It could have been around any corner in her own big city. It could have been the very next class at the college from which she was meant to get a degree. Not that she was looking for love, but it was looking for her. Capricious, inconvenient, forbidden.
And it announced itself as love will. 400 miles from home, to everyone's surprise. And if she saw only the promise, the sparkle of it, well, she was young. What could she know of the powers arrayed against so fine a pairing as hers?
I never would have thought in a million years this would have been the direction that this actually went. Who could? Certainly not her father. And not Sparkle.
That was her name, by the way. Sparkle. Her name and her attitude. Effervescent is what she was in high school, a cheerleader in college, enthusiastic for a while.
And then it was the summer of 1998 and Sparkle was 20 and she was, she announced, ready for life, whatever that might be. It was that age, you know, where they think they're ready to grow up. And she'd spent two years at college on her own and just wasn't ready to come back home and live, you know, under the rules in the housecourse, necessarily. So Sparkle packed her bags, said goodbye to her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, and announced where she was going when she got there.
We get a call. I'm in Mobile. Where you staying? I'm staying with Grandma.
I said, okay, that's fine. Then the greet is Sparkle's father, he's retired army, was an infantry officer. Her stepmother, Donna Lowry, was a television reporter at WXIA in Atlanta. They were at home in bed a few months after Sparkle left when she called with more news.
I guess it was about 10:30, maybe 11:00 o' clock at night. We were all sleeping in the house and she calls to tell me she's pregnant. And I'm thinking, gee, couldn't you call me at a better time? And of course, I'm not happy that she's pregnant to start with.
How well did you know that young man by then? But was she in love? Oh, yes. The young man, she told them, was Ricky.
Ricky Rye, a college drop hat, just like Sparkle. She met him at his father's hotel in Louisville where he was the manager and she found a job working the front desk. Oh, and by the way, he was even younger than she was, just 18 and about to be a father to their baby. Sparkle's baby, unwed and young and, you know, hadn't finished college.
So we had some concerns. They felt a little better when Sparkle and Ricky Moved to Atlanta. That way Bennett and Donna could help when the baby came. They really did care for each other.
That was obvious. Yeah, they loved each other a lot. Neze got to know Ricky. He opened up a little, admitted he was a bit of a black sheep.
The rest of the five children in his family of Indian immigrants were piling up advanced degrees in college. He, the dropout, obviously wasn't, but he certainly seemed proud of his family. After all, his father had been a math professor and later a successful businessman. He always talked about what his family had and all the money that they had, the businesses they owned, where he went to school, the private schooling.
But I always ask him, well, what do you do? I'm not interested in what they gonna do, but what do you do? How are you gonna take care of the baby and her? I was always concerned that they were just barely getting by.
What's a parent to do? Ricky's parents worried too, apparently. But they seem to blame Sparkle for running off with their son before he finished college. They did not like the fact that they were together.
They did not like that she was pregnant. In fact, when the baby was born, Ricky's family did not come to visit. Was there any sign of his parents at all during this period of time? But Ricky and Sparkle were ecstatic.
They named their little girl Anala, which in Sanskrit means fiery one. And all the while, that young love just seemed to grow. That's the thing that kept us going, was that he loved her. And then, just as the young couple was getting used to parenthood, Ricky came to his in laws with dreadful news.
It was October of 1999 that he told us that his father died from diabetes related complications. There was to be a traditional funeral. The burial would be in India. Ricky flew there to be part of it.
It was gone for just a few days. And we remember thinking, well, that was a quick trip to India. But bad news can come in batches. Within just days of Ricky's return from the India burial, there was a cyclone in India.
Thousands of people killed. It was a big news story. And he said his mother, who was still in India, had been killed in that cyclone. And we were devastated for him.
It was horrible. And this poor king lost his dad and his mom in just a few weeks. It was the following spring, the first spring of a new millennium, a new life. Ricky and Sparkle made their relationship official.
They got married. We thought it would work. As long as they were both putting forth their best effort. Yes.
