narrator: A well-respected Atlanta police lieutenant
vanishes without a trace.
- When I initially heard of Doug's disappearance,
I didn't know what to think.
narrator: But an unexpected tip
takes everyone by surprise.
- A fisherman finds a body
at Lake Thurmond.
- We determined he died of multiple gunshot wounds.
[camera shutter snaps] - This is no longer
a missing persons investigation.
This is a murder investigation.
- Got to find out
who would want to kill a police officer
and why they would want to do it.
narrator: Was the motive behind this brutal killing
personal...
- The location of those wounds
was close to the genitalia.
narrator: Or was it connected
to something more sinister?
- Doug owed a lot of money.
- Could he have been murdered
by loan sharks that he owed money to?
[gunshot]
* *
- Evil lives among us. It does.
[dramatic music]
* *
[sirens wailing]
narrator: 15 miles south of Atlanta
lies the suburb of Jonesboro,
a picturesque town known for its Southern charm.
- It's a nice sleepy town, a quiet town.
A nice place to raise a family.
narrator: Nearly 100 years ago,
the quaint hamlet
and its lush, rural surroundings
soared to fame as the backdrop
for a great American classic.
- Jonesboro was put on the map
with the "Gone with the Wind" book
when it was written and set in the city of Jonesboro.
* *
narrator: Today, Jonesboro still retains
much of its storied past,
with its antebellum homes and comfortable lifestyle.
- If you work in Atlanta, you don't wanna
necessarily live where it's all so--
quite so busy,
it's a nice, quieter place
to retreat to the suburbs.
[bell dinging]
narrator: But in September of 1994,
the peaceful town is rocked
when one of its finest disappears.
- On Wednesday, September 28th,
a woman named Candace Overstreet
called the Clayton County Police Department.
An officer responded
and she reported her husband missing.
Her husband was named Doug Overstreet.
She, at that time,
identified him as a lieutenant
with the Atlanta Police Department.
narrator: Frantic and worried,
Candace says she's tried to reach Doug
but hasn't seen or heard from him
since Sunday, nearly three days ago.
- She explained to him
that they had an uneventful weekend.
They went to a Georgia Tech football game.
He had several part-time jobs,
and he went to a part-time job that he had that weekend.
I believe it was at a drinking establishment.
And at that point--
she never saw him after he went
to that part-time job.
- Candace just couldn't understand where Doug was,
had no idea what could have happened to him.
She said it was the perfect marriage
and he was the perfect husband.
- She said it was normal for him
to want to spend time by himself.
He also liked to camp,
spend times in the wood by himself just to reflect.
So it was not uncommon for him to be gone
for several days.
And so she didn't think anything of it
to start off with.
But when he hadn't shown up by Wednesday,
she was worried at that point.
narrator: She tells the officer
she's reached out to Doug's friends.
- Candace and I talked
for probably an hour and a half.
She didn't know where he was.
She wanted to know if I had any idea
where he could be.
And at that point in time,
I was like, "Okay, maybe he did
"just take off for a while
and he felt he needed to get away."
narrator: A panicked Candace tells the officer
she's even spoken with Doug's boss.
- Candace Overstreet actually went
to Doug's employer,
the Atlanta Police Department.
And at that point, she reported
that she had not seen him.
They acknowledged the fact
that they had not had contact with him either.
They urged her to go ahead and report him missing
because the fact that she had not seen him
in the last several days.
- After Candace fills in the police
that Doug is missing,
he doesn't waste any time.
He files the missing person report
and tells Candace
that detectives will be in touch soon.
- When I initially heard of Doug's disappearance,
I didn't really know quite what to think.
It doesn't seem to be consistent
with his general behavior and demeanor.
- Doug Overstreet is an Atlanta police officer
who headed up the burglary division.
He's well-respected,
well-liked by his coworkers.
And he has 15 years' experience
as a police veteran.
- Family was important to him.
He talked to Candace on a regular basis.
He would stop almost every hour to call her.
His comment was that, "She doesn't feel comfortable,
so I just call and tell her everything's fine."
- Doug's wife of ten years, Candace,
has two daughters who are his stepdaughters.
And he dotes on them.
And he wants to be able to provide for his wife
and his stepdaughters.
