We lived in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Me, my mom, and my stepdad, Brian. On that Monday, June 29, 2009, my mom and Brian, they went shopping for a boat. He came home early to pick my mom up. He called me and said, hey, look, I'm coming home. Well, a lot of people in Lake Charles have boats, and I knew that Brian had been wanting to buy a new fishing boat. He said, well, let's go look around and get some brochures. Mom and Brian got home around 3.30. He dropped her off, and he left the house to continue boat shopping.
I don't know what happened to him after that. It was 6, 37 o'clock. I tried to call him. When it got 10 o'clock, I just thought it was kind of strange. Brian never came home. I said, well, if he got in a wreck or something, we kept trying to call. We waited and we waited, you know, till late. And then I finally went to bed. And Sissy, who was my mom's best friend, was at our house. By midnight, I said, call me when he gets home. And I went home.
Woke up about 6 o'clock that morning. I called her. I said, is he home? She said, nope. I said, you're joking. The next day, it goes by. Still no word from Brian. It concerned me because you don't imagine Brian, you know, he's a big guy. We get on the scene and there's a car jacked up, a body 20 feet or so from the vehicle. Appears to have gunshot wounds to the body. The scene gave the appearance that this could have been a robbery. Brian's gone and he has been murdered by God knows him.
The statements that we've taken from the spouse and her friend just aren't adding up to what we're piecing together. It was becoming very clear to us that maybe this wasn't what it appeared to be at first. There's no fingerprints, there's no eyewitnesses, there's no DNA, there's no nada. We start to think, you know, is it possible these two women could have done this? I had no idea. I was under a suspicion for murder. I did not do this.
I'm 100% positive that neither one of them had anything to do with Brian's death. You know, by this point, we were very sure that Robin and Sissy had done this. That's why we've charged these two women with the murder. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I still can't believe it. I'm Erin Moriarty. Tonight on 48 Hours, friends for life. We're like sisters.
We have been for 20-something years. Robin Davis and Carol's Sissy Saltzman are doing what Southern women have always done when times get tough. They look their best, and they're doing it together. You won't find two women closer friends than Robin and Sissy. What's the one at the bottom? It's the kind of friendship that all people should have. It's the one person that you can call no matter what, and they're there, regardless. And I mean, most people don't have that. She is a very generous, very kind, loving person. She's a wonderful mother. You know, you are. You're a great girl.
These days, their friendship is more important than ever since they've been charged with murder together after Robin's husband was shot to death alongside his car on an isolated road. Both women adamantly deny the charge. It's unconscionable that they can do this to innocent people. Never can I imagine that this would have happened to me or anybody else in America, but I've come to realize that it can happen to anybody. There were no salons in the county jail where Robin and Sissy spent two months before getting out on bail. How long were you in jail? 67 days. They wouldn't let us see or speak to one another. What was it like for you, Sissy? Um, it wasn't nice. It was pretty tough. It was. I cried and I cried and I cried and I cried for...
Robin and Sissy are preparing for trial and the fight of their lives to convince a jury they had nothing to do with Brian Davis's death. She loved the man, Robin says, although she admits that's not how the relationship started when she first met him at the office in 2001. I said, where the hell did y'all get him from? Does that mean you didn't like him at first? Uh-uh, not at all. We did not like one another, period. They worked together at an insurance company in Hammond, Louisiana. I can remember the phone call when she first went out wedding. She's like, you're not going to believe this. What? I went out with this guy, Brian, that I work with. And I was like, yeah, call me that. You can let me know how that works out for you. It did work out, at least for the most part. They married in 2008 after a four-year courtship. I was happy. I was at home. And, you know, he was working. And for the first time in my life, I just worried about...
Nothing. I mean, just nothing. It was Brian's third marriage, Robin's second. And combined, they had six children. Robin had two. Brian had four. How would you describe him, sissy? Well, I'm proud. I mean, he was funny. He was a great dad, too. I mean, he's a people person, you know? People person. Every way he went, he talked to somebody about something. He knew something about everything. To everyone who knew him, including his younger brother, Scott, Brian was a man who loved a good time. He always had a smile on his face. He had fun whether it was work or whether it was play. He laughed about it.
