Harold Dow
Appearances
48 Hours
False Identity
How did Patrick Welch, a father who disappeared, manage to outrun his past for so long? Maybe it's because some of the people who got to know him in his new life, alias Tim Kingsbury, simply wanted to believe the best about people. Or maybe they just didn't want to know the worst. However, it happened now, after 15 years, a dad's double life is finally catching up with him.
48 Hours
False Identity
Next. I know I did bad things. I know I did terrible things. Pat Welsh tells his side of the story.
48 Hours
False Identity
Dad's double life. You're leading a perfectly normal life with a good job and a wonderful family. And things seem to be going along just fine. But then comes a problem. It hangs on. You can't solve it. Truth is, after a while, you can't even face it. Then one day, suddenly and with no warning, you vanish.
48 Hours
False Identity
What if someone you thought you knew well, someone you depend on, someone you love, just disappears? That is precisely what happened to a devoted husband and father who became desperate for a way out, leaving those closest to him to wonder what really happened. Russ Mitchell begins to unravel the mystery of a dad's double life, a life that was once picture perfect.
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Henrico County Detective Chuck Hanna was given the job of tracking the cell phone calls to see if anyone could place Piper in Richmond.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
That led Detective Hannah to the manager of this hotel, who remembers the guest in room 171.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
And it's that witness, Tomiko James, who was able to place Piper Roundtree in Richmond at a hotel located just miles from the crime scene. Would you point to and identify that individual?
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
And then a second eyewitness takes the stand. Raymond Seward says he saw Piper on Saturday morning, just a few hours after Fred Jablin's murder.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
And certainly she was a suspect. But a suspect with a seemingly rock-solid alibi.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Seward remembers Piper returning a car to his rental agency near the airport, the same airport where that flight, carrying a passenger named Tina Roundtree, would later take off.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
And if eyewitness testimony wasn't enough to put Piper in Richmond, prosecutors say they have Piper caught on tape. They say the woman seen walking into a Richmond, Virginia gas station is the defendant, Piper Roundtree, in disguise.
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
It's a mountain of evidence that they hope will knock down any suggestion that it was Tina Roundtree in Richmond the weekend of the murder. You have to concede it doesn't look good, right?
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Now prosecutors take their case one step further. They set out to show how Piper made sure that when she shot Fred Jablun, she wouldn't miss. Mack McClanahan knows both sisters. He dated Tina and he worked with Piper.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Yes. Okay. On one of their rides home together, Mac told Piper he was going to stop at a shooting range.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
No. Piper shot a few rounds, then decided she wanted to rent another type of gun, so she went to the front desk and made an exchange.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
It was the same type of weapon used to gun down Fred Jablon days later.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
And when Matt ran into Piper a few days after the murder, he found out just how nervous Piper was about their trip to the gun range.
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
With one of their last witnesses, prosecutors deal a final blow to Piper. It turns out the alibi Piper thought she had for the night before the murder had fallen through.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Kevin O'Keefe, who thought he'd seen Piper at the Volcano Bar on Friday night, now tells jurors he was mistaken.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
After being battered by dozens of witnesses against her, Piper Roundtree, a former prosecutor, knows she's in real trouble. And now she has to make one of the most important decisions of her life. Should she take the stand? All rise. After listening to the 49 witnesses testifying against her.
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Yes, sir. She's right there. With the state's case finished. That lady right there. Piper Roundtree is looking like a goner. If you could look those jurors in the eyes, how would you do it? What would you say?
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
So on the fourth day of trial, only four months after Fred Jablon was shot dead in his driveway.
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
I am. Fred Javelin's ex-wife, Piper Roundtree, tries to answer to a jury. Her defense lawyer, Murray Janus, cuts straight to the chase.
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
In a soft, shaky voice, Piper Roundtree testifies it was impossible for her to shoot Fred Jablin in Virginia because at the time of the murder, she was in Texas. But it isn't just Piper's whereabouts she and her defense team will use as an alibi. Their strategy is based on showing the jury what kind of person Piper Roundtree really is.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
And now, police are about to unravel the clues that will lead to an arrest.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
And when it comes to her alibi about being at the volcano bar, she insists she was there that Friday before the murder, even though Kevin O'Keefe had told prosecutors he wasn't even there that Friday night.
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Right. But Piper stands by her story and says she even remembers floating and drinking with a stranger.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
The prosecutors go on the attack. Piper's motive for murder is simple, a vengeful woman who had lost her children.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Piper, however, is unable to explain away the physical evidence at the heart of the case, starting with her Jeep parked at the Houston airport the very weekend Fred Jablon was murdered.
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Then prosecutors questioned Piper about her visit to the gun range, where she practiced shooting just days before the murder with the same type of weapon used to kill Fred Jablon.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
And what about that blonde wig? Prosecutors say Piper needed it desperately for the weekend of the murder to disguise herself as Tina.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
The evidence pinpoints Piper in Richmond, near the scene of Fred Jablin's murder. Hotel records and receipts show Piper used the bank card she said was stolen.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
There's one more staggering piece of evidence, those damning cell phone records, calls made from Piper's cell phone from Richmond to Texas just after the murder. What happened to the cell phone?
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Piper steps down. She has done all she can. Now it's up to this man, Marty McVeigh, the lone witness who can physically put her a thousand miles away from the murder.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
McVeigh is Piper's very best witness because it's impossible for Piper to have been in two places at once. McVeigh says she was in his Houston office at the exact same time police say she was on an airplane returning from murdering Fred Javelin.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Local newspaper reporter Paige Aiken ends up becoming part of the very story she was covering.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
She takes the stand to testify about what Marty McVeigh told her. And how are you employed, Miss Aiken?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Paige Aiken swears that McVeigh had told her that Piper had stopped by his office the day after the murder, not the afternoon of the murder.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Morty McVeigh is put back on the stand and sticks to his story and dates.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
When it's all over, Piper Roundtree seems dazed and exhausted. Do you think you conveyed to the jury what you wanted to get across? I don't know.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Throughout Piper Roundtree's murder trial, the brother of the victim, Michael Jablon, has watched closely, focused on the woman who was once part of his family. Any doubt in your mind that Piper Roundtree is guilty?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Piper's mother, Betty Roundtree, sat in the courtroom every day. She can't believe her youngest daughter is a killer.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
A couple of days after Fred Jablin's murder, Detective Colby Kelly learned more about the Roundtrip airline ticket booked under the name Tina Roundtree. The person who paid for the ticket was a guy named Jerry Walters.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Within an hour, the jury hears more testimony and then will recommend her sentence, anywhere from 20 years to life.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Betty Roundtree pleads for leniency so the children who'd already lost their father won't lose their mother too.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Jablin. Michael Jablin is not vindictive, just sad and searching for answers.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
In less than an hour, the jury decides to recommend the harshest penalty.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Within minutes of the verdict, we talked with Piper in a holding cell. Piper, a jury has spoken. Guilty. Life in prison. Yeah. What's your reaction to that sentence?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
In spite of all the evidence and the jury's swift verdict, Piper Roundtree still insists she's innocent. For the record, you still are saying that you did not kill your ex-husband? I didn't.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Will you get an opportunity at all while you're serving your time to see your children? Do you know anything about that?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Megan McCreary, Fred's neighbor and friend, has no sympathy for Piper Roundtree.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
The verdict may be in, but what was the jury thinking as they watched the halting testimony of Piper Roundtree?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Bruce Led, Joel Howell, and Timothy James spoke to us about the impression Piper made.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Do you love your children? Yes, very much. And of all the evidence against her, what was it that sealed Piper's fate?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
And what if Tina Roundtree, the sister Piper pretended to be, the sister many people say was Piper's best friend?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Your name came up a lot during the trial. It was almost as if the defense... was to blame Tina Roundtree for the murder. What's your reaction to that?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
But you didn't mind? Oh, I don't. Your name being used? I don't care. In that fashion?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
But the jury is certain. The right Roundtree was convicted. However, months after the trial, Tina Roundtree herself would be convicted of tampering with evidence after the murder of Fred Jablin. She would be sentenced to nine months probation. But this jury would sentence Piper to a term... We, the jury, fix her punishment at life imprisonment. ...far more severe. Why life in prison?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Piper started dating Jerry Walters in 2003, shortly after moving to Houston.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Even though Walters was living four hours from Houston in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, they made it work.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