Candace is close to both of her daughters--
Brandy, 21 years old, who lives at home,
and Keisha, 19 years old, who's away at college.
- They talked about the girls
who were his stepdaughters.
He was proud of them.
- Doug was working hard also
because he wants to be able to provide for his wife
and provide for both of the girls
for college as well.
- He was a good guy.
It was just strange
that he had just disappeared off the face of the earth.
It was kind of hard to take,
'cause I considered him a friend.
* *
- After the missing persons report is filed,
detectives rush over to the Overstreets' home
to talk to Candace
to see if anything was troubling Doug.
- Candace touched on the fact
that he was going through some problems at work,
had been passed over for promotions.
There was talk about a GBI investigation
into some statistical data that had come out of his unit.
And that had Doug
under some stress at that point,
which would all have made it more understandable
or easy to understand that he had gone off
to get away and think by himself for a while.
* *
narrator: But it's what Candace reveals next
that worries detectives.
* *
- Based on the fact that Candace touched on
all the problems that he was having at work,
plus being passed over promotion,
she was worried that he may have hurt himself.
She actually mentioned to us that she was scared
that he may have gone off and--and killed himself.
Based on my training and experience,
I'm thinking, "If he got so depressed
"and he went off on his own,
he may have caused himself harm."
- At this point,
police are just trying to figure out
where he might be.
They're just kind of checkin' out
some of the places where he frequents,
including the land in Henry County
that he and Candace had purchased
to build a brand-new home.
- Several detectives went to that location,
10 or 15 miles from where they lived in Jonesboro,
hoping maybe he had gone there.
But there was no signs of Doug.
narrator: While detectives can't rule out
the possibility of suicide,
they devise a new strategy
and cast a wider net.
- The next step is to put out
an APB for his vehicle
and to see if they get any hits back
as to, "Has anyone seen his car?
Has anyone seen Doug Overstreet?"
narrator: Meanwhile, the team doesn't waste any time
and begins to focus on a terrifying possibility--
Lieutenant Overstreet may be the victim
of a revenge killing.
- They look into does he have any enemies?
Is there someone that he arrested
who's just gotten out of jail that had a reason
to wish him any harm or do any harm to him?
- So the detectives investigating the case
had to delve
into Doug's past cases
to find out which people that he arrested
would have a motive, a reason,
and an opportunity to kill Doug.
So retaliation from a former defendant
was in the mix.
- After Atlanta Police Department
looked through those files,
there was nothing that stood out
as an obvious suspect as far as revenge.
There was nothing else to follow at that point.
narrator: With the revenge theory a bust,
police soon make a discovery
that alters the course of the investigation.
- Just a few hours after the BOLO is released,
police get the big break that they were hoping for.
- We located Doug's truck.
But it opened up more questions than it answered.
* *
- This is a police officer
who's missing in the line of duty,
and we have no idea where he is,
so everybody had to join in.
[siren wails] - They check the car
for fingerprints and they find that the fingerprints
are those that you would expect to be there.
- It brought up other questions.
Did someone dump his truck there
to throw off any investigation?
[soft tense music]
narrator: When Atlanta police lieutenant
Doug Overstreet disappears without a trace,
his wife Candace reports him missing.
Detectives have put out an alert
to surrounding law enforcement
to be on the lookout for any signs of Doug.
- The Clayton County Police release an APB
on Lieutenant Doug Overstreet's vehicle,
just trying to find out where he may be.
And turns out that his truck is found
in the long-term parking lot
at Atlanta airport.
And that's the first break in the case.
- It was in long-term parking,
which is what led us
to bring in the federal authorities
because we were thinking
if he was taken out of state involuntarily,
or if he had gone out of state and done something to himself,
that it may become a federal crime.
And so that is when we brought in the FBI.
- The FBI has incredible resources
that can be brought to bear very, very quickly.
Shortly after being advised
that Lieutenant Overstreet was missing,
we went there to meet with Clayton County
and Atlanta Police
that share jurisdiction at the airport.
- We had about three or four other agents
that were involved in the investigation.
They were acting as liaison, assisting, etcetera.
This is a police officer
who's missing in the line of duty,
and we have no idea where he is,
so everybody had to join in.