But sometimes Brian's idea of fun got in the way of his marriages. Brian had an eye for other women, and he didn't just look. So he wasn't always faithful? No. He had been caught twice in Baton Rouge before they ever moved here. With another woman? Yes, two different women. You know, then they moved here, and he still wanted to marry her. I said, Robin, there's nothing wrong with loving Brian. He does love you. And if you choose to stay with him, you can't hold this over his head because you'll never have a good marriage. And then when she finally decided she was ready to marry him, I mean, she was just, I'd never seen her happier. Honest to God, never seen her happier.
But she wasn't happy about the fact that Brian was still cheating on her. I didn't know that she knew. I just thought she was oblivious. Robin's daughter, Kelsey, who lived with her and Brian, didn't quite trust him. You could tell that he was up to something. He was flirtatious with women everywhere we went. And Robin saw it, too. So what did you choose to do? Suck it up. And, you know, put my best foot forward and rock on. I felt really bad for what I did. This is one of the women Brian was cheating with, Fanny Dietz. Their two-year affair began before Brian married Robin and continued throughout the marriage. Fanny agreed to speak with us on the condition that we obscure her face. Feelings developed.
And it just kept escalating from there. Did you love Brian Davis? Yes, I did. And did Brian love you? Yes. The affair had ended a few months before June 29, 2009, when Brian Davis disappeared. According to Robin and Sissy, he had left to go boat shopping and never came home. His body was discovered on this deserted road by a man out test driving a car. He was shot four times in the back, and he didn't have a chance. He didn't see it coming.
At the crime scene, Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Tony Mancuso says investigators uncovered several strange clues. Brian's car was jacked up, his shoes were off, his belt undone, and some of his valuables missing. When you first heard that your brother had been killed, what did you think? My first thoughts were he was looking for a boat. Someone killed him. Someone, something went bad during a transaction.
But just hours into their murder investigation, police started to wonder if Robin was involved based on the way she was reacting to her husband's death. Eventually walked over there to tell her, hey, I'm sorry about your husband. You know, we're going to do everything we can to try to figure out why this happened and who did this. But she was more interested and kind of joked about me knowing her friend Sissy's boyfriend. That's when Sissy 2 came under scrutiny. Prosecutor Rick Bryant believes the two best friends plotted Bryant's death. So you really believe these two blonde, middle-aged women lured Bryant Davis out to this secluded spot and then shot him four times whole-bloodedly and watched him die? To the women's many friends, including Marcy Wilson, the whole idea is preposterous.
There is no possible way. Robin can't even step on a roach. Sissy's barely five foot tall. Neither one of them know how to use a gun. This is stuff you watch on TV that you never imagine happening to you or someone you love. These women do not look like cold-blooded killers. Well, there you go. Tell me what a cold-blooded killer looks like. A murder's come in all shapes and sizes. But it would take months for police to build their case and arrest the women. She's your best friend. Oh, yeah. And Robin says you'd do anything for her. Absolutely. Would you if she asked you to kill somebody? Would you do that? Oh, my God. No. No. Not for her. Not for Jesus Christ himself. No. No, no. I don't have that in me.
It was a gruesome discovery off a dirt road in Georgia. Hunters had found a body. Was it immediately clear to you that this woman had been murdered? Yes. But who was this mystery woman in the woods? That looks like Mindy. I'm Erin Moriarty, and from 48 Hours, this is The Woman in the Woods. I've never wanted to be wrong like this in my whole entire life. Binge the full series of Woman in the Woods wherever you get your podcasts. From the early days, I can remember that was one of the things that brought joy to his life was fishing.
Brian Davis loved to fish on the many waterways in South Louisiana. And on the last day of his life, a Monday late in June 2009, he was looking to buy a boat. When he got stuck on something, I don't care what it was, it was just like a dog chasing a boat. What was he stuck on? Getting the boat.