And as the weeks floated happily by, they were always together. I Never, ever could think of a time when if they were more than a couple hours apart, that was strange. So there was simply no warning, no way to prepare for what happened next. April 26, 2000, got a call from Rick who said, Sparkle's been attacked.
He'd just come home and found her. He said she heard, but his words didn't quite make sense. She ran to her car. And I remember driving, thinking, attack.
I mean, I'm thinking, we're gonna take her to the hospital, she'll be okay. I remember, think I'll take the baby, you know, we'll make sure everything's okay. There are times when a parent cannot make anything right. By the time Donn arrived at Sparkle's apartment, Sparkle's father was already there.
When I kept asking, is she dead or she alive? What happened? Finally, someone would come down and tell me that she wasn't alive anymore. She was dead, murdered.
She'd been strangled and stabbed to death. Her six month old baby was unharmed just a few feet away from Sparkle's body. As a reporter, I've covered homicide scenes, I've watched families fall apart, and it was surreal to be on the other end of it and dealing with just everything going on with that. What had happened?
Who had done this? A detective named Lee Brown looked carefully at that horrific scene. He could not yet know who the murderer was or the incomprehensible design behind it. But he did know this.
It appeared somebody was mad at this girl. This is rage, right? This is rage. Having my colleagues pointing their cameras at me.
And they were very compassionate about what we're going through, but it was very invasive. People wanted to know more about it and how we felt. How many times have I been on the other end of that kind of thing? In Atlanta, Georgia, a television reporter came to understand the painful end of grief made public.
Donna Lowry's stepdaughter dead. Her murder a violent overkill that looked like hate. Sparkle's father, Bennett Reed, was inconsolable. All I could do was cry.
I can't believe that I lost a child. What happened? Detective Leigh Brown took the call. There was a lot of blood.
She had multiple stab wounds and her throat had been cut and she had been strangled. A rage killing must have been. Were there any signs that anybody forced their way into that apartment? No, none at all.
So whoever went there had been allowed in, right? That's correct. Did that mean Sparkle knew her killer? Was there anything taken from the apartment?
Nothing. The apartment wasn't ransacked. Her purse, which was lying near her body was upside down, but there was US currency lying on the floor. That was obviously coming out of her purse.
Actual money. Actual money. Just lying. It was obviously not a robbery.
Obviously it wasn't a robbery. It wasn't sexual assault either. That was obvious. But the killer had taken precautions.
The telephone cord was cut. No fibers found. No fingerprints, no DNA. We had some footwear impressions in blood.
Other than that, we found very little physical evidence. As for the young husband, Ricky, of course we always look at the significant other of the spouse. The person closest to the victim. Was it the marriage?
They seem so happy. In spite of whatever difficulties they may have encountered with their own immaturity, parenthood. They had been inseparable. But now Detective Brown couldn't help but notice that his behavior seemed a little odd.
When we arrived on the scene, he was relatively calm. Sparkle's father, Bennett Reed, watching this, was puzzled too. They were just walking around holding the baby. I can't say you ever actually showed any emotion.
That night the police took Ricky ride to the station. They recorded the interview. And she was covered in blood. And I called her name.
Didn't touch her spot in the mole. I didn't touch anything else, but just wanted her to touch her. That's when I heard another. So I checked out real quick and ran a picture up.
And the entire time he was. He was still calm. He didn't exhibit the emotions. I got death in front of you to strike me as I.
You come home and you open the door, you see your wife lying on the floor and pull up. Why are you going into. I don't know. Cuz I didn't know what to think about.
I really do not know what to think. I have no idea what was going on. They kept him for eight hours, talking. His behavior somehow peculiar.
Then they sent him home. They did not charge him. And here's why. He actually had a better album than I did, if that's possible.
He was at work all day that day. That being the case, we knew there was no way that he could have committed this murder. So what did that tell you? The case became cold very quickly.
It all went cold. Before long, Ricky turned over Baby and Olive to Sparkle's parents. And then he left town. That was the last time we actually saw him.
Then all of a sudden he just stopped calling. Just disappeared out of his own life. Right, right. A bat is strange.