When I went down there,
we photographed the truck...
[camera shutter snapping]
And had it moved to a secure warehouse
where we took the truck,
and I processed the truck for evidence.
- Back in '94, you didn't have cameras everywhere
like you do now.
And so there's no video footage
to take a look and see
who might have left that car there.
* *
The FBI, they check the truck for fingerprints
and any evidence.
And they find that the fingerprints
are those that you would expect to be there--
Doug Overstreet's fingerprints
and those of his family members.
- We had information from both Candace
and some of his coworkers
that Doug would like to go off by himself,
get away from it all.
And so finding his truck at the airport
led us to the possibility
that maybe he'd got on a flight
and just had planned to go away for a little while.
- They contacted all the carriers
and tried to find out
whether he was passenger on any flights
during the period of time when the truck was there,
and found out no, he'd-- he--he was not.
He was not on any flight, at least under his--
that name of Douglas Overstreet.
[dramatic music]
- So it brought up other questions.
He could have gotten into another car
with someone else voluntarily or involuntarily.
Or did someone dump his truck there
to throw off any investigation?
* *
- I remember we were actually in the parking lot
at the Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport
when we got notification
that a sheriff's department in South Carolina
had located an unidentified white male.
- The fisherman or fishermen had discovered the body
floating in Lake Thurmond.
[siren wails]
- EMTs get there.
When they pulled the body out of the water,
they noticed the bullet holes.
They attempted any sort of life-saving measures.
And they were not able
to resuscitate him at that point.
- He was nude.
There's no identification.
The body being in the lake
speeds up decomposition in the body,
making it more difficult to identify.
- But the body fit Doug's basic description--
height, weight, hair color.
We were thinking at that point it probably was Doug.
- There's nothing that they can really determine
at this point from his body...
except that he had 15 gunshot wounds.
narrator: The decomposed corpse is sent
to the medical examiner's office for evaluation.
Meanwhile, the South Carolina team
hunts for any clues to explain what happened.
- I know that initially the local sheriff's department
had checked the bottom of the lake
in the area where he was found for any possible evidence.
They found none.
- I got on a jet with some other folks
representing the Georgia Bureau of Investigation
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
And we headed to South Carolina.
- The SLED agent was handed the fingerprint card
from Doug's personnel file.
It took him less than 15 seconds
to make the identification.
This is no longer
a missing persons investigation.
This is a murder investigation.
- It puts a chill in the investigators.
They wish they could have found him.
But now they've got a fire building
to punish the person that did this
to a fellow police officer.
- We determined that he died of multiple gunshot wounds.
It let us know that some of the ideas
that we had been tracing from the beginning
about a suicide were no longer an option.
At that point,
what was goin' through my mind is,
"The real work is gonna start."
Because now we have to recreate what may have happened.
narrator: Detectives start by focusing
on the number and placement of gunshot wounds
on Doug's body.
- The location of some of the wounds--
there were several wounds.
Four or five of the wounds
were on his inner right thigh,
one wound in his groin.
From the location of some of the wounds,
there was a slight sexual overtone.
narrator: Could the killer have been sending a message?
- The way the crime was committed,
seemed to be a very personal attack
by someone who was very angry.
narrator: Four days after Atlanta
police lieutenant Doug Overstreet disappears,
his naked body is discovered in a South Carolina lake.
Detectives must now break the devastating news
to his family.
- Candace was distraught, overcome...
with anxiety and fear and...
They say she passed out at their feet.
- She took it very hard. She was very upset.
Candace's daughter Brandy was with her
and she was emotional as well.
narrator: When Candace regains her composure,
detectives explain the circumstances
surrounding Doug's death.
Given the personal nature of the attack,
they inquire about their marriage.
- In the beginning,
Candace painted the perfect marriage--
the picture of a perfect marriage.
Well, that began to slip away
because Candace brought up the fact
that he might have been having an affair.
He might have left with that person.
- Candace says she's been home with her daughter
the entire time and she was
nowhere near Lake Thurmond, South Carolina.
Candace doesn't really offer any details
about Doug's alleged affair,
just to say that Doug's been acting suspicious.
narrator: Shortly after Doug's family
receives the horrifying news,
so does the rest of Atlanta.