Brian worked a few hours that day and then returned home to pick up Robin. He was excited about the excursion. We already had a pile of brochures, and we had an index card. I'm going here, I'm going there, dragging me all around and looking at stuff. The couple stopped at a boat store called Jerry's Marine, about half hour away, where they were seen on security videotape a little before 3 o'clock that afternoon. And I was being facetious, like, oh, God, if I have to look at one more boat, I'm going to die. Soon, Robin grew tired of boat shopping and says Brian drove her home in her trailblazer.
We came home, and I said, look, you can go do whatever you're going to do. I'm going to do this, this, and that. I'll see you after a while, Bob. Robin says Brian then switched cars, got into his own Honda Accord, like this one, and drove off alone to do more boat shopping. There was nothing out of the ordinary about that day. But something out of the ordinary did happen that night. Brian Davis never returned home. Then all of a sudden, you know, it was 6.30, 7 o'clock. I mean, I don't know what time it was, but I mean, I tried to call him, and then the weather got so bad. What do you mean by it? Storming.
Robin's first fear was that Brian was up to his old tricks again and had gone to meet another woman. As the clock ticked past 10 p.m., Robin says she started to panic. Including the police, who told her she had to wait 24 hours to report someone missing. Brian's brother, Scott Davis, was home in Tennessee. How did you find out he was missing? My sister called me and said, Brian's missing. Before long, friends and family were leaving frantic messages for Brian on his cell phone. Under God's green earth is worried about you. Hey, Brian, it's Mama. Please call me as soon as possible, son. Two days later, William Brian Davis' body was found. About 10.03, 10.05, whenever it was, my phone rang, and it was her Aunt Patsy. She said, Sissy, did you see the news? They found a man on Wagon Wheel Road. I said, where is that at? The next thing I heard was a phone call.
From my mother, weeping, that they had found him dead. What did your mother say? Her exact words were they killed him. What's going through your mind, Sissy? Oh, I'm sick. Sick. The sport of me sank in, you know, stadium. But I knew, you know, about what they said that it was. Sissy then broke the devastating news to Robin. They found Ryan, and she started throwing up. You know, I didn't get out of bed. You know, I was depressed. My kids kept saying, Mama, you don't get up.
Back on Wagon Wheel Road, puzzled investigators were combing the crime scene for clues. Do you think that you were a suspect from the very beginning? Yeah, I do. In retrospect, yeah, I do. I don't know why. Nine days after Brian's murder, police interrogated Robin on videotape. Do you recall what you're wearing? I think I had on a pair of white capris and a black t-shirt. And if Robin was involved, investigators tried to pressure Sissy into giving up her best friend. So we're giving you an option to sit here and tell us what's really going on, what really went down.
Sissy, like Robin, talked to investigators without a lawyer present. Did you have anything to do with or have any knowledge of the death of Brian Davis? Is that what you're saying? You think I killed Brian? When she realized she was a suspect, Sissy hired attorney Shane Hinch. The police were showing up at inopportune times, despite her willingness to cooperate, telling her neighbors that she was a murderer.
Hinch and Robin's lawyer, Glenn Van Voorhis, were convinced the police had it all wrong. That's why both attorneys agreed to take their cases for no fee. I keep thinking this is a dream. This isn't happening. They're not really serious about prosecuting these girls, but they are. Robin's attorney believes Brian's philandering ways may have cost him his life. He may have gone to this remote area for a secret sexual encounter with Fannie Dietz or another woman. Brian Davis was a womanizer. He liked to have sex outside.
in very secluded areas, similar to the one where he was found when he died. Soon after Brian's death, Robin told police about Fanny, his married mistress. And when police contacted Fanny, she gave them explicit emails between the two of them. She kept every email her and Brian ever sent to each other. She gave it to the police, every single one of them.
In one email, Fannie wrote to Brian, that is kind of cool doing it in the daylight where somebody could see us. And is there any evidence that he might have been having sex? His belt was undone. His shoes were off. Something was going on back there, and he damn sure wouldn't have sex with me back there. And if anyone wanted Brian dead, say the women's attorneys, it was Fannie's husband, Shane Dietz. If I was the husband and I read those emails, between the level of how much they loved each other and the very descriptive graphic sexual content, I'd be extremely angry.
What brought Brian Davis to the end of this lonely dirt road in Lake Charles in June of 2009? And who shot him in the back and left him to die by his car? From the moment Sheriff Tony Mancuso and investigators arrived at the scene, nothing seemed to add up. Does it make any sense that somebody would come here and change a tire? No, not at all.
Did Brian drive his Honda here, planning to meet someone? Not likely, says his mistress, Fanny Dietz. She told police Brian would never take his beloved Honda down a road like this for any reason. That's not Brian. If Brian drove from Lake Charles to Lafayette and got bugs on his windshield on his car, he was going through a car wash. Then there was that strange crime scene. Brian's wallet, laptop, cell phone, GPS, and gun were all gone. But other valuables were left behind, and that convinced police this was no robbery. His watch was still on his wrist.
His rings were still in his hand. Why would somebody kill somebody for a cell phone, a gun, and little of any cash and be waiting for him at this secluded location at 3.50 in the afternoon? It makes no logical sense. Another odd clue, that jacked-up car, as if Brian had stopped to fix a flat tire. But there's no evidence the tire was even punctured. The next day, I think they put air in the tire and realized that the tire held air, but there was nothing wrong with the tire. And what did that say? That's when I think we started thinking, this may not be exactly what we believe it is. But the clue that police say convinced them the women were lying came later, when police looked at their cell phone records. The phone records are certainly a smoking gun. There's no question about that, that we felt like that was our best piece of evidence.
All cell phones operate by sending a radio wave signal to the closest cell tower. That signal pings off that tower, which usually covers several square miles. In her interview with police, Sissy said she was at her home on the day Brian went missing with her cell phone from 11 a.m. until 3.30 p.m. waiting for Robin to pick her up. She stayed home all day. Didn't go anywhere.
Not till she come back and got me. Was Sissy telling the truth when she said that she was at her home and never left? No, she was lying. So Sissy says she's always here. Always. Waiting for Robin to come pick her up. No vehicle, no transportation, always at her home. According to Prosecutor Rick Bryant, any calls Sissy made from her home would have most likely pinged off this tower just 300 yards from her home. But in fact, where do you believe she was? We know starting at 138, she pings off this tower, the Hackberry Tower. The Hackberry Tower is 11 miles from Sissy's house.
But it's also the tower closest to the crime scene. If Sissy were in fact at home all afternoon, like she said, was there any way that her cell phone could be pinging off a tower all the way down here or a tower all the way over here? Absolutely not. And police believe, contrary to Robin and Sissy's story, that Brian never switched cars, never got into his Honda the day he died. Sissy had borrowed it the night before, as she told police. The night before Sunday night, when I went to get in my car, it wouldn't start. So I just took his car home because he was taking her truck to work.
And police believe she still had the car on Monday. According to Sheriff Mancuso, it was Sissy who drove the Honda to the remote location on Wagon Wheel Drive and lured Brian out there on the pretext of changing a tire. We believe that Sissy had the car. She came out here and said that they had a flat, and Robin told him, hey, we've got to go help Sissy. She's had a breakdown in your car. Simple as that. When Robin and Brian arrived at the scene, the sheriff says one or both of the women shot and killed him. And why would Robin want her husband dead?
The oldest reason in the world. Money. More than $600,000 in insurance payouts. It's a substantial amount of money. It's certainly motive for murder, in our opinion. Investigators discovered that Robin had recently lost her job. Her love for video poker had racked up gambling debts. And she and Brian were on the verge of losing their home. Robin says those alleged motives are nonsense. I'm not going to tell you that I never gambled, but we gambled together. Brian and I gambled together. That's not the problem. And then, what is Sissy's motive for murder?
I think she just had that close of a relationship with Robin. I mean, that's a good friend. There's no question. There's no question. She did not crack. Finally, after a six-month investigation, police formally charged Robin Davis and Sissy Saltzman with murder. What did this case become known to all of you? Well, we called it the Thelma and Louise case, obviously because of the movie. The movie is a tale of two women friends and a murder. But in this case, the women's lawyers say it's like Thelma and Louise in only one way. It's all fantasy.