Strange, right. You know, I would periodically look to see where Ricky was and see where he moved to, you know, see if there was anything that I may miss on the one year anniversary of the murder, Sparkle's father went on television offering money for information leading to the killer. Today I'm announcing a reward of $5,000 for the arrest and the conviction of that person who might have had a play in my daughter's tragic ending. No one came forward.
Well, I told Mr. Reed, her father, to not give up hope. I said, at some point somebody's gonna get arrested and they're gonna have information about a murder. One year followed, another little analogue.
A carbon copy of her mother. The Reeds were parents to a youngster again. It was spring 2004. Four years in Sparkle's murder.
It was as unpredictable, as unexpected as that awful call in the night had been. There was a high speed chase. The young woman arrested said she had some information about a murder. And I got a telephone call from the Atlanta Police Department, a homicide unit.
And he said, let me run some things by him. He said, string of 2000, Union Station Apartments. Sparkle Michelle Rye. I said, yes, sir.
He said, she was stabbed, she was strangled and her throat was cut. I said, yes, sir. He said, I have a young lady who was present in the apartment when it happened. So I was sitting in his office and 15 minutes later, an eyewitness account.
The solution was apparently at hand. Or was it? She told us that her friend was with her. We subsequently went and found friend.
The two women were teenagers when it happened. They met a man, a cousin, who invited them along on what they believed was a drug deal. He seemed to know where he was going at the apartment. He stood back, told the girls knock at the door, and when Sparkle opened the door, he forced his way in.
He wrapped an extension cord from a vacuum cleaner around Sparkle's neck after he had ordered her down the floor and strangled her until she quit moving. He got a knife, told the two girls they needed to go away in the truck. He come out a few minutes with a knife and a towel, wiping the knife off with a towel. And they let the complex.
The women said they also stopped at a supermarket, Western Union counter. The man picked up a money order. Later, he went to a phone, made a call. They heard some of it.
All they heard was him telling the individual that, I'm done, it's done, and I'm on my way home. And the voice of the other man says, come home. The women looked at a photo lineup. They identified Cleveland Clark, 47 years old, of Jackson, Mississippi.
Already in prison for armed robbery. But what possible motive could he have to kill Sparkle Rye? The truth, as Detective Brown would discover. Can be so unbelievable.
I was kind of flow forward, picking on Sweetie. That was way out there. Way out there. I got a call one day from the cold case unit.
It had been four years and at that point he was saying that they had some new information. Is this out of the blue? Out of the blue. There is of necessity a protocol to the way old cases are given new life.
Four years after the ghastly murder of the young, newly married mother, Sparkle Rye, Detective Brown hit, paid her. Two young women said they'd witnessed the murder. They'd identified a convicted fellow named Cleveland Clark who was serving time in a Mississippi prison. I had a suspicion somebody had paid him, but I didn't know who it was.
Why? Missouri implied he was a contract killer, but that was it. He wasn't talking. Dead end.
This was kind of a case where we didn't have your name. Time to call in the Atlanta police cold case team. Vince Velasquez, Alton Calhoun. It was just kind of like old fashioned, you know, feet on the pavement, beaten, beaten street.
Trying to drum up some evidence. Who would have arranged to have Sparkle killed? Remember, detectives did think it was a murder for hire. The two girls who witnessed the murder said they recalled that Cleveland Clark stopped and picked up money orders at a Western Union.
They also remembered that after the murder he made a phone call. Said into the phone, the job is done. Heard a man's voice at the other end say, come on home. Who was Cleveland Clark speaking to and who had sent the money?
That part, it turned out, was traceable. All in the records. The money had come from Jackson, Mississippi, from a 74 year old man named Willie Fred Evans. Who the heck is that?
He's a person who has lived his whole life in Jackson, Mississippi. Illiterate, didn't finish school, but was very street savvy. Phone records revealed that Willie Fred Evans was the very same man Cleveland Clark called right after the murder. You needed information from him.
We knew from the phone records and the wire transfers that he was connected to Cleveland Clark. They paid a visit to Mr. Evans. Was he forthcoming?
