeway, something happened. In Texas version of what happened, he thought he was driving into the middle of a Black Lives Matter protest, which he was not, but he did say that. He was not driving, and Diane was not driving. They're driving was their friend, Danny Joe, because he was afraid of what he thought was about to happen.

I will say that that sort of strains crudulity a little bit. Text took out his gun, because he thought he felt at risk. And then nothing happened, but text kept his gun in his hand. And then as they continued to drive, they went over a bump, text awoke with a start. He may have dosed off, not really clear, but the gun went off. Now, admitting to holding a gun falling asleep and accidentally firing it is

probably in itself some kind of crime. But what happened was he, the bullet went he was in the back seat, the bullet went through the front seat, and hit his wife. Diane, during which she uttered a memorable phrase, which we called this deadly detour,

“but the only thing anybody remembers about this is her words, "Tex, I think you shot me."”

And she was correct. He had shot her. And then they then drove to Emory Hospital. Despite the fact that there were closer hospitals, and they took Diane to the emergency room, and they were not able to save her. She was she died as a result of being accidentally or depending on who you asked deliberately shot by her husband. And that was the basis of this story. 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 quarry towers. It's kind of iconic

tower in Atlanta. And it's right at the interchange of 75, 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,

the story, Josh? You know, 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, 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 data line story. And it's the kind of story that makes a great data line episode. I mean, the two of them, Texan Diane, were memorable characters, both in real life in Atlanta and sort of in the trial. And then the aftermath of the follow, did you, did you ever cover either one of them before this? Did you know about them? Not before the shooting. No, not before the shooting. I was familiar

with the company with Cory, 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 overlap, the property that you talk about, this beautiful property that they had where they had their ranch. It was an eating to 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. Not even almost that graph. But we had some land and it was literally less than two miles away from where

the ranch is. I know exactly where that is. You know how isolated that is. Very 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.

That's the place to do it, but also because, again, there was a shooting range there. Everybody shooting guns there. 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 Joe. I love that you were able to talk with her. I love that she was as candid as she was. I love that we just had her voice and all of this. Because I mean, how rare

is it that we actually have the person who was 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 they're anywhere 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. So here's the thing about Danny Joe. 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 might follow, right? Are they going to get charged? Are they're going to be implicated in some way? Are they going to get sued? Danny Joe was not worried about any of that. She was completely forthright and, you know, her testimony like did not get texts 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 Joe and Tex except a friendly one and she was sort of as much Diane's friend or maybe more so than Tex. I mean, there was nothing going on there, which is, again, as I sort

of was talking about before, like, like, if you're going to kid your wife, you are not going to do it in front of somebody who is not, who you, who you don't know is going to back up your own story. 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 Tex took out his gun and accidentally shot Diane like, 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 a Danny Joe 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 root they had taken from the shooting scene all the way to Emory Hospital, which is, again, a long way. Absolutely. Absolutely. I have to say one of the things that really struck me about Danny Joe was that we saw the moment that she learned that

Diane and Giver had died. That was what, that was really, I just felt so bad for her in that moment. One, she's taken her friend to the hospital and I could see that she thought, okay, she shot

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 breakdown. You could just see how close they were and then I totally felt for her. You could. I mean, that's, 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, this is a terrible thing that I was a witness to, but then I played no role in this and I think”

that's right. I think she didn't play any role in this. When we come back, Josh will share an extra clip of his interview with some of the jurors at Text McGuyber's trial. Hey, guys, Willie guys here reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with Liam Ashell talking about her lead role in the hit Broadway musical chess, some of the Tony talk around it, and her road from the stage to Glee, and now back

again, you can get our conversation now for free wherever you can download your podcast.

One of the big characters we always talk about characters in our date line stories,

sometimes there are of course the people that we talk to, sometimes it's the location, the city, and 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 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 round about way? Yes, yes it is. Yes it is. 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. 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 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.

Yeah, I mean, it was, it looked like, you know, we always look for something in a data line 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 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 they got off the freeway and we ended at Emory and we did it at night and Danny Joe was

driving. It was hard for drive, much harder for, who would drive us than it had been to drive Texan Diane because we had all these lights in the car from the 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 condition. We would get the stop lights, right? And you see people in the next car, like, look at it, it was like, what's going on in there? Why is that car lit up like a movie set?

Right? But I mean, so, so, the, the, Danny Joe, I didn't remark a couple of times like, she's like, leaning forward, like, there's a lot of clear 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. But that's actually go through that route. What did you think when you were driving that with her? It's a long way. It's a long way. And, and there is a hospital that is not only closer,

but that handles gunshot wounds at a far greater number than the, than Emory Hospital does. It's a level of trauma. It's, it's, it's, 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. I don't know how guns fire. I love seeing you, you know, kind of demonstrating it at the end, right? The difference between fire and when it's cocked versus when it's not pulling the trigger.

“Do you have a lot of firearms experience knowledge? I don't. No, that's, that's why we,”

we, we, we worked with a real firearms expert on this. And you see him, with me in the episode,

you've got to pull that trigger very hard for that gun to go off. That is the thing I was surprised by when we sort of did that, that test, which is, that is not a hair trigger.

“You, you, 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. 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? Can I tell you that? I mean, that's all

is 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 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 overcharge because you have, you know, I'm not saying this happened. In this case, but a lot of cases you have like an elected DA who wants to be a peer tough on crime and is asking for the maximum penalty on everything.