- When this murder hit the airwaves in 1994,
the community was shocked.
You wouldn't expect a well-respected
and well-liked police officer to be murdered
and then his body dumped in a lake.
- When I got the first message that Doug had been murdered,
I played it again.
It hurt.
I just kind of...
[sighs]
I've--I've--I cried a lot.
[somber music]
He was too good a guy to have-- have that happen to him.
* *
narrator: While Doug's friends and family
try to come to terms with what happened,
investigators start digging into Doug's personal life,
looking for any signs of a relationship gone sour.
- The police investigate
some of the places where he was moonlighting.
Did he happen to meet a woman there?
- He had his part-time job
at this bar up in Buckhead, Rio Bravo.
He was doing part-time work
as a security officer there.
- Rio Bravo in the early '90s
was the place to be on Thursday nights.
It was always packed.
Doug was the officer that sort of controlled--
made sure that it was safe.
- 'Course there would be some girls
want to flirt with him,
which, normally in a bar,
girls wanna flirt with the guys at the door
who can maybe do 'em a favor down the road.
- Doug wore a pager.
The pager was constantly going off
from somebody... [pager buzzing]
That was trying to pursue Doug.
And I don't know if it was really
as much for a relationship,
but it sure gave the impression
that there was a relationship there.
In the back of my mind I knew
that the pager was probably going off
with one young lady's phone number
multiple times a day.
narrator: Investigators learn from Doug's coworkers
that Candace was well aware of his socializing.
- I probably met Candace two, three times at Rio Bravo.
She came by to either grab something from Doug,
maybe grab some dinner.
Candace was maybe a little bit controlling,
maybe wanted to know what he was up to.
- Detectives speak
with both friends and coworkers
to see if there's any truth behind what Candace suspects.
- Various avenues of investigation
were dealt with pretty quickly.
There was a woman he was talking to
at his extra job that, it was alleged,
might be a girlfriend.
The woman was identified.
- She was tracked down.
And she had a solid alibi
which covered her during the time
that--that Doug was shot.
narrator: Detectives are back to square one
but not for long.
When the autopsy report is released,
the medical examiner's office is able to provide
a surprising new twist.
- The medical examiner was able to let us know
that--that some of the bullets he recovered from Doug
were both 9mm and .38 caliber, which let us know
there was at least two guns used on the assault of Doug.
At that point, it opened up
the field of suspects exponentially.
- When you would find
that two firearms were used, you would suspect
that there would be two shooters.
[gunshots]
- Police go back to talk
to Doug Overstreet's widow, Candace, to see
what else she can add to the investigation,
if she can shed some more light
on what was going on with Doug Overstreet.
narrator: Investigators ask Candace
if there are any other secrets in Doug's life
that could have gotten him killed,
and she drops a bombshell.
- Candace was talking about Doug and said
that Doug had a very bad habit--
very expensive taste, lavish spending,
would borrow lots and lots of money,
and actually racked up quite a bit of debt
based on his spending habits.
She said she's not sure
who he may have borrowed money from.
narrator: But the team is curious
as to why Candace didn't mention
Doug's debt sooner.
- Candace says Doug's spending has been a secret
that she's been ashamed of and didn't want to admit.
She didn't want to spoil Doug's good name
by talking about it.
narrator: With this new revelation,
detectives now have to consider
whether Doug's murder was payback for an old debt.
- Doug might have owed money to a lot of people.
So that had to be checked out.
And if Doug was unable to pay his debt...
did he disappear because of the debt?
That was something we had to look into.
[gunshots]
[suspenseful music]
narrator: Detectives have a new lead
in the murder investigation
of Atlanta police lieutenant Doug Overstreet.
After speaking with Doug's wife, Candace,
they've learned the family's finances
were in shambles.
- Candace informed the detectives
that Doug was in debt, deeply in debt--
that he owed a lot of money.
And one of the reasons
I had to look into the possibility of debt
was the possibility
that somebody wanted their money back.
And if they can't get their money back,
something's gonna happen to the person that owes it.
They might disappear.
- We looked at his financials
to see if maybe that could have been
the cause of-- of whatever he ran into.
- Detectives found
that he did, in fact, borrow money
and he owed money.