At first I said, you know, I know you're lying. Recorders don't lie. But I'll tell you what, why don't you think about it? There was a pause.
Then days, weeks. The detectives pretended disinterest. He was calling me. Non stop, just calling.
You could tell his messages were getting a little more frantic. And sure enough, Willie Fred Evans was willing to meet at a Jackson, Mississippi Hilton hotel. And this time he brought a friend, 60 year old Herbert Green. Was that the man who put out the contract on Sparkle?
It's like, it can't be that easy. He's gonna bring the guy to us. Who was Herbert Greene? A little detective work made the connection.
Herbert Green was a sometimes business partner of Chiman Rye, Ricky Rye's father. I remember looking at some reports and I see Chiman Rye's name. And right next to his name, I saw Herbert Green's name. Wait a minute.
Chiman Rye, Was that the same man Ricky told Sparkle's parents he'd buried in India? Why, yes, it was. I never knew when he was telling the truth or not. Right.
He wasn't. The father who supposedly died from diabetes, who so disapproved of Sparkle's presence in his son's life, was not dead at all, Was not in India. He was alive and well and living in Mississippi, not far from Willie Fred Evans and Herbert Greene. And now Chiman Rye became the prime suspect in his daughter in law's murder.
It wasn't the point to say it was behind, but that was a connection. The DA offered Green and Evans a deal. Tell the truth about their connection to Rye and stay out of jail. And with that, the two men who initially denied their involvement finally confirmed the convoluted plot.
They were the middlemen in a plot hatched by Chiman Rye himself to kill his daughter in law, Sparkle. Simon Rye had poached Herbert Green to kill his daughter in law. Herbert Green then went to Willie Fred Evans. Willie Fred Evans then went to Cleveland Clark and asked him.
Cleveland Clark agreed. There was a price agreed upon. $10,000. $10,000 to kill Sparkle Rye.
Still, the detectives wanted further proof of Rye's involvement. So they enlisted Herbert Green, asked him to pay a visit to his old friend Chimon Rye at Rye's hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. That same hotel where Ricky and Sparkle first met. And there was a caveat.
Green would have to wear a hidden camera. We told him to let Rye know that the Atlanta police are trying to contact him. That they had been to Jackson. They want to talk to him about the murder.
So you ready? Hey, Rick. Herbert Green walked into the hotel, camera rolling. He made small talk with the woman behind the counter.
And who was she? Why, it was Ricky, Rye's mother. Alive and well and quite obviously not the victim of that terrible cyclone in India. And she had some interesting news about Ricky.
How's Ricky? Ricky got married to Indian Ralph. Finally, the meeting was Rye. The Atlanta police been in my house.
Why your house? You haven't talked to the police yet? The Atlanta police, I guess they want to question me about their girls. So I talked to him yet.
So I need five out so I can get around. Right now I have no money to help. The script was for him to ask him for money because he need to get out of town. Well, we had to go.
Yeah, we had to go. What can we do? What can you do? We have to go.
I can give you $500. That's all. I can help you out, I swear you. I don't have me.
I swear to God. You don't know anything. That's the only thing you get to say. I have no idea.
What is this? That the only thing is why you have to go answer everything right. And we knew at that point we had him because that is not something an innocent man would say. This is as close as we're going to get to a smoking gun.
It gets no better than this. It was good enough that in September 2006, Chiman Rye, a former mathematics professor and business owner, was charged with murder. But why? Why would a man pay to have his own daughter in law brutally mur.
The killer that was hired by this man did a good job. Things were wiped down and they were clean. Prosecutors are at heart storytellers. And the death penalty case against 68 year old Simon Rye was the story of a rage that burned so intensely in his breast, he arranged to have his own daughter in law murdered in cold blood.
Why? Listen to this from co prosecutor Sheila Ross. Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence will show that it was this defendant, this man sitting right here, who sent that killer to her door. And the evidence will show that he hired a hitman to kill Sparkle because she married his son, because she had a child with his son, ladies and gentlemen, because she was black.
