Murder on Grapevine Lake

Last night, my husband and I were catching up on previously recorded TV shows, when we watched Saturday night’s CBS 48 Hours: Murder on Grapevine Lake.

David Nixon, a married man with a son from a previous marriage shows up dead — shot in the head and brutally burned to death on the side of the road. The question is who killed him?

60 minutes did a quick intro segment. They introduce you to his current wife, his son and his ex-wife. You aren’t able to tell who did it — because in the small segments, no one lies.

Then still within the first 2 to 3 minutes of the intro, they segway into a police interrogation tape. You can barely see it. It’s black and white, blurry, fuzzy and very small but as I listened to it, I quickly stated to my husband, “She lied.” His first wife did it — I declared.

My husband said, “No, that woman was his current wife.” He paused the DVR.

By the timing of the segment and the switching back and forth between intro pieces, I got confused about who was who. I thought the next person they were talking with was Donna, not Tracey.

Before my husband rewound the DVR, I said, “Whoever that is in the video tape — they are lying!!”

He replayed the tape, and he was right, it was Nixon’s second wife, Tracey.

Tracey sat in there in the police station and the police asked her two questions in this segment.

When they ask her these two questions, what caught my eye wasn’t her face. I couldn’t distinguish it. It was her response to the question that focused me in. I think they asked her “Why did you do this?” or something of that nature (unfortunately, they have entirely different footage on their website they didn’t even have on the show! so I can’t show you).

The first thing that Tracey did is what caught my eye. The second thing she did within seconds confirmed to me she was lying.

First she repeated the question the police asked her. Out loud. Then she turned on this winy baby-pout voice that sounded like poor-me-poor-me-I’m-being-picked-on-unfairly. You could hear she was playing the poor little hurt victim after the question even though she denied any involvement.

When you are being questioned for murder and you didn’t commit it, you don’t have the feel-sorry-for-me attitude. It doesn’t fit. It’s not normal or natural for adults.

Second, you don’t have to repeat the questions asked of you out loud. You heard the question or you don’t, and if you don’t — you ask for clarification. Many times people who lie — though NOT ALL PEOPLE who do this are liars — will repeat everything you say to them because they are trying to keep their lies straight. This behavior is a notable point, at best. Combine Tracey’s two behaviors — and bingo — you have a big tip-off.

Within the first couple of minutes, I had my answer about who was lying, but I didn’t know WHY.

We watched the rest of the show after that — and amazingly Tracey gave away more and more clues. Her eyes flashed a expression of glee at one point, she kept repeating questions asked of her, she stuttered, she couldn’t answer important questions.

Thankfully, at the end of the show, 48 Hours showed a jury convicting her! She is eligible to be out of prison in 20 years — at the age of 55. Now that is scary. This woman is a complete psychopath!