When millionaire businessman Lance Herndon is found bludgeoned to death in his Atlanta home, the search for his killer reveals no shortage of suspects - or secrets. Andrea Canning reports.Andrea Canning and Josh Mankiewicz go behind the scenes of the making of this episode in ‘Talking Dateline’:Listen on Apple: https://apple.co/3D9IHJ3Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6uhewfKDPrFneXQhrZq7r5
Chapter 1: What happened to Lance Herndon?
Tonight on Dateline. The real first memory I have is Janine telling me my father is no longer here.
My girlfriend said Lance was killed and I just lost.
The first thing you think, who did this and why?
Lance loved women and women liked Lance too.
Lance had a secret life.
Multiple secret lives.
One of the women on your list was Lance's ex-wife, Janine.
Recently divorced, she had accused Lance of infidelity. Talana and Lance were friends for a very long time.
The police were looking at you. How did that make you feel? A little angry.
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Chapter 2: Who were the suspects in Lance Herndon's murder?
What were your last words to him? Be careful.
So many lies, so many lovers. One knew the truth. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with The Killer Among Them.
A night to remember. A lavish birthday party high atop Atlanta's Hilton Hotel. It was to celebrate a leader and a CEO, a man respected, charismatic, at the very pinnacle of his career. Exactly the evening he wanted. After all, Lance Herndon threw it for himself. What did he tell you about the party? That it was going to be the best party Atlanta has ever seen.
Lance was turning 41.
When we talk about, you know, his awesome 41st birthday party, it's all through the lens of almost this great Gatsby level of character.
Hundreds of people were there to wish him well. It was a who's who of Atlanta society.
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Chapter 3: What secrets did Lance Herndon have?
He loved being surrounded by a lot of movers and shakers. He loved entertaining. He was in his element.
Lance had more than just his birthday to celebrate. He'd risen from humble beginnings to become one of America's most successful black entrepreneurs, earning millions along the way.
It really is that American rags to riches story. You know, you can work hard, you can get a good degree, you can build your own business, you can grow wealthy in America.
In that moment, 30 floors above the city, Lance Herndon seemed to be on top of the world. No one there could have known that in just months, Lance would be dead. Or that the perpetrator was among them that very night.
So chilling when you think that Lance was face-to-face with his killer at that birthday party.
Extremely chilling. Everybody happy. He was in the limelight. And four months later, he's no longer with us.
August 8, 1996. Holly Stuber pulled up to Lance's Large Colonial on this cul-de-sac in the tony Atlanta suburb of Roswell. It was where he ran his lucrative computer company, Access Inc. Holly, one of a handful of employees who work there, unlocked the door to the home office at precisely 8 a.m.
The business was in the basement of the house? Yeah, he had an office for himself, beautifully decorated. He had an office for the rest of us that we shared as a large room. What was the business? He had an IT consulting firm. He provided IT consultants for local businesses.
Among those companies, Bell South, Delta Airlines, and Coca-Cola. So Lance was doing well. He was, very much. That morning, inside the office, Holly was surprised to find no sign of her boss.
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Chapter 4: How did the investigation unfold?
Yes, that would be an appropriate characterization.
Had he overslept? Not likely. Employee and friend Talana Caraway says Lance made sure of that. He set three alarm clocks?
He had one beside the bed that would go off first, and then there was another one on the chest or something that would go off next, and then there was another one that would go off. But by the time the third one got up, he was up and ready to move. And he would get up really early, right? Oh, gosh, yes. Four o'clock. Oh. That's early.
He got up early because he said that when he gets up at that time, the world on the other side is already awake.
Holly paged her boss. No reply. By now, another coworker had arrived. Holly paged him again. Still no response. So this is the man who is on top of everything, is suddenly nowhere to be found. Correct. At 10 a.m., Lance's mother got to the house. Jackie Herndon was a fixture there, regularly pitching in to help out with the business.
When she came down the steps, we both asked her if she knew where Lance was. We haven't been able to get in touch with him. We haven't seen him. How did she take that? Was she concerned? She immediately ran back upstairs, very quickly.
Seconds later, Holly heard something that stopped her cold.
She started screaming.
Oh, wow.
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Chapter 5: What evidence was found at the crime scene?
What had happened to Lance?
