Happily Never After | S2E11 | Wedding Bell Blues | FULL TRUE CRIME SHOW

…

Richard and Wilma, I now
pronounce you man and wife.

You may kiss the bride.

Everybody, they’re
going to cut the cake! Everyone pitches in to make it a
day full of love and personal touches.

The groom’s best friend is the
caterer.

And Wilma’s mom bakes the
wedding cake.

I think the wedding was a happy
moment for everyone there, because it’s what she had
always wanted.

You just hope and pray that
everything is going to work out for them.

But it seems those prayers may
have gone unanswered.

Ten months after their blissful
day, Wilma fails to show up for her job at a local high school.

It’s strange.

The devoted music teacher has
never been late for work.

Even once.

But when you got somebody
that’s dedicated they’re there all the time.

If they’re going to be late,
they call.

Have you seen Wilma this
morning? And when that person doesn’t
show up, you, you, automatically alarms start going off.

I want you to call the house,
see if anybody’s there.

Yes ma’am.

And I need you to call the
substitute teacher.

Yes ma’am.

School administrators try her at
the couple’s home.

No answer? But get no answer.

Concerned, they reach out to the
contact on file, her cousin Deanna.

Hello, Deanna? They knew that if anybody would
know where she was, that I would.

And I said, “No.

” I said,
“I haven’t talked to her.

” Okay, thank you very much.

Good bye.

The assistant principal decides
to go check Wilma’s house.

Something just feels wrong.

Wilma would not just be A-W-O-L.

She wouldn’t do that.

Make sure you get the teacher in
there, okay? Has something happened to the
vibrant music teacher? Music has always been in her
life, ever since she grew up with two siblings in the coal
mining region of West Virginia.

She was in the second grade and
she came home from school and said, “Mommy, I want to take
piano lessons.

” You didn’t have to say, “Wilma, it’s
time to practice, you need to practice.

” She was always at
the piano.

Her voice was just pitched to
perfection.

And her vibrato, I mean, it just
flowed like a stream.

And she was wonderful.

After graduating college with a
masters in music, she moves to Virginia and lands her dream job
at a high school in Norfolk.

Wilma definitely wanted others
to be able to appreciate music like she did.

And so that’s why she wanted
to be a music teacher.

Her passion for music is so
strong, she demands the most from her students.

Knock it off! What? Hey! No one’s just skating through
this class.

Do you think this is appropriate
in my classroom? Wilma was a petite dynamo.

She wasn’t afraid to stand up
to students that were head and shoulders above her.

Am I making myself clear? She would not abide anything
less than what she thought was the best her students could
produce.

Even though she’s found joy in
her work, she yearns for children of her own.

But sadly, that dream is
unlikely to ever come true.

She’d had problems from the
beginning of puberty.

We took her to the doctors and
she was tested and they gave her medication, but they said she
probably wouldn’t have children.

For many, many women, becoming a
mother is a very important part of their identity.

Wilma really longed to be a
mother, even though physically she was unable to give birth to
a child.

Still she holds onto the dream
of getting married.

When we were little girls, we
had Barbies with bridal dresses and of course we all felt that
someday we would be the Barbie in the bridal dress.

And I think it was very
important to Wilma to be married.

But she has trouble finding Mr.

Right.

As she enters her mid-30s, she
worries she may never find her soul mate.

Back then, if you weren’t
getting married shortly after high school, well then people
start thinking, “Oh, you’re an old maid.

You’re just going to be an old
maid schoolteacher.

” She hopes they’re wrong and the man for
her is out there, somewhere.

Although she doesn’t know him
yet, Richard Harvey is born and raised right there in Norfolk.

A guy’s guy, his passion is
sports, in which he excels.

He played all the sports:
baseball, football.

All, all the various different
sports.

He, he was very athletic.

He gets a degree in phys ed and
starts teaching gym class.

It’s a fun job, but it
doesn’t quite pay the bills.