So close that Walters was one of the first people Piper called the night of Fred Jablin's murder.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
And she was crying. Walters wasn't able to go to Houston, but he did his best to comfort Piper by phone.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Four days after the murder, Detective Kelly tracked down Jerry Walters to find out why his bank card seemed to be connected to a murder.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Walters told Detective Kelly he had no idea who could have used his bank card during the weekend of the murder because he says it had been stolen before then.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Walters says he first found out something was wrong with his card when he tried to withdraw cash from the account.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Jerry Walters called Piper immediately because if anyone was going to know about his card, it was her. You see, the card wasn't really his. Although he had access to the bank account, Walters had opened it at Piper's request under his name so that she could hide assets from her ex-husband.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
What didn't make sense to both Walters and Detective Kelly were some of the other charges found on the card.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
I personally don't wear wigs. Before the murder, someone had purchased two wigs, one blonde, one auburn.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
did this it would it's not something that i ever recognized in her no but it was all starting to add up for detective kelly he was convinced that piper roundtree had flown to richmond virginia using her sister's name to kill her husband
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Do you think there's any connection between the murder and this very difficult divorce that she and her husband, Fred Jablon, went through?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
With Fred Jablon dead, Piper Roundtree wanted to win back her three kids, who were staying with Fred's brother Michael and his family. She asked for a custody hearing in Virginia Family Court.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Detective Kelly was all for Piper attending the hearing, scheduled nine days after Fred Jablin's murder, but not for reasons Piper thought. She's thinking about trying to go to Richmond and have this custody hearing. In the back of your mind, you're saying, well, if she's in Richmond, it would be Easier for you guys to make an arrest, right?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Nine days after the murder, in a Richmond, Virginia courtroom, a judge made her decision. Knowing that Piper was under suspicion for murder, the judge granted custody of Piper's three children, Callie, age 10, Paxton, age 12, and Jocelyn, age 15, to Michael Jablon.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Piper left the custody hearing shaken and little did she know that just minutes later she would be arrested for murder.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
After her arrest for murder four months ago, former prosecutor Piper Roundtree is having a tough time adjusting to life behind bars.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
But she's anxious for her day in court and ready to stand trial for the murder of her ex-husband, Fred Javelin.
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Good afternoon. In opening arguments, prosecutor Wade Kaiser launches right in with what he says is Piper's chilling motive. It all came down to money.
48 Hours
Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Kaiser says Piper Roundtree was tired of struggling to pay child support to her ex-husband, so she killed him. She was...
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
When Piper's defense attorney, Murray Janis, has his turn, he tells jurors the state's explanation of a motive just doesn't add up.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
And more importantly, Janice says, there isn't anyone who can put Piper at the crime scene.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Although Janice does admit there is a lot of evidence showing someone committed this murder.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Piper is obviously aware of her attorney's defense strategy, but when she spoke with us before trial, she wouldn't flat out accuse her sister of murder. Did your sister Tina, did she do this?
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Have a seat, please. With the trial underway, prosecutors called Jerry Walters to the stand to help show that Piper hatched an elaborate plan to get away with murder. Using the bank account Walters had opened for her... Was Piper Woundtree's name on the card? No, it was not.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Piper purchased that blonde wig, and prosecutors say Piper wore it the weekend of the murder, so it would look like her sister Tina committed the crime.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
Prosecutors say Piper also used Walter's card to buy that airline ticket, booked in her sister's name, to fly to and from the murder.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
By credit card, right here. Cathy Molly, the agent, remembers selling a ticket to a woman using the name Roundtree. And for the first time in court,
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
A witness is able to identify Piper. In fact, Molly says the brunette checked in as a blonde.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
That's not all. Molly's biggest surprise? She says Piper was carrying a gun.
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Two Wigs and A Gun Pt 2
But that gun wasn't the state smoking gun. They say Piper not only got on that plane to Richmond, they can prove she spent the weekend there within miles of the crime scene. It was Piper's own cell phone that would do her in.