We could reach no other reasonable conclusion than he had her kill because she was black. And that he was against it and did not want that for his son, did not want that for his family. Chiman Rye was a racist, said the prosecution. To prove that they called a former inmate who'd shared a jail cell with Rye as he awaited trial, here's co prosecutor Eleanor Ross.
Did the defendant ever express his feelings about people of other races, in particular black people? Yes. One particular time he said that he hated all the he was taking it one point he said that he's already spent online to pick his family once. Maybe she can get rid of the arrest of him.
And as Sparkle's cousin told the jury, Ricky's parents did not approve of Ricky's relationship with Sparkle. They'd already made a different plan for him. Did Sparkle ever tell you during the conversations that Mr. Ry did not want her and Ricky Rye together because of cultural differences and that Ricky Ry had a pre arranged marriage?
She and Rick both told me that. And then the only witness who could finally offer some sort of explanation for the deception of the heart of the marriage, for the secrets kept from parents. Ricky Rye, a reluctant witness, but he did tell the story. Did you tell your parents that you were dating Sparkle?
I did not. I was supposed to be at the hotel working and going to school, not dating anybody. Did you tell your parents that she was pregnant? No.
Instead, he lied to his in laws, told them his parents were dead, all to avoid questions about why his parents weren't involved in his life and his baby's life. Did you ever tell your parents that you had married Sparkle? No. You know, we were brought up that, you know, we should marry, you know, Indian, same race.
He was very much so afraid of what they were going to do if they found out. They let it be known to him early on in the relationship that they did not approve. And that is why Ricky and Sparkle, afraid of the consequences of disobeying his parents, moved to Atlanta in the spring of 1999 when she was not too obviously pregnant yet. Did you and Sparkle move away in order to get away from your parents?
Yes. But Ricky's parents soon found out about the marriage to the baby, and their new address wasn't kept secret for long. They hired a private detective to track down the couple. He testified.
Chim and Rye fretted about the family's reputation. He was attempting at that time to arrange a marriage for another child. He explained that the arranging of marriage may be difficult because of the relationship that Ricky had at that time with his girlfriend because of either being pregnant or because of her being an African American. And so said the prosecution, Ry, who now knew Ricky and Sparkle's address, was determined to put an end to this forbidden love affair.
Not only was Sparkle not part of their cast, she was not part of their race. Rye approached fellow business owner and friend Herbert Greene for help. He said the girl was causing him some problems and he needed her. He needed a kill.
He's saying he needed it done quickly. Did he tell you why he needed it done quickly? No, he didn't. You can tell me why.
But the prosecution claimed to know why Chymon Rye wanted Sparkle killed before his daughter's wedding. Rye's eldest daughter was getting married, and he did not want Sparkle showing up to spoil the party. So Rye's friend Herbert Green went to the middleman, Willie Fred Evans, who made the deal with accused killer Cleveland Clark. I told him.
I said, now. The man told me nothing. The job wouldn't pay but $10,000. He told me he'll need a knife.
That same night. Yes, ma'. Am Might have got away with it, too, save for the young woman he picked up in Atlanta. While that killer was very good about not leaving behind any forensic evidence, he made a big, big mistake.
Because he left not one, but two. Two eyewitnesses to this crime. And there's this man that is on the corner neck. Yes, those two eyewitnesses were used to create a ruse to get Clark into the apartment.
We asked her to use the bathroom. She said yes, and she walked away from the door. Clee went in the house behind her. I heard gasping sounds, choking sounds, and Clee was strangling her.
They said Cleveland Clark called his contact, got his money at the Western Union, and that was back. Except, of course, for what the prosecution called its smoking gun, that hidden camera footage of Herbert Green telling Chim and Rhy the police are onto them, and the first thing out of Chymin Rye's mouth is, huh. That's it. Huh?
He never says, what are you talking about? What? Girl never denies it. He knew exactly what Herbert Green was talking about.
Chimera is guilty of every single count on the indictment. He hired someone else to do it. He's responsible for it because he sent the hitman into a door. So there it was, the prosecution's case for conviction, a father's intolerance of his son's bride.