He had got out of teaching
because of all the, well the difference in pay of what he
really wanted to have in his life.

And so therefore he went into
the restaurant business.

There he finds his calling and
quickly moves up the corporate ladder.

Cooperation makes it happen,
people.

He’s a natural leader, who can
handle the stress of a kitchen.

Handsome and funny, the girls
like him.

But when it comes to choosing
the right one, he keeps striking out.

He had been married three times
before.

And he had been divorced three
times.

And he had three children.

The hard working father of three
has learned his lesson not to rush into marriage.

I think you need to check on
your table.

He hopes now that he has
matured, he’ll find a woman he can settle down with for good.

All right, keep it up, you guys.

Keep it up.

Richard had had some bad luck in
choosing mates.

Keep up the good work.

He still had this optimism that
he could find the perfect wife.

Then one day, Wilma’s having
lunch with her cousin, when she catches the eye of the hunky
restaurant manager.

She has this lovely spark about
her.

So he can’t help but strike up
a conversation.

Hi, ladies, how are you? There seemed to be an instant
attraction between Richard and Wilma.

I actually teach music at the
local school.

Well, you know, I used to teach.

Really? What did you teach? Yeah, we should, we should
perhaps get together some time.

That would be great.

I can give you my number.

Yes.

She’ll take the handsome
manager to go, please.

They automatically just seemed
to click off.

They just started dating right
away.

And at night they sometimes have
a tendency.

They had some background
together and she talked about how they could just sit down and
talk about many things.

Cheers.

Cheers.

They just hit it off.

Maybe it’s because he had been
a teacher before and, and she enjoyed sports.

Wilma’s just really intrigued
with him.

She was a little bit more
outgoing than what he was.

He was a little quieter.

But I think that probably
complemented the two of them.

After just a few dates, both
realize this is the one they’ve waited for.

They see a bright future ahead.

But is that future now in
danger? Wilma’s assistant principal
arrives at the newlyweds’ house.

She noticed that Wilma’s car
was still in the driveway knocked on the door, but there
was no answer.

Are you home? And apparently she walked around
the house and all the shutters, curtains were drawn and the
house appeared to be locked up.

Wilma! Hello, can I help you? Yes, I’m the assistant
principal at the school that Wilma teaches at.

And we.

She talks to the next door
neighbor, a Virginia Beach police officer.

But he hasn’t seen either
Wilma or Richard recently.

He says Richard should be at
work and calls the office.

Hello? Hello? Is Richard working today? But the new groom isn’t there.

Okay.

Can you imagine, after this
amazing wedding, this embarking on a new life, the very
responsible bride doesn’t show up at work and then the husband
is MIA himself.

The quiet simple lives of two
modest people, a teacher and a restaurant manager, are about to
become front page news in the most horrifying way.

The music stops when newlywed
Wilma Harvey fails to show up for her teaching job.

And no one has been able to
reach her husband, Richard.

They didn’t know where Richard
was.

They couldn’t find him.

They didn’t know where Wilma
was.

They couldn’t find her.

So the concern great that
something was terribly wrong.

After Wilma’s assistant
principal leaves, the newlyweds’ neighbor gets a
call back from Richard’s work.

Hello? The caller is Richard’s
brother-in-law, who works in the same office.

And the bother-in-law said,
“Well, her husband’s out of town right now on business.

”
“But I’ll try to get a hold of him and find out what we
can.

” The brother-in-law also says he’ll call Richard’s
parents, since Wilma’s family lives out of state.

The brother-in-law tells the
parents what’s going on and asks the parents to respond to
Wilma’s house.

I don’t like it.

Wilma would never miss school.

Everyone’s worried, but maybe
Wilma’s just sick and Richard’s busy and can’t be
reached.

They hope their gut feeling is
wrong and everything is okay with this pair who just a year
before were orchestrating a romantic new duet.

Almost done? Oh hey! There she is.