And the evidence doesn't always support the maximum penalty on everything. 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 prosecutors use of the

prop. He came out. He had that jar of muddy water. This was a thing that Clint Rucker, no longer

“prosecutor in the, in the, and I think he's in private practice now. He, uh, this is a thing Clint”

was famous for, because he would take this jar of, of water, not sure from where, maybe out of the Jada Hujie, I'm actually not sure where it came from, but he would put this jar of muddy water on the, on the, on the, the wall that separates the, the, 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 this closing argument. And then of course,

the silt has settled in this, 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, uh, Bruce Harvey, who has a long ponytail, despite the fact that he's a grown man, sorry. Um, he has, uh, I mean, come on. Um, he has, uh, uh, on his shirts, he has a monogram on his shirts. Bruce Harvey does.

“And the monogram is, we 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. Hmm. Right. And that is up to 13. And he, in other words, everything stacked against us, we have half a chance. That's the, that's the, that's the whole sort of attitude of, 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 one, 29 and two. I mean, these are, these are, they go in with with, with the deck overwhelmingly in their favor. So Clint uses the, the, the Mason jar with the silk and mud in it. And, and the passage of time. And then Bruce Harvey has 13 and a half, um, monogrammed on his shirts. Can I just say that everything you just

ran down, that's so Atlanta. I, I love Atlanta. I mean, these are, the 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.

Um, 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 McGuyver, not of malice murder, but of the lesser charge, killing someone to the process of committing a felony. All right. So you go in and how quickly you take a vote after deliberations begin. Pretty much right away. What was the first vote? Five guilty and then seven lesser charge on count one and two. And I felt like when we walked into

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. The tempers fray. What is raised? There's some crying on some days. Crying, there's yelling, there was temper tantrums, people storming out. We, we were making progress. And then air in that in the jury room was a defeat of, you know, we're 12 grown people, you know, with respect for each other, how can 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's, that was, I think, the pivotal moment, actually, where we said, look, text himself is the only

person that said, I woke up, I had a gun, and just went off. And his own attorney, the only testimony

“we had was, it, it wasn't caught. So he had to pull the trigger. And I think that's what did it.”

Not guilty of malasmurder, not guilty of trying to kill his wife, but guilty of trying to shooter. What, he was, text was trying to shoot Diane, but not killer. I don't get it. I'm one of the things that we had to 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. Yeah, I mean, for aggravated assault, there's an intent to cause bodily harm,

right? And, and when we looked at the evident, that's the only action that we had actually any

testimony around. And for the actual malice and hatred in the intent to murder his wife,

there was a lot of reason we'll doubt in my mind. But there was no doubt that he intended to shooter.

“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? Do you think justice was done here? Yes. I do. 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. A lot to consider there. That's interesting to hear that.

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 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 something short of actual deliberate murder. Sure. And that conviction being overturned that happened in 2022, Texas eventually pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter rather than go back to trial. And now he's out. He's been released on parole. Yeah, well, you know, he's how old now. I mean, he's uh, he was 82 when he was released. Yeah, so he's like 20 years old. 82, 83 now. Yeah, yeah, I certainly understand the decision to take that play, because he's,

he's out now and whatever years he has left, at least he won't have to live behind bars. Okay, and after the break, Josh and I will answer some of your questions from social media. Hey, guys, Willie guys to here. We're celebrating 10 years of Sunday today by hosting a very special Sunday sit down live event in our guest as one of the biggest stars on the planet. Ryan Reynolds were taken our conversation to the stage in front of an audience of you for one night

only at city winery in New York on April 7th, an intimate in-person evening. I promise he won't want to miss tickets are limited. So grab yours now at today.com. 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 about any talking date line episode and uh, listen to some viewer questions. So, let's get this from Alison Silcox Lidman 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. I 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.

Sure. Here's a username that's appropriate for this time of year.

“"Marchen Madness" says on X. Texas trying to be smooth, too smooth.”

Well, you know, as you heard the jurors, I mean, they did not believe Texas story. Okay, good. Let's hear from this genuine lorry 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." That's always something that comes up in our efforts. Laura, you have not seen enough deadlines, because America does his past judgment on anybody who grieves 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 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 do all grieve differently.

I got 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. Here's one from Laura 1875, 1937, who writes on X, let's just say I don't think that you can shoot your wife on accident. Yeah, well, many day line viewers would already, exactly that. Yeah, yeah. Interesting question from Missy 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. 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 it's right. I think he probably was jolted awake and, you know, didn't realize that he was clenching his hand at the time. But I don't think he meant the shooter. Again, if you're going to shoot somebody, you don't shoot them through a 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. It's not a sure way if that was your plot to kill your wife. It's certainly not a sure fire 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? Well, I do love Atlanta. I mean, it was, I don't know that Atlanta playing, I don't think Atlanta's big enough for the two of us. So I'm going to let that be your battle

field, but I could love it there. You're welcome to come visit any time. Thank you. Thank you.

I'd love to have you. And thank you, of course, for talking data and with me, friend. It was always

“a pleasure. Any time. And that is it for talking data in this week. Remember, if you have any questions”

for us about our stories, you can always reach us 24/7 on social media at data in 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, 4135252 for a chance to be featured right here on the podcast. Thanks so much for listening.