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Hey, guys, Willie Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit down podcast. On this week's episode, I sit down with one of the biggest bands in the world, Mumford and Sons, as we get the boys together to talk about their new number one album, Prize Fighter, and the evolution of that irresistible foot stomping sound. You can get our conversation for free wherever you download your Podcasts. He was a young Marine.
She didn't care about convention. They made a life together. Then one night, the Marine died. And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected, and utterly bizarre turn.
I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all new podcast from Big Line. Listen to all episodes of Trace of Suspicion now, wherever you get your podcasts. In the steamy summer heat of Atlanta, Georgia, in the artificial cold of Courtroom 6G, Fulton County Courthouse, justice appeared finally to be closing in on a businessman, former math professor, and determinedly traditional father named Chiman Rye. Finally, this man would pay the price for arranging the brutal murder of his daughter in law, Sparkle, a young woman he'd put under the sentence of death for the unforgivable sin of being a different race and marrying his son.
Really? This is defense attorney Jack Martin. Everybody would just laugh when I said, well, he's a racist. Of course not.
He was a great man for the community. Everybody loved him in the community. Would this man arrange a murder to end his son's marriage? Out of the question.
This man had nothing to do with it. There's no question that the parents and other family members were upset with the relationship. It didn't have to do anything with race. It had to do with the fact that Ricky was young, only a teenager.
The fact that he hadn't finished his education. The defense cross examined Ry's son, Ricky. You were supposed to, in your family, get a college education, would you? Yes, sir.
Any conversations? I did have? Yes. They were targeted towards, you know, do what you want, but get your education first.
So it wasn't that she was African American or black. He machined an Indian. It was a problem, correct? Correct.
And there was further proofs of the defense that Chairman Rye was no racist. For years, Rye had taught at an historically black university, and among his many businesses, owned a convenience store in the predominantly black community of Jackson, Mississippi. Did you ever notice him treat any of his black customers with disrespect? No, sir.
You ever hear him disparaging black people? No. It's not in his makeup. Is Mr.
Rye racist? No, sir, not at all. The defense called Rai's other children two medical doctors, a teacher, a financial analyst to vouch for their father. Have you dated African Americans?
I have. Has that been a big issue in the family? That you dated women that are not Indian or African American? No, no, no, no, no, said the defense.
Race was not the reason that Sparkle was found dead. But if it wasn't about race, what was it? Why did Sparkle die? Defense attorney Don Samuel.
What really happened was not that Chimney Rye sent out someone to kill Sparkle Rye. What happened to us? Herbert Green decided that they would go to the house where Ricky Rye and Sparkle Rye lived and would steal money and would steal drugs. Drugs.
Sure enough, under questioning, Herbert Green admitted he'd heard some things. Did you tell the police? Repeated them, that Ricky and Sparkle were using drugs? That's what I heard on the street.
Which is why I claim the defense, Herbert Green and Willie Fred Evans, hired Cleveland Clark, who made the 400 mile drive from Jackson, Mississippi to Atlanta to commit not a murder, but a robbery in the apartment. He said at least four times. Where are the drugs? Where are the drugs?
Yes, the murderer was looking for something. Where are the drugs? Where are the drugs? Running through the cabinets.
That didn't make any sense for a hitman. And the very way in which Sparkle was murdered, said the defense, was further proof the murder occurred after. And because the robbery went bad, the unstableness could be created by common minds. And the ligature could be any kind of a cord.
Sparkle had been strangled with a vacuum cord, stabbed to death with a kitchen knife. Not the work of a hired killer, said the defense. What type of hitman shows up with no weapon, goes there to use items he may or may not find in the house to commit the murder? So why would Herbert Green and wait for Evans to sell the prosecution?
They'd set up the murder under contract from Chiman Rye. Simple, said the defense. Their story was a clever cover up that had the added advantage of a get out of jail free card. These were two liars who got probation instead of a jail term in exchange for their cooperation.
They know their cult. They cook up the story. We'll blame it on Mr. Rye.
He's the one who did all this. You could have 100 liars testify to something and it's not worth anything. But John and Rye and his defense attorneys still had one very big problem. That hidden camera video.