Any physical evidence that ties them to that scene? Not a shred. Absolutely zero. To make matters worse, police lost what could have been a key piece of evidence. A surveillance videotape from Fred's Lounge. A popular bar near the crime scene. Since the camera was aimed at the only road to the crime scene, it could have shown who was driving the Honda that day. Brian or Sissy? Do mistakes get made? Yes. There's no question. And it's unacceptable, but it happens.
And there's something else the police neglected. Another possible suspect. The husband of Brian's mistress, Fanny Dietz. I was waiting for somebody to call me because I figured, you know, jealous husband, that's the first person they're going to go after, you know? So I was freaking out. But they never called me. Shane Dietz was married to Fanny at the time and later divorced her. Fanny had confessed the affair to her husband just two months before Brian was killed. Did you lure him to that area, Wagon Wheel Road, and shoot him? Nope. I don't even know where Wagon Wheel Road is at. God honest truth.
Police didn't interview him during their initial investigation. Why would investigators go talk to this man right away? You know his wife's having an affair. Why wouldn't you interview him right away? I think you could second-guess any investigation. I mean, I really do. Police cleared Dietz because his employer said he was at work all day. It says to me that they suspected Robin Davis from the very instant they met her. But defense attorney Glenn VanVores is hoping that police mistakes and the lack of any physical evidence will add up to reasonable doubt. And he points to one bizarre twist.
that shows the unlikelihood of Robin being involved. An hour before police say Brian was murdered, Robin was seen shopping for boats dressed in white pants and flip-flops, not exactly practical clothing for planning to kill a man. But you don't plan to go kill somebody out in the boondocks in white capri pants. She wasn't dressed for murder, in my opinion, I can tell you that. I thought that was a critical fact. Dear Lord, we ask that justice be served and that these two girls...
Be set free. Robin Davis and Sissy Saltzman, along with their close friend Marcy Wilson, are praying hard for a miracle. I would just like justice to be served all the way around. For Robin and I, for Brian, to put it to rest. Make peace with it and go on. Three long years after Brian Davis' murder, Sissy and Robin are finally about to go on trial. We've waited for this day for so long. They'll finally be, have this off of them, you know.
and be able to go on with their lives. Sissy insists that the man she's accused of killing wasn't just Robin's husband. He was also Sissy's best friend. I lost the best friend, and that has never been out of our line of vision. And when the day finally comes, the two women who do everything together enter the court together to stand trial for murder. So what do the two women face right now? Mandatory life. You only leave in a pine box, basically. The remainder of their natural life if convicted. Cameras are not allowed in the courtroom for what both defense attorneys and prosecutors admit may be the toughest battle of their careers. No one can prepare you for how difficult circumstantial evidence cases are. You have no eyewitness, you have no physical evidence, you have no confession. When you have a case where you really believe your clients are innocent, does that add?
It makes it much more difficult. It has taken charge of me, and I'm dedicated to it. I'm not going to quit until I get these girls off. Also in the courtroom are these two women, Felicia Ballard and Sherry Luss, serving as jurors for the first time. It was life-changing to sit there and look at the ladies day in and day out, going, could they have? Maybe, maybe not. And to know that that decision was going to be left up to us.
It was hard. Jurors say it was a job made even harder because investigators didn't do their job. What about the fact that there were other possible suspects? Brian was having an affair. Yes. Now what about the fact that the police lost that surveillance videotape? That was... You only see stuff like that on TV. And in a crucial case like that, that could have nailed it. What else bothered you? Brian, who's very meticulous about everything.
Why in the world would he even drive his car down that bumpy, horrible road on a flat car? Okay, Ms. Davis, we need to get back to the cell phone thing. Jurors also had to deal with other troubling contradictions in Robin's story. Look at her cell phone records. She says she called him right after he left. That's a lie. She also said, I left voicemails for him. Several voicemails. Not a single voicemail from his wife. Jurors heard from experts who say those same cell phone records put the women at the crime scene. Our experts from the FBI would show that both of them were at or near the crime scene at the time of the death.
When we make the calls, we need to make sure and document where we are, what time it is. But the defense performed its own tests of the cell phone signals. What can happen, says investigator Aaron Miller, is that when one tower becomes overloaded, cell phone signals sometimes bounce to another tower. You just can't pinpoint someone's position, and especially in a more rural area like this. However, their unscientific results could not be admitted as evidence at trial. I would cringe if that piece of evidence sent someone to the penitentiary. But it wasn't just the cell phone evidence that the jury had to consider.
They learned Robin attempted to cash in on those life insurance policies, valued at more than $600,000, just two weeks after Brian's death. And some jurors were troubled by the women's apparent lack of emotion during trial. To me, they showed no emotion. Where's the emotion at? Please show me something. As the jury begins deliberations, there's one juror, Shandrika Washington, who believes the prosecution failed to do its job. They didn't have enough evidence. It wasn't enough for me to convince me that they murdered Brian.
As Robin Davis contemplates spending the rest of her life in prison, the stress is clearly visible. Obviously, you know, I'm a little nervous and stuff, but I mean, I'm still very confident. You know, I still believe that, you know, we've selected 12 people that have enough common sense to realize that we did not commit this crime. And they're educated and they're paying attention. And I think that, you know, in the end, we'll get what we need. But suddenly, our interview is cut short. Is that what you said? Oh, my God. Buy my cigarettes.
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After less than three hours, Robin Davis gets the word the jury is back. As she rushes to court with her defense team, Robin prays the nightmare that she and Sissia face for more than three years is finally over. Fear and uncertainty have replaced Robin's usual laughter. But there is also uncertainty in the jury room. There was one person who was holding out, wasn't she? Yes. One person that you couldn't bring.
To believe in guilt. Yes. The holdout is Shandrika Washington. They just didn't have anything. No eyewitnesses, no murder weapon, no fingerprints. Even the cell phone evidence isn't enough to overcome Shandrika's doubts. None of the jurors have education in cell phone towers and how it works. So that was kind of hard for us to make a decision off of that. And so no matter what you discuss, she stuck with... She stuck with not guilty. Not guilty. So there were 11 people who voted what? Guilty. And one? Not guilty.
In nearly every state in this country, 11 jurors to one would have meant a mistrial. Sissy and Robin would have walked out of the courtroom. But this is Louisiana, and here, only 10 jurors are needed for a murder conviction. I knew what the verdict was when the first juror walked through the door because she was crying. and jurors who equip people are generally not crying. Robin Davis and Sissy Saltzman are both convicted of second-degree murder. Hard to believe that in the United States, that you can have a system where 11's good enough, 10's good enough. In any other state except for Oregon, that's not the case. I was stunned when they read the verdict. It was shocking. I think the most pain I've ever felt was when they took him. That was horrible.
The lone holdout juror feels the family's pain. I didn't think that this case would touch my life the way it did. It really hurt. To this day, it still hurts me. But those who love Brian Davis don't share those doubts. We feel joy. We feel pain. We're angry, too. Very angry. And reality sinks in for Sissy and Robin's loved ones, too. If she's in jail and I try to get married, have kids, it's not fair. I'm only 21. I don't want to go the rest of my life without my mom or my dad.
A month later, a tearful Robin Davis faces her future. Kelsey's going to be all right. I mean, their support system is just phenomenal. And like Sunday, I called Kelsey, and they'd just gotten back from the family dinner that we do every Sunday. And it's like, my life is where it's supposed to be, and it's moving on, but I'm not in it. I'm here, and I don't know why I'm here. And what about Sissy, whose friendship with Robin landed her behind bars? How do you have that smile on your face? I don't know. It's all I can do.
My worst nightmares come true. From day one I said, the two things that scare me the most is that my life is hanging on a bingo off of a cell phone tower and there's 12 people that's going to judge me that don't know me. Sissy Saltzman and Robin Davis are serving their time in the same facility. They see each other briefly in the jail's church. But the women are determined to hold on to what they say matters the most. Still close friends? Just as close if not stronger than we were before. No anger between the two of you? Nope. So your friendship will survive all of this? Oh, I would hope so. I would really be pissed if it didn't. My brother's in a tomb.
He doesn't get to wake up and walk this earth anymore. And to the day that I die, those two will be the ones who are responsible for my brother's murder.