Uh, his friends knew all about this.
His friends loaned him money.
We found out that Doug was borrowing so much money
in order to keep Candace happy
and keep the family happy.
- Doug talked about his wife.
She liked nice things, you know.
And so being a little bit high-maintenance, you know,
he worked these other jobs to make sure
he could fulfill that expectation.
- We were never able to confirm
that any money that he owed or that he borrowed
came from any--
anybody that would have caused him any harm.
So we were not able to trace his financial problems
to what lead to his death.
narrator: It's been three days
since Doug's body was discovered.
Detectives decide to check-in with Candace
to see how she's coping.
- A team of detectives
does a condolence visit to Candace, to her home,
to check on her, see how she's doing,
and update her on the investigation.
- They went to Candace's house and Brandy was there.
Brandy lived in the house.
She couldn't afford to stay
in her college apartment anymore.
She had to move back home.
Brandy was acting odd...
very quiet, wouldn't say anything.
And they were carrying on the conversation
with--with Candace about funeral preparation
and things like that.
- She let several detectives know
that she was going to bury Doug with his badge.
And so at that point, someone said,
"D--do you have his badge?"
She said, "Yes, I have his badge and his gun."
- Candace runs upstairs, gets the badge,
brings it back down,
and gives it to the detectives.
- And that stood out as very odd.
[dramatic music]
There's the fact that most police officers
don't leave their house without their badge.
narrator: Investigators are
more than just a little suspicious.
- The detectives, being very nice and polite,
said, "You mind if we look around
"to see if there's anything we missed
in the house, anything we can use?"
- She said, "I don't have one bit of problem whatsoever."
- Detectives went upstairs to the master bedroom.
And...[chuckles lightly] First thing he noticed...
[door squeaks]
In the closets,
none of Doug's personal possessions are there.
So he opens a couple of drawers and...
none of Doug's personal possessions
are in the drawers.
Doug, his--his presence has been wiped away
from the master bedroom.
- Also, it was odd that she was taking this time
to make some home renovations
at the same time that finding out
her husband has been killed.
There was new carpet on the floor,
but the carpet had not been installed.
It had been unrolled up against the walls,
but had not been installed--
was not on the floor,
was not under the baseboards.
narrator: When detectives walk across the bedroom,
something else catches their attention.
- He heard a squeak in the floor.
And he looks down and looks around the carpet.
You could see it hadn't been professionally laid.
- They could tell that there was a plank
or some sort of wood
that did not match up
with the other flooring under the carpet.
And they could rock on it back and forth.
- He pulled the carpet back
and saw where a piece of the subfloor
had been cut out
and replaced with another piece of plywood.
- At that point, they noticed what looked like dried blood
on the subflooring.
* *
At that point, they covered it back
and left the bedroom.
- Detectives see that Doug's clothes are missing.
There are only women's clothing in the bedroom.
And they see that the carpet has been untacked
and there's blood on the subflooring.
And they're like, "What's goin' on?"
narrator: Investigators are stunned
by what they have just uncovered.
- It raises a red flag and causes them to think,
"Did something happen to him in this home?"
[gunshots]
- And we could see
lotta bloodstains there.
I mean, this wasn't-- [chuckles]
this--this was not a shaving accident.
- They found the blood trail down the hallway.
They found the blood trail across the basement,
the blood trail to the van.
- At that point,
we were looking at family members.
There's nobody else living in the home.
[suspenseful music]
narrator: Three days into the murder investigation
of Atlanta police lieutenant Doug Overstreet,
detectives are shocked by what they've discovered
inside the Overstreet master bedroom.
[camera shutter snapping]
- After the detectives noticed the dried blood,
they ended their meeting with Candace,
not wanting to give her any indication
that they had noticed anything suspicious,
for fear that when they left the house,
she would have access to this. She could destroy it,
could haul it off,
could do anything to this evidence.
At that point, they notified me
to obtain the search warrant for the house.
- So they get the crime scene technicians
to come in and process the scene.
- When we got in there,
you know, the carpet had been torn up
all over the--in the hallway and in the bedroom.
And there was this piece of plywood
laying over a hole in the floor
that had been cut out.
And we could see lotta bloodstains there.
