20/20
Bad Romance: Love You to Death
Tue, 15 Apr 2025 07:00:00 -0000
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A bride is murdered 48 hours before the wedding; police uncover a double life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened to the bride before her wedding?
Hey, it's Brad Milkey. This week on the Crime Scene Weekly, we're talking about a mom who gained national attention for faking her own kidnapping. Sherry Papini is back in the spotlight, but now she's changing her story and trying to change her custody arrangement with her kids. Listen to the latest from the case on the Crime Scene Weekly.
Couples in love make promises, in sickness and in health, to have and to hold. But when the past catches up to you, a couple can find the real meaning of the phrase, love you to death. When she was found, they were planning a wedding. And then that wedding was less than 48 hours away.
Never would have thought that I would have been going to her funeral that next week instead of her wedding. Never would have thought it. She come in the door and she said, I'm here to get a marriage license. A lot of things happened after that. I don't want to cry.
Hours away from becoming a bride, Molly Watson's story takes a tragic turn when a stranger makes a discovery on a country road.
April 27th of 2018, it was a Friday night. Glenn McSparran is taking a shortcut from his mother's home there in Monroe County. Didn't really think nothing of it, just a typical night. It's remote. It's really grown up. You're driving in between trees and horseweeds down to the creek. You got to turn as you go down into it and go across it because the road kind of curves.
That night, he says, he saw headlights.
He saw a car come up and kind of cut him off, put their headlights right into his view. Once I got a little bit closer, I could see that there was a car, and I thought that they wanted past me. So I pulled over to the side of the road, and I could see another car parked over on the right facing away from me. He said he saw a short white guy driving the car.
Glenn McSparran described the car with the older white man as an old grandma car. I couldn't hardly see him because of all the glare, and I just kind of turned my head towards the window, and I said, hey, is somebody stuck down there? And how did he say that? He said, I don't know where they're at. It's going to be a while.
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Chapter 2: Who was Molly Watson?
Glenn McSparran had a brief verbal exchange with this older white male, and the other individual indicated that Glenn needed to go around a different way.
So I just backed my truck up a little bit and went back to the west. The more I thought about it, I was like, that's just, it's not right. I talked to my mom and my brother for a minute, and I told them, I said, I'm going to go back through there.
On his way back just 30 minutes later, a horrific scene, a body in his headlights.
I stayed in my truck, and I called 911. I don't know what the hell's going on here. They wanted me to make sure if she was alive or not. Ma'am. Ma'am. Oh, my God. I don't think she's alive, no. I seen if she was cold to the touch or if she had a pulse, and she did not. And I looked in her eyes, and I could tell that she was gone. Her eyes are open. I swear to God, she's dead.
She was essentially shot execution style. She had been shot once in the back of the head at point-blank range.
The idea that it never happens here, in this country corner of Missouri, is pretty much right. Police go into full investigative mode, and there's evidence to be found. In the muddy crime scene, they find tire tracks remarkably well preserved.
And there appeared to be markings that looked like two O's. I think everybody looking thought that it was probably a Goodyear tire. I came upon this shirt laying in the road, went around the shirt and passed it, and then I stopped and I'm thinking, we're kind of close to the crime scene here. I probably better pick that up just in case.
That t-shirt, we later learned had gunshot residue on it, had Molly Watson's blood.
On a road leading away from the scene, they find an empty box.
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Chapter 3: What led to the discovery of Molly's body?
Is it so implausible that one fiance has a shirt that belonged to their fiance? As far as your marriage with James Addy, can you describe it for the jury? Testifying next, the woman James Addy allegedly said was dead, his now ex-wife Melanie Addy. She filed for divorce soon after his arrest. It was good sometimes. It was bad sometimes. I thought we both tried to make it work.
You were called to testify. How hard was that?
It's horrible. It's just horrible. You don't want to be there. I don't want to be in a position where I'm hurting him. I don't want to do that. So in April of 2018, were you still married to Mr. Addy and living in that same home? Yes. Did you have any plans to divorce at that point?
No. He'd always been very hard on me about you, you know, how a wife should act and how a wife should be. And then he did this. He had an affair and that's okay. No, we were done. We were done. James Addy didn't react to his ex-wife taking the stand, but everybody else did. Anybody watching was riveted.
Prosecutors also ask Melanie about that outrageous story, the one they say James told Molly, that Melanie was dead. Were you in a horrible car crash in October of 2017 around Christmas or New Year's? No. And is it fair to say you did not pass away in April of 2018? That's correct. After calling nearly 20 witnesses, the state rests its case. Thank you, sir. You managed him down.
And now it's time for the defense to take its turn. All kinds of options here. They could introduce evidence, they could call witnesses, or they could put James Addy himself on the stand. Instead, they do none of the above. not putting up a case for the defense is fairly common because the argument is it's the state's burden to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt.
Once my client puts a witness on the stand, now we're in competition for who is more likable, for who do we believe more. You lose the state's burden and you take on a burden yourself. The evidence will show that the state does not have proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Your doubts are reasonable. Your doubts are reasonable because Jim did not kill Molly.
They attempted to raise enough reasonable doubt about the things that weren't there. There was no murder weapon. What would be the motive of a man in love killing his fiancée? He was in love with Molly was the defense and he was having an affair, but that didn't necessarily mean that he was the killer.
Closing arguments in this case ended up being on what would have been James and Molly's three year anniversary. Molly Watson does not get to celebrate her three year wedding anniversary today, but you have the power to give her justice.
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