Tell me what's going on. I don't know. I came in the house. He's 40 years old. I followed him and
When she was initially screaming, I thought, oh, he must have fallen or he's hurt or something like that.
But this was no accident, and he was beyond hurt, beyond help. Somebody done killed my baby. Who would want to kill Lance Herndon, the millionaire entrepreneur? This mystery would take nearly a decade to solve with no shortage of suspects.
She certainly had the motive to want to do this. Or secrets.
I've always described Lance Herndon as sort of an iceberg. What we saw on the surface was just a very small percentage of what was going on in his life.
The first thing I thought was, this is unbelievable. This cannot be happening.
News of Lance Herndon's death spread fast through his tight-knit community. Those close to him, like friend Talana Carraway, were devastated. How do you find out what has happened to Lance?
My girlfriend calls, and she said, have you heard the news? I said, what news? She goes, stop. She said, sit down. And I said, what is going on? She says, Lance was killed, and I just lost him.
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Chapter 6: Who were Lance's significant relationships?
A gruesome scene, but investigators didn't find any bloody footprints or fingerprints. They checked Lance's bathroom.
There was a pillowcase found in the toilet, but still had blood on it, which was collected.
When they pulled back the shower curtain, the tub was wet. That led them to believe the killer had rinsed off. So this person had time to clean up.
Yes, plenty of time.
And plenty of time to wash away evidence. Investigators took a closer look at the bed, hopeful the killer had left something behind.
There were hair follicles found in the bed and on the sheets.
that would be tested?
Yes. All of those things were collected as evidence and submitted to the crime lab for testing.
Next to the bed, investigators found an intriguing clue on the nightstand, a picture frame placed face down. It was a black and white photo of a woman posing in lingerie.
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Chapter 7: What were the motives behind the murder?
Including Lance's wallet and a stack of credit cards on his dresser.
It led us to believe that this was just strictly somebody taking care of business on Mr. Herndon.
They noted there was no forced entry. But downstairs, Holly Stuber knew one thing was missing, the office laptop, a black IBM ThinkPad. The case, however, was still there, something Holly thought was strange because Lance had a strict rule. Never leaves the office without the case.
And that's the thing you have to remember about Lance is that he is not kidding about when he says something like that.
To Holly, it meant the laptop might have been stolen. By late morning, investigators were fanning out across Lance's property. In the driveway near the garage, they noticed something odd. They found gum wrappers outside the house?
Yes, they found gum wrappers, a lot of silver foil, like rolled up and some were just crumpled up all around the driveway.
they continued searching for a critical piece of evidence, the murder weapon. What do they believe he was killed with? Was there an object anywhere around there? Was it like a blunt type object, given that he was beaten?
We never found an object on the scene that would have or could have been used to cause the injuries to Mr. Herndon's head and face area.
With little to go on, investigators needed to dig into Lance Herndon's life, and they were about to find something big. Turned out, Lance had a secret. Did you get a sense that something was wrong with him?
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Chapter 8: How did the community react to Lance's death?
That's what it felt like. The murder of a millionaire entrepreneur in one of Atlanta's wealthiest suburbs made big news.
Police say the murder of Lance Herndon is unusual. Killings like that just don't happen here in Roswell. In fact, the city's last unsolved murder was in the early 1980s.
Just months after his 41st birthday, friends and family gathered once more in Lance Herndon's name, not to celebrate, but to mourn. Lance's longtime friend, Eva Allen, says that amid the shock and grief, many there felt another emotion, fear. Lance's killer was still at large. You go to the funeral. Is the person here?
This person has not been caught. And we are Lance's friends, and we're all together celebrating his life. The killer could be among us.
Exactly. And that was frightening. And I think everybody there that cared about him had those thoughts. Eva did her best to comfort her friend, Janine Herndon, Lance's ex-wife. This was someone that she had been married to for years, recently divorced, had a child with.
Lance and Janine shared custody of their only child, Harrison, who was four at the time. Today, he's 33, but can still recall the day he learned about his father's death.
And I remember, what do you mean dad's not here anymore? I think as a kid, it's very hard to understand that things are gone forever.
But the memories of being with his dad are still very much alive.
Being taken around the house by my father, being able to see his walk-in mainframe computer, being able to take car rides in the Volvo and the Jaguar. I remember watching Top Gun. That was his favorite show to play for me.
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