They spend a lot of time hanging
out with their inner circle of friends, including Wilma’s
dear cousin, Deanna Barney, and Richard’s long time best
friend, David Pruett.

Everyone can see how perfect
they are for each other.

Oh, I could tell from the very
beginning that, you know, they, they were falling in love.

They wanted to be together all
the time.

We owe it all to her.

Wilma quickly bonds with
Richard’s kids from his previous marriages.

The children definitely liked
Wilma.

They thought a lot of her and
she thought a lot of them.

For Wilma, it’s literally a
dream come true.

She could not have kids, but she
wanted to have a family.

She thought she was meant to
have a family.

She was meant to be a mother.

And Richard, I’m sure, was so
attracted by this.

I mean when you have a woman
falling in love with your kids and you’re witnessing it,
it’s like could it have been more perfect? As their love blossoms, the
couple sees less of their friends.

See what I go through? For Richard it means no more
late night poker games with his buddies.

And for Wilma, fewer girls’
nights with her cousin, co-workers, and friends.

When couples begin their love
relationship, it’s very important that they cocoon.

And in fact, they’re going to
create a me-and-you-against-the-world
kind of emotional bond.

After a few months, they decide
to live together.

Wilma moves in, hoping the next
step they take together will be down the aisle.

Aw.

That’s our goal in life: to
marry, to have a spouse, to raise a family.

It was very very important to
Wilma.

But that marriage proposal
doesn’t come.

She had made the commitment, but
she was fully willing to walk if he was not going to step up and
make that commitment back.

After six months, Wilma tires of
waiting.

Wilma basically read him the
riot act.

“I’m taking care of your
children.

I’m getting along with the
ex-wives.

And if this is going to
continue, I want more than just being a, a live-in person.

” Please just stay.

I don’t want
you to go.

The relationship was not going
into marriage and that’s what she desired.

Not just to live with somebody.

So she moved out.

Right away Richard sees his
mistake.

He’s lost without her.

Richard realized that this was
what he wanted.

He made the decision to come
back and say, “Well, let’s go ahead and get married.

” Wilma, I’m here because I
think I, I made a bad mistake.

The decision is not a typical
proposal.

No taking of a knee.

No sparkly ring.

Just a mutual decision to pledge
their love to each other forever.

I’m here because I want to say
that I, I should have never let you leave.

And I want you to be with me.

Okay? I love you.

Wilma, will you marry me? Do you mean it? Yes, I mean it.

Yes.

Yes! Of course! Yes.

Which is all she ever wanted
anyway.

But now, no one can find either
one of the lovers.

Wilma! Wilma! Letting themselves in with the
spare key, Richard’s parents check the house with Richard’s
brother-in-law and the couple’s neighbor.

Wilma! They go in the house.

They’re calling out for Wilma.

And they just become extremely
concerned.

Wilma! Then, in the master bedroom they
finally find Wilma.

It must have been the most
horrific discovery that anyone could possibly make.

She was on the bed.

She was naked.

Her hands were behind her back,
tied.

There was blood everywhere.

It was just a gruesome scene.

She’s clearly dead.

Don’t come in here! The brother-in-law begs the
others not to look.

They call police.

Then, the rest of the family.

If someone dies in a car
accident, that’s very tragic.

But for someone to be murdered
in your family, it’s just unheard of.

You, you just, you can’t grasp
it.

I initially got a call from
Deanna and she started telling me what happened and the first
thing I said is, is, “Where’s Richard?” Where is Richard? Is it possible he had something
to do with his bride’s gruesome murder? Or, is he the second victim? Ten months after Wilma and
Richard Harvey’s simple wedding Wilma is found slain in
the couple’s home, the day before Valentine’s Day.

She was tied up, then viciously
slaughtered.

It’s a horrible way to die.

I mean, there were more than 20
stab wounds.

Wilma did not go without a
fight.

She has defensive wounds to her
forearms.

She has a defensive to one of
her hands where she tried to grab the knife blade.

Who could have killed this happy
newlywed in such a gruesome way? As detectives search for clues,
they discover no sign of forced entry.

You’re immediately starting to
think that it must be someone that either is related to the
victim or is a friend of the victim and had access to the
house.

An hour after the body’s
discovery, Richard’s brother-in-law tells police
he’s finally spoken with the new groom, who’s headed back
from a business trip in Rhode Island.

But is his trip just a cover
story? The spouse is almost always a
prime suspect.

You look at them first, and then
you try to rule them out as quick as you can.

Or rule them in.

The husband was nowhere in town
at the time.

Well, is he on the run? Did he do it? Just don’t know at this point.

While they await his return,
detectives question the rest of the family and friends.

I, I’m Deanna, her cousin.

Ma’am, do you know of anybody
that might have a reason to do anything like this? She had some kind of.

Wilma’s cousin says she
actually suspects one of Wilma’s students.

He, he gave her some trouble.

Mouthing off or something.

I, I don’t know.

Knock it off! What? Hey! What’s going on? Come here! Do you think this is appropriate
in my classroom? Wilma just didn’t take any
guff off of them.

She had told me that she had
backed some guys up against the wall at school and told them,
“Now, you’re not going to do this in my class.

” She was not afraid to do that.

Even to large kids.

Much bigger than her.

She was not afraid to stand up
to them and, and demand respect.

Had Wilma’s tough talk
backfired on her? It’s hard to estimate
teenagers.

You know? They’re like children’s
minds but big, strong adult-like bodies.

Makes you wonder, could a
teenager have done this? I don’t know who could have
done it.

Detectives need to question
everyone in Wilma’s classes to learn more.

To solve the shocking murder,
police must focus on every detail, no matter how slight.

Just a year earlier, the details
on Wilma’s and Richard’s minds were all about their
wedding.

They want a simple ceremony
surrounded by family and friends.

I think this is the one.

I like it.

Their wedding cake will be a
one-of-a-kind masterpiece baked with a mother’s loving touch.

Wilma wanted her mother to do
the cake.

It was her special cake for her
special day.

One that nobody else would have
anything like it.

What do you think about that? As the wedding day draws near,
the busy couple’s schedules get even more jam packed.

Working, spending time with the
kids, and planning a wedding isn’t easy.

Knock, knock! Knock, knock! I have food samples! Hello! Hi, everybody.

Their friends pitch in,
including Richard’s best buddy of the past ten years, David,
who offers to provide the catering.

Chicken.

Since they had worked together
and they needed somebody to cater the wedding that they felt
like that that would be good for David to do.

It meant so much to have her
mother bake her a wedding cake.

And then to have Richard’s
buddy cater the whole thing.

It was a bringing together of a
supportive community for their marriage.

I have chicken.

But now that same supportive
community is devastated by the bride’s horrifying death.

The medical examiner concludes
Wilma was likely killed the evening before she was found.

She had been bound and raped.

Tests reveal traces of semen,
but the technology at the time would not allow an exact DNA
match to a perpetrator.

She died from
multiple stab wounds and having her throat slashed.

Someone really had a lot of
anger built up in him.

Detectives follow a trail of
blood from the bedroom into the adjoining bathroom, where they
find a pair of gym shorts soaked with blood.

The autopsy showed Wilma’s
body was streaked with a mixture of water and blood.

As if someone had tried to clean
her up after the murder.

Another strange detail is that
despite the frenzied attack, Wilma’s glasses are neatly in
place.

Like someone put them on her
afterwards.

It’s so unusual.

I mean, you just brutally
murdered someone and you put the glasses back on.

The washing up and replacing the
glasses, they’re almost caring gestures after such a
cold-blooded crime.

Was the killer conflicted about
what he’d done? Who would care enough about
Wilma to want to clean her up some? There again, it just leads to
someone that was close to her.

It also looks like the
perpetrator was searching for valuables to steal.

The drawers were taken out.