How could anyone explain away what sounded like Rye's own virtual confession? I didn't work for you. You know what I did. You.
You did it for me? I did this for you. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah.
What it really appears to be is Mr. Rye trying to get him out of there as quickly as possible. Often people say, oh, yeah, yeah, meaning I'm listening to you. When we get over this.
I don't know anything about that. I don't know anything about that. A lot of what he says, I don't know anything. You don't know anything.
Was he Right. That Chairman Rye had nothing to do with Sparkle Rye's murder. That this take was nothing more than an effort to frame an innocent man. Does a peaceful man with no history of violence in his entire life suddenly turn to violence and murder when he's older than 60?
Their motive is weak, quite frankly. Not there. You don't have to decide who's telling the true story. But the jury would have to.
They would hold a man's life in their hands. If they found Simon Rye guilty of murder, the penalty could be death. This is a murder for hire case, which is why the defendants guilty of murder while ever having set foot in the same soldier. It was a senseless, stupid, brutal crime.
But this man had nothing to do with it. There is no telling quite how a jury will react to the stories it's told. No way for a weighty family to know what to think. I was on pins and needles the whole time.
The jury stayed out a day and then a day and a half as the jury reached your verdict. Served. We have, you, Honor. Then announced it had a verdict in the death penalty case against businessman Chiman Rye.
Actually, I said to him, I think we've got this. But I always had in the back of my mind, what if these 12 people are not seeing the same thing I'm seeing? They've been waiting for this moment eight long years. The judge asked the jury for a person read the verdict.
We, the jury, find a defendant, Chimon L. Rye. Guilty. Count two, felony murder, burglary.
We, the jury, final. Defendant Chimon L. Wry. Guilty.
Guilty. Chairman Rye was guilty of murder. And every count that followed. We, the jury, find a defendant, Chama L.
Ray. Guilty. Guilty. Came out of the mouth of the foreman.
That was unbelievable. Just the tears started flowing in. Really couldn't stop. I sat through everything and I never cried for anything.
But to hear that guilty verdict, especially the second guilty. I couldn't help it. Guilty. Chairman Rye's face was unreadable.
He seemed emotionless. He was not, said his lawyer. Guilty. He was just befuddled by and he expected to be acquitted.
You don't know anything. That's the only thing you understand. It may have been the incriminating hidden camera footage of Ry talking with Herbert Greene that swayed the jury. But it was a death penalty case.
And so now the jury sat to hear pleas for Rye's life. His children, with the exception of Sunriki, pleaded with the jury. It was the first time Ry showed any emotion during the trial. My father is still the greatest man I know.
I ask that you allow him to live so that others may benefit from his positive traits. I ask you to allow me to hold on to my father. To me, he is someone who is very, very hard to find. I assure you that no matter where I am on this earth, that he will always be with me.
It is your decision to die. You're responsible. Do you want to kill this man? Sparkle stepmom Donna Lowry also spoke to the jury, telling them the loss of Sparkle was especially traumatic for Baby and Nala.
At six months old, her mother was gone. Never to hold her or sing to her, never to read books to her, never to smell or touch her or feel her warmth. How long she must have felt. In the end, the jury spared Rye's life.
He was sentenced to life in prison. Mr. Chymon Rhyme, I remand you into the custody of the state, where you will serve life without parole, plus 25 years. We can live with the fact that he's gonna spend the rest of his life in jail.
But how can they live, they wonder, with what he did? A man who hired a hit on their own sweet daughter just to keep her out of his family. Here's a man who could raise these kids to be so wonderful, to serve the public. One's a teacher, a couple doctors.
And yet he could have a woman killed. Inconceivable woman. And just to think, I'm gonna get rid of her. I'm just gonna pay $10,000 and get rid of her, and she'll be out of my family.
That's what her life is worth. That's it. $10,000. I'm Craig Nol.
Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy, and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way, too.
Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, challenges, their stories are fun. And so I hope you'll join me each week. Who knows, you might just come away with your own class Apple Search Class Apple with credit From Today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast.