(ominous music)
- He was just a fun, happy, loving person.
- [Reporter] On September 10th, 2012,
someone shot and killed Timothy Ramsey
during a drive-by in Anderson County.
- There was very little evidence
at that point in time who shot him,
why he was shot.
That was unclear.
- [Reporter] For seven years, the case unsolved.
- I was not gonna rest until someone was charged.
- [Reporter] Investigators reopened the case.
- Time, in this case, was a friend.
Yeah, there's gonna be some consequences.
- Anybody that can ride by somebody's house
and just shoot it up,
instead of going and doing something to their face
is a coward, point blank, period.
(ominous music)
- [Narrator] Every suspect accused of a crime
has the right to remain silent.
Many agree to be interrogated anyway.
But they can stop the interview at any moment,
making it a race against time.
(suspenseful music)
Justice hangs in the balance.
(birds chirping)
- [Operator] All units respond.
(siren wailing) (tense music)
- When they arrived on the scene,
(camera flashing)
they found the victim injured inside the residence
with a gunshot wound to his head.
(dramatic music)
Kellyann Jordan claimed her boyfriend was shot
and she said, "I don't know what happened."
- The investigators found four .45 Hi Point caliber
shell casings in the roadway
outside of this incident location.
(camera flashing)
- [Scotty] They did see where the house was struck
by gunfire from the outside.
(camera flashing)
You can start piecing the puzzle together
and a drive-by shooting would be the most likely scenario
in that moment.
(siren wailing) (tense music)
(pensive music)
- How do you sum up someone's whole life?
Timothy was a protector.
Like, he protected the people that he cared about.
He never, for six years,
let me walk to my car by myself ever.
And he would get up before me
and go crank up my car
so it'd be nice and warm.
And then he would walk me to my door every morning
just so nothing would happen to me.
- I always called him Timothy,
but his middle name is actually Rambo.
Everyone called him that most of the time.
Timothy was very outgoing, kind.
He loved his family. His mom was his world.
- He was the first person that would come
and help you if your car broke down.
He was the first person that would come help you
fix it once he got you home.
When I learned that Timothy had been shot,
I really just couldn't believe it.
(dates clicking)
(birds chirping)
- When an event or violent crime happens,
people start talking and it becomes a game of telephone.
Everything that was coming to investigators
at that time was hearsay.
No one had actually seen this crime occur.
And the best we got was somebody who was in the area
at the time who said that they saw a motorcycle.
- [Scotty] They saw a black motorcycle drive down the road
at a high rate of speed,
firing shots into Mr. Ramsey's house.
(gunshots)
But they couldn't give us a suspect description
cause the motorcyclist was wearing a helmet.
The investigators were able to locate some video footage
about a mile from the incident location,
and it was a motorcycle that matched
the neighbor's description,
leaving the scene around the same time
as we would expect him to get to that intersection.
But you can't see details.
- There was very little evidence at that point in time.
It was baffling to law enforcement
who shot him, why he was shot.
That was unclear.
(tense music)
- It was excruciating. We have no closure.
To just feel like someone that you care about
and loves life is just taken away and nothing done about it.
I was not gonna rest until someone was charged.
(suspenseful music)
(dates clicking)
- [Reporter] On September 10th, 2012,
someone shot and killed Timothy Ramsey
during a drive-by in Anderson County.
Family and friends have spent seven years
wondering who pulled the trigger.
Investigators reopened the case.
- They took this case, there was not a lot to go on.
Shooting into a dwelling.
Yeah, there's gonna be some consequences.
(suspenseful music)
- When I first reviewed the case file,
my initial reaction was a little bit of shock
at how little was in it.
That's why when we realized, we probably should go back
and re-interview every single one of the witnesses
that were interviewed to begin with.
- We started to hear street talk
from various folks in the county.
Names were coming up,
two of those names were Cody Murphy and Randy Kennedy.
- Both of them were known meth users in the Piedmont area.
And when I first got this case, Cody Murphy was in prison
for distribution of methamphetamine
and Randy Kennedy moved to Greenville County,
which is the next county over from Anderson.
- Investigators started to understand
that around the time that the shooting took place,
Cody Murphy and Randy Kennedy
were engaged in a back and forth.
There had been physical violence between them,
potentially some guns discharged,
and there had been threats made primarily
by Randy Kennedy against Cody Murphy.
- A lot of the witnesses we interviewed
said Cody Murphy had been beat up by Randy Kennedy a lot.
- But it was unclear what Timothy Ramsey
had to do with the conflict that Randy Kennedy
and Cody Murphy were having at the time.
Detectives found out the day of the shooting,
Cody Murphy had gone to pick up a mutual friend
of Randy Kennedy's and his, the name of Ashley Thomason.
He picked her up and took her back
to hang out with their group of friends.
(tense music)
- So she really gave some insight
into the feud between Randy Kennedy and Cody Murphy.
Randy attacked Cody that morning, beat him up,
and then Ashley decided to leave with Randy Kennedy.
Just got beat up in front of some people that know you.
You know, that's gonna make you pretty angry.
But we didn't know what Randy Kennedy's and Cody Murphy's
relationship or connection was to Rambo Ramsey.
We didn't know why either one of them would want to hurt
Rambo Ramsey.
(pensive music)
- So that really jumped out at us
and that's the first time we had heard
that Cody thought Randy was at Timothy's house,
Rambo's house, because Ashley Thomason told him.
- He kind of led us down that path that the morning
of the shooting, Cody believed that
Randy was at Rambo's house.
- And that was really key to this investigation
because it put together why someone
would shoot up that house.
It gave us the reason behind the shooting.
(tense music)
- [Amanda] When Timothy and I met,
both of my parents were abusing drugs.
Like, he saved me from that.
Like, both of us together were gonna be sober.
We're not gonna be like our parents,
you know, we're gonna do better.
- He actually was waiting on me to come
and give him a ride to go job hunting
and we were supposed to hang out that day,
and I was a little late picking him up
and by the time I got there, everything had happened.
(tense music)
- His phone placed him in a different location.
Witnesses placed him in a different location.
So we pretty much felt like Randy Kennedy
was alibied at the time of the shooting.
Now, we have to prove that Cody Murphy did it.
We can prove Randy did not do it.
How do we prove Cody Murphy did it?
(pensive music)
Kayla Nalley was Cody Murphy's baby mama.
When we spoke with Kayla,
my impression was she had moved on from Cody.
I figured when we talked to her again,
if we needed her to help us put Cody in prison,
she would be willing to do that
because she didn't care about him anymore.
(pensive music)
She admitted that Cody Murphy was the only person
who knew where she hid her gun,
and that Cody Murphy was at her house the morning
of the shooting and that after he left,
she noticed her gun was missing.
She said she had a Hi Point .45,
which is the first time someone was able to
name the gun that was used.
- That is a specific detail that had not been released.
So that told us that
the detectives were on the right track.
- It's a step in the right direction.
That's enough to make a charge.
But we did need a confession for a conviction.
For beyond a reasonable doubt, you need 99.9%,
but we were nowhere near 99.9% at this point in time.
- One big missing piece was this confession
and getting that confession was going to complete
that puzzle and solidify a conviction.
(pensive music)
That was intentional.
Cody knew the date of the shooting.
We want to play to his emotions. It was strategic.
If we don't get this confession, then there's a possibility
that we don't get closure for the Ramsey family.
(dates clicking)
- I arrange for him to be brought up on September 10th.
And on September 9th, I get a phone call
at one o'clock in the afternoon telling me that
Cody Murphy's in the Anderson County Detention Center
a day early.
And I was kind of just stunned for a minute.
It definitely blew my advantage.
(tense music)
- My initial plan was always to be, you know, his buddy,
you know, we're just two bros hanging out.
So I really fed into that a good bit with him.
And that's how I kind of built the trust with him was,
I'm not this cop that you always deal with.
Like, I'm not that regular guy.
I'm not here to hammer you about a case.
We're just here to talk.
Tomorrow is it? - Tomorrow.
- I didn't hear any about any of that.
She wouldn't talk to me.
(tense music)
- Detective Hill says, you know,
"I'm just gonna tell you the meat and potatoes of our case.
I don't care.
You know, I don't have anything to hide.
I already know you did it
and I'm gonna tell you how I know you did it."
The whole goal at the beginning of the interview
was to connect with him, have him feel comfortable,
have him open up.
But he didn't confess as quickly as I thought he would
when I laid it out there.
That's why I kind of shifted towards Randy.
I felt like if I made Randy our common enemy then
it's not just Cody's enemy, he's my enemy too.
We, we both hate Randy Kennedy.
He's a bad guy, he's a dangerous guy.
And that was another way to kind of get to where
he was looking at me more as a friend,
instead of the cop who's trying to
put a manslaughter charge on him.
(tense music)
I really thought, okay, that's gonna be enough.
He's gonna confess right here.
- My thoughts on it was,
this is actually good for me because
she's gonna be on my side this whole time.
Based on my one conversation with her,
she doesn't like Cody. She, she's over him.
She doesn't care what happens to him.
She's gonna want him to confess to get this over with.
It allowed me to show him that, yeah, I got your back.
Like I'm gonna help you out with this.
(tense music)
I was feeling pretty good at this point.
We're still in good shape and she's gonna come in
and she's gonna be like, "You better tell 'em everything.
I'm sick of having to deal with this."
You know, "You better tell the truth."
I was thinking, we're gonna
have this wrapped up in five minutes.
She ran into the room and jumped in his arms and I thought,
oh man, I completely misread this situation.
(pensive music)
- That threw me off and I was like, oh,
she's not over him. She's not, she's not on our side.
We are on the wrong day
and now we've got the wrong person in the room with us.
- I'm watching this going, okay,
how do I get in there and how do I break this up?
Because it did not go at all like I wanted it to.
You can see, I took the chair
and faced it more towards her than Cody.
I've spent hours talking with Cody,
building a rapport and now I'm like,
I gotta start over and do it all over again with her.
The only chance to get this confession
was to convince Kayla that I wasn't this horrible guy.
- What Detective Hill's approach was,
was to ingratiate himself to Cody Murphy
and to make him believe that he was going
to go to bat for him.
Even though that was highly unusual,
that it would make it look like Detective Hill
was on Cody Murphy's side.
- When Cody started defending me,
that gave me the confidence to push him
towards a confession.
I kind of switched gears from trying to win Kayla over
to now, back on Cody
and now we're gonna push him towards a confession.
(tense music)
- I knew I had him where I needed him.
This is the final push to try to get this confession.
- I think he wants to tell me, but not in front of Kayla.
I had got the feeling that she truly
did not know that he had committed this crime.
My perception of it was that he had hid it from her because
Kayla's the most important person in the world to Cody.
If she thought anything negative about him,
that was gonna crush him.
The thought was, now how do I separate them?
- When Cody asked for that cigarette, I knew, okay,
that's my chance to get them apart
and it's my chance to do it without me being the bad guy.
We got outside,
we had a little picnic table at the end of the building,
which is where we let people smoke.
So we get out there, he sits on top of the table,
I light his cigarette and I sit down next to him.
You only get one shot at this
and if we get back up there and you miss,
well, that's a year's worth of work and hours
of building a rapport with this guy and it's over.
Two or three cigarettes is what my plan was.
And slowly get back into, "You need to tell me this,"
but as soon as I sat down,
I saw him break down and start to cry.
So I just put my arm around him
and the first words out of his mouth were,
"It was an accident.
I didn't mean to kill him, you know,
no one was supposed to die when I did this.
I was trying to get Randy Kennedy to leave me alone,
show him that I would shoot back
if he didn't leave me alone," you know.
And that, that I was excited but I was like,
oh crap, I didn't bring my recorder.
(suspenseful music)
(pensive music)
- I still had to get him to say it on the recording.
I got him back upstairs as quickly as I could.
Even when we got back into the room,
I was still a little nervous
because I didn't know if he was gonna
say it in front of Kayla.
So I'm thinking,
did I miss my opportunity by not recording this?
(tense music) (clock ticking)
- Cody Murphy wanted people to like him
and I was able to give him a way to get this off his chest
and for him to still feel like I liked him at the end of it.
And for Kayla to still have that,
a positive relationship with him.
I think for her, it was more she didn't wanna believe
that somebody she loved killed somebody.
That was difficult for her.
There's nothing more serious than taking someone's life
and you know, and then getting someone to admit to you.
Especially someone who, for hours,
did everything he could to try not to say it out loud.
It is a pretty good rush.
(gentle music) (dates clicking)
- [Price] Justice means looking at everything
and coming up with the most equitable result,
taking everything into consideration.
And I do feel like what we came up with in the end did that.
- It's so easy to look at a cold case and say,
well, if they couldn't do anything with it back then,
what am I gonna do now?
But if you're patient enough
and you're willing to work hard enough,
you can get some closure for a family
that hasn't had it for years.
- It's not so much what I miss about him.
It hurts not seeing his life go forward,
never seeing him get married, have kids.
There was a time in my life when he was everything to me.
What hurts now about it is just knowing
that he's missed out on so much.
- Timothy was a very forgiving person.
So I know that in this situation,
Timothy would've voiced his opinion and said his piece,
but he also would've forgave.
And even though I'm not to that point yet,
I hope that I can for my own benefit.
Cody took somebody that meant something to a lot of people.
He took a part of our family
that took a part of our hearts
and we can't get that back.
(melancholy music)