The clothes were removed.

Well, was it a robbery? But the other signs point to a
personal motive as well.

Then, detectives find exactly
what they need to narrow the field of suspects down to one: a
fingerprint on the inside lens of Wilma’s glasses.

The positioning of the
fingerprint indicated that it was from someone who was placing
the glasses on her face.

They felt like if they could
find out who left that fingerprint that they knew who
the killer was.

They need to run the fingerprint
through the database.

Will it be a match to the new
groom? There were all kinds of
questions regarding his absence and the fact that she was there
alone.

A relative newlywed left alone? Wilma’s cousin recalls the
last time she saw Wilma, two weeks before the murder.

The new bride didn’t seem
herself, like she was unhappy about something.

What’s going on with you? I spent that night at the house.

Her mood was very somber that
night.

There was something not right.

I couldn’t put my finger on
it.

Had the newlyweds’ perfect
love gone sour? I felt like there was some
tension there, but I, I really didn’t know.

And she didn’t say anything to
me.

Wilma took the reason for her
dark mood to her grave.

The theory that one of Wilma’s
students might have killed her seemed so much less likely now.

Whoever committed this heinous
crime and left that fingerprint had rage well beyond the
schoolroom spat.

Soon a new witness will surface
with a tantalizing story of who was in the house on the day of
the slaying.

Two hours after
discovering Wilma Harvey’s body, Virginia Beach police
detectives have still been unable to interview her new
husband Richard, because he’s on his way back from Rhode
Island.

As they wait for his return,
investigators canvass the couple’s neighborhood.

They find several witnesses who
saw a green car outside the house that night.

They also talk to the paperboy
who stopped by the Harvey house to collect the night before the
body was found.

Knocked on the door.

She answered.

Hi there.

Hello, Mrs.

Harvey.

She invited me into the foyer
which wasn’t unusual.

Okay, I’ll be right back with
some money.

That’s when the paperboy saw
she wasn’t alone.

And I happened to notice
somebody sitting on a couch or a chair in, in the room.

All I could see is from the
knees down.

Let’s see here.

You could see the, the white
pants and the white shoes.

Couldn’t necessarily identify
whether it was a man or a woman, just a person sitting there.

She got a money box and paid me
out of the money box, which was typical.

Is the mysterious person in
white Wilma’s killer? The person in white certainly is
someone that need to be interviewed.

And very well could be a
possible suspect.

Then ten hours after the body
was found, Richard Harvey finally returns, shell shocked
by the news.

Detectives question him for
hours.

Tell me again why you left
Virginia Beach.

I went on a business trip.

The police had to sort out the
timeline.

Could he have killed her and
then left town as a cover? Those are questions that
they’re bound to ask.

They have to.

He explains he’s been away
from almost a week.

He says he suspected something
may have been wrong with Wilma the night before.

He said that he had made several
attempts to call her from where he was on his business trip and
got no answer.

He couldn’t be reached
immediately because he was in a training seminar.

As soon as he heard the news, he
rushed home.

I was worried.

And investigators need to run
down his alibi.

And there’s something else
they need to check.

Sir, I’m going to have to take
some fingerprints from you.

Come on, stand up.

Come on over here.

They know that the thumbprint on
the glasses does not belong to Wilma.

The next step is to get
fingerprints from Wilma’s husband and either put him in
the frame or eliminate him from having touched those glasses.

Right hand, please.

The new groom can’t believe
he’s now being treated as a suspect in his wife’s brutal
murder, when just ten months earlier he stood next to her,
joyfully exchanging their marriage vows.

She was getting what she wanted.

She wanted Richard.

She wanted a family.

He’d chosen a bride who was
very compatible, who was willing to be a happy stepmother to his
kids.

He’d finally gotten marriage
right.

After the ceremony, they head
out on a simple honeymoon.

Just a couple of nights at a
local hotel, but it’s the perfect little romantic retreat
for down-to-earth Wilma.

She didn’t need to go to
Hawaii.

She could be happy in her own
backyard.

You know, that was Wilma.

The newlyweds buy a cute new
house together and Wilma happily nests.

But now that home has become
Wilma’s death chamber.

And her loving husband, a prime
suspect.

But when the fingerprint results
come back, it’s a stunning turn no one expected.

The print on Wilma’s glasses
does not belong to Richard.

Despite all their suspicions,
this evidence proves he’s completely innocent.

It’s a blow to the
investigation, but a relief to Richard.

In the midst of his shattering
grief, he’s had to endure the agony of being a suspect for
nothing.

It must have been just awful for
Wilma’s husband to get off the airplane and then have to face
questioning by the police.

All this happening the day
before what was to be his first Valentine’s Day as a newlywed.

Imagine what he felt like.

His bride, the love of his life,
the marriage he’d finally gotten right, to be murdered in
such a brutal way.

It’s so hard on Richard, and
now police are back to square one.

But soon they will get a match
on that crucial fingerprint.

And when they do, it will
provide the answer to more than one unsolved murder.

Virginia Beach police run a
fingerprint found on the glasses of murdered newlywed Wilma
Harvey through their database of convicted felons and to their
surprise, they get a match.

Someone with a deeply troubled
past littered with drugs, gambling and debt, convicted of
embezzlement and attempted robbery.

He’d even done prison time.

Hey, everybody, they’re going
to cut the cake.

Great job catering.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

Thanks.

The man is none other than the
new groom’s best friend, David Pruett, who had catered the
reception.

David loved to gamble.

And he lost repeatedly.

And in one case he was in over
his head.

He went to his place of
employment.

He stole, I believe 6,000
dollars.

Richard had been one of the few
people who always stuck by David.

Over their decade of friendship,
Richard always thought he saw goodness inside his troubled
friend.

Even after David went to jail,
Wilma’s husband still was there to help him.

Testified for him.

Got him out on bail.

Got him a job at the local
restaurant where he was a manager.

But their friendship faded after
Richard got married.

He was having to let go of his
friendship with Richard that they had had through the years.

She was taking his place in, in
many respects, you would say.

Had David grown obsessively
jealous of Wilma’s time with Richard? Relatives recall Wilma had said
she’d become uncomfortable around David.

She even referred to him as
“That Creep.

” She was bothered by the fact
that he was always bugging them for money, because he was always
in trouble because of his gambling debts or jobs that
he couldn’t keep.

Maybe that’s why she seemed
disturbed when her cousin last saw her.

Police bring Pruett in for
questioning.

We need to ask you some
questions about Wilma Harvey.

They tell him a green car like
the one he drives was seen at the Harvey home the night of the
murder.

He admits he did go to the house
that evening, but claims he had innocent intentions.

He had gone there to check on
Wilma because he knew that Wilma’s husband was out of
town and he was trying to help out.

Just such a terrible thing.

I mean, I’m really worried
about Richard.

He swears he didn’t hurt her.

And she was alive when he left.

Investigators confront him with
the fingerprint evidence.

This is Wilma’s glasses.

Your thumbprint’s on these
glasses.

Now I know how that got there.

That kind of took the air out
him right there.

I think he knew the game was up,
that there was no way he was going to talk his way out of it.

So he pretty much admitted.

I killed her.

Perhaps relieved after
unburdening himself about Wilma, he stuns the cops by suddenly
confessing another dark secret.

Wilma Harvey isn’t the only
newlywed he’s killed.

Pruett announces, “Oh, by the
way, there’s something else I need to get off my chest.

I killed a woman ten years
ago.

” He confesses to killing a young
woman he worked with at a fast food restaurant
a decade earlier.

And he came there late at night
while she was locking up, asked to be let in.

Said he needed to call someone
to give him a ride.

And she let him in.

You where the phone is.

He says his intention was to rob
the store, but then the predator inside him took over.

It’s all so eerily similar to
Wilma’s murder.

He bound her and he gagged her.

And cut her throat.

I mean, it was just almost
identical.

He hadn’t raped her, but that
woman had been recently married, just like Wilma.

Her murder had gone unsolved,
until now.

For Wilma’s killing, police
charge him with capital murder, rape, and robbery.

When he goes on trial a year
later, he mounts little defense.

David admits he stopped by the
house after work that night to check on Wilma, knowing her
husband was away.

Are you sure you don’t need
anything? I mean, I don’t mind helping
you out with anything while Richard’s gone.

She was busy ironing her
students’ choir stoles for an upcoming performance.

When the paperboy came by to
collect, David saw where Wilma kept her money.

And with his gambling problem,
he always needed that.

David was desperate for cash and
when he knew that cash was in that metal box, I think that
sparked something.

Let’s see here.

Will this cover it? Yes.

All right.

I’ll see you next time.

He made sure the paperboy
didn’t see his face.

It was kind of scary to think
that you were there when that person was there.

That you could have just as
easily been a victim as well.

Will this cover it? Yeah, thank you.

All right, I’ll see you next
time.

Then Wilma announced she had to
change for choir practice.

I’ll see you later? Yeah.

But David came up with an excuse
to linger.

Can I use your bathroom? Sure.

You know where it is.

See you later.

All right.

He says that at that point he
decided, “Hey, I’m going to go have sex with this woman.

” He can take her money and feed
his sick desires.

He had hidden a knife he brought
with him under his clothes until now.

He’s got a knife in his hand.

He puts the knife to her throat,
then tells her that he’s going to have sex with her.

In his warped mind, it’s sex.

But in truth, it’s brutal
rape.

He makes sure she can’t fight
back.

Wilma is there in a perfectly
helpless position with a person she befriended on top of her
with a knife at her throat.

At that point, I believe that
she thought he was simply going to go downstairs and take the
money and leave.

But instead, he stabbed her and
stabbed her and stabbed her 29 times around the throat.

It was a vicious, vicious
attack.

He then ransacked the house,
looking for things to steal.

Something in his subconscious
made him go back to her.

He tries to clean her body up.

Also put her glasses back on the
bridge of her nose and he then leaves the scene.

Cleaning her and replacing the
glasses might have been some twisted attempt to make up for
the horror he’d put this kind, gentle woman through.

The crime scene that had puzzled
investigators because it seemed both personal and robbery driven
now makes sense.

But what does not come out at
trial is why he would rape and murder his best friend’s wife.

Richard and Wilma, I now
pronounce you man and wife.

Some believe he was obsessed
with Richard and jealous of the time he spent with Wilma once
they married.

In his own little warped mind,
he may have perceived Wilma was taking Richard away from him.

On February 24, 1986, David
Pruett is convicted of robbery, rape and capital murder.

He is sentenced to death.

In a separate trial, he’s
convicted of killing his newlywed co-worker.

On December 16, 1993, he is
executed in the electric chair at the Greensville Correctional
Center in Virginia.

It wasn’t a big relief like I
thought I was going to, you know, jump up and down.

No.

I didn’t.

I just said, “You’ll never
do it again.

” That was the way I felt.

He was given soft justice.

Real justice would’ve been
getting him hacked up just like he did his victims.

That’s my opinion of justice.

Poor Richard never could have
imagined a man he called friend could be capable of this.

We wish we could all have a
crystal ball and look inside somebody’s mind and heart.

But sometimes in our best
friends lies evil.

After Wilma’s murder, Richard
immersed himself in his church community.

He finally found love again, but
has never forgotten his vibrant Wilma.

Nearly 30 years later, her
absence is still deeply felt by all she touched.

Her family, her friends, and the
students she was so devoted to.

He took something that I can
never replace.

That I will never have again.

We were like sisters.

And I just miss it.

I don’t know if there’s
anything I can say that I miss the most about Wilma.

I think I miss everything about
Wilma.