I mean, this wasn't-- [chuckles]
this--this was not a shaving accident.
- Investigators don't just find some blood.
They find a lot of blood.
narrator: When Agent McFarlane
removes the loose piece of plywood,
he can't believe what he uncovers.
- What was real interesting,
is when I looked down the hole,
which goes into the basement,
you have the--the rafters
that are supporting the floor.
And I believe there is one or maybe two bullets
that were in the rafters at a downward angle.
- There's no reason anyone should have
bullets in the flooring.
Detectives have found the crime scene.
This is it. - And, of course,
the bullet which we recovered, it was compared
with the bullets
that were found in Doug's body.
And they came from the same weapon.
narrator: This shocking discovery confirms
that the team has identified the scene of Doug's murder.
But it's only after the agents spray the adjoining area
with the chemical agent luminol
that the rest of the gristly story
comes into focus.
- Luminol is a spray that--that reacts
with the proteins in blood.
You look at it
under an alternate light source
to look for evidence of blood which may have been cleaned.
- The luminol, it gives an--us an idea
as to where the victim was killed,
where he was taken from-- from point A to point B--
'cause he's left a blood trail behind.
- They found the blood trail down the hallway.
They found the blood trail down the steps.
They found the blood trail across the dining room.
They found the blood trail down the basement steps,
the blood trail across the basement,
the blood trail to the van.
- When we got to the van,
we saw this reddish substance.
The carpet in the back of the van was wet.
It was soaking wet.
And when I open up the door,
I see this red substance
dripping down into the stepwell
going into the sliding door.
Doug was a big man.
He was not just picked up in his--
in some person's arms and carried.
So it was two people.
narrator: Based on all the evidence collected,
the team develops their theory as to how Doug was killed.
- I suspect
Doug was shot... [gunshot]
Facing the shooter.
[gunshots]
Doug's a big man--6'2". 6'4", 200 plus pounds.
He falls into the-- the table itself,
maybe breaks it.
And the shooter keeps shooting.
[gunshots]
Bullets go through him and hit the side table.
He's down on the floor, shot again.
[gunshots] And then
subsequently drug down the hallway
and into the basement and into the van.
- After detectives locate the bullets,
they figure Candace and Brandy must have been involved.
They're the only two people who live in the home.
And they wonder, "Are they involved?
What's going on?"
- We still thought
that there was multiple suspects
because the fact that we had multiple calibers
of weapons that were used to kill Doug.
- And it was at that point that they requested
that Candace and Brandy go to the police department
for a further interview.
narrator: At headquarters,
detectives press Candace for information,
but she refuses to talk.
- The interview at the police department
with Candace was very short.
She pled the Fifth.
It was hard for the detectives to understand
why she would plead the Fifth
when they're investigating the death of her husband.
narrator: Investigators hope they'll have better luck
with 21-year-old Brandy
and that she'll reveal what really happened.
- One of the things that the detectives did
when they interviewed Brandy is they used a tactic
and told her that her mother had already admitted
which took some of the pressure
off of Brandy where Brandy was trying
to, maybe, protect her mother.
narrator: The detectives' strategy pays off.
Brandy takes the bait.
- She thinks that her mother has already admitted her part.
Brandy's more willing to give honest information
about what she knows.
- When Brandy is interviewed,
thank goodness, the first time she speaks
she tells the truth.
narrator: Brandy finally agrees
to tell investigators exactly what happened
the evening Doug was murdered.
- Brandy's story is
that she was awakened at night by her mother.
Her mother takes her into the master bedroom
and she points out Doug, laying on the floor.
She explains that she shot and killed him.
- Doug's laying on the floor, blood everywhere.
'Course, Brandy is just totally in shock,
doesn't know what to do.
- Because the fact that Candace was a very small woman,
she told Brandy that she needed Brandy to help her
transport Doug's body into the basement
so that they could load it in Candace's van.
She said she's always done what her mother says.
- Candace is in control and says,
"You're gonna help me. You're gonna help me now."
- I gotta believe there's some fear involved in that...
where if I say, "No, I'm 'bout to call the police,"
am I gonna be laying next to Doug?
- The murder is horrific.
It's like somethin' out of a movie.
[soft tense music]
narrator: Investigators believe
Atlanta police lieutenant Doug Overstreet
was viciously murdered by his wife, Candace.
They question Doug's stepdaughter Brandy
who says Candace enlisted her
to help dispose of the body.
- Some of the information that we had gathered--
Candace had a very, very explosive temper
and that she did not have one bit of problem lashing out.
- Brandy, being the loving daughter,
helps Candace drag Doug's body
to the garage floor.
And they put the body in the back of the van.
The next thing they do, according to Brandy,
is they drive Doug's body to South Carolina...
To dispose of the body.
* *
Then on the way back,
Candace had both handguns.
She took those two handguns,
threw them in the river to hide that evidence,
and returned to the house.
- One of the things that Brandy was able to confirm
was that Candace admitted to her
that she used two separate weapons
to shoot Doug,
a .38 caliber and a 9mm,
and--and emptied both guns into Doug.
[gunshots]
narrator: Brandy says that when they returned
to Jonesboro,
Candace put the rest of her plan into action.
- Brandy's mother got her to follow her to the airport.
And they went to the airport
to drop Doug's truck off
in the long-term parking and leave it there
in hopes of making it look like Doug left the area.
- They mopped up as much of the blood as they could.
They pulled up the carpet. It was blood-soaked.
It had soaked into the subfloor.
She cuts out the plywood subfloor.
And then at some point, they go to Home Depot
and buy carpet.
Then they go back to the house
and Candace and Brandy scrub the crime scene
and they clean the van.
And then they lay the carpet.
She had gotten rid of all the evidence she could.
narrator: With Brandy's statement
and the evidence collected at the scene...
detectives arrest Candace Overstreet
for the murder of her husband.
- On December 21, 1994,
Candace Overstreet is indicted on two counts of felony murder
in the death of her husband, Lieutenant Doug Overstreet.
narrator: Doug's neighbors and the rest of Jonesboro
are also shaken.
- You know, ever time you go by the house,
you gotta look at it
and think about what happened there.
It's scary to think that things like that
do happen to all of us every day.
- Candace never reveals her motive for the murder.
But given her suspicions
that Doug was having an affair,
it's possible that jealousy and rage took over.
- My speculation was that Candace
was a very manipulative, jealous person.
She was greedy.
She wanted anything that Doug could buy her.
And they were also going through a hard time,
'cause Doug was deeply in debt.
And that maybe Doug had been fed up with Candace
and he was gonna leave.
And if Doug was leaving,
she was gonna put a stop to it.
narrator: In exchange for her cooperation,
Brandy is given immunity
and agrees to testify against her own mother.
- I think giving Brandy immunity
and getting the testimony from her
closed the loop on the case.
I think that makes complete sense.
narrator: As the trial approaches,
Candace maintains her innocence
and insists she is the victim, not the perpetrator.
- One of the things
that the defense was going to do
was say Doug was possibly sexually assaulting
his stepdaughters
and that Candace shot and killed Doug
to protect her daughters.
During the investigation of Doug's death,
we were never able to find any evidence
that Doug had any inappropriate contact
with either of his stepdaughters.
And we had interviewed Brandy at length.
narrator: Prosecutors must now make
an agonizing choice.
- It was decided in this case
we weren't gonna let them drag Doug's name through the mud,
'cause Doug Overstreet was a good man.
So the decision was made
to let her plead to voluntary manslaughter.
And she was given a 40-year sentence.
narrator: After serving 26 years in prison,
Candace Overstreet is paroled.
- December 1, 2021,
Candace Overstreet got the greatest Christmas present
she could ever get.
She got her freedom.
Doug Overstreet's family can't celebrate
any holidays or special occasions with him,
so it's sad.
narrator: Today, Doug's friends
continue to honor his memory
and remember the man who dedicated his life
to protecting and serving others.
- The city of Atlanta lost a good lieutenant
and someone that still had a-- had a lot of potential
and probably would have gone into--into the command ranks.
- Doug was a straight arrow.
He always tried to do right.
You wish you could just have Doug around
just to say, "Hey, what's up?"
It's something...
that pops up from time to time.
And, um...
you know, when you-- when you have a good friend
and they're not there, you know, you miss them.