I am a Killer (2018) s04e06 Episode Script

1
Red Lodge, Montana
is a very close-knit community.
Everybody knows everybody.
This homicide,
everybody was talking about it.
And everybody had their own theories
on why it happened and what had happened.
I remember the first time
when I went to court.
They all looked at me differently,
like I was a
like I was a monster.
I kept trying to tell them
I never meant for anything to happen.
I'm not a cold-blooded killer.
There was no, in any way, shape or form,
any intention
of hurting my best friend ever,
ever, ever.
- Are we good to go?
- We're good to go.
Okay.
My name is Thomas Schifferns.
I'm 37 years old.
I'm currently imprisoned
in Shelby, Montana
for the death of my best friend.
I was born in 1984
in Kern County, California.
When I was four years old,
my parents divorced.
My dad got remarried to my stepmother.
Life got really hard for me.
My stepmother
really didn't like me at all.
I was locked in a room a lot.
I wasn't allowed out,
I wasn't allowed to play.
I wasn't allowed
to pretty much do anything
except for go to school and back.
That continued pretty much
through my childhood.
That's when things got really bad.
I got caught smoking upstairs
in my brother's bedroom one day.
My stepmom got mad about it,
so that very night, they pretty much
kicked me out the back door
and told me never to come back.
Red Lodge is a ski resort town.
There's a lot of rich people.
The cops, once you're on their radar,
they are on you all the time
for the rest of your life.
Because I'm a convicted felon
and because of who I was,
nobody would ever hire me.
She was awesome.
She understood what I had been through
and she didn't judge me for it.
So it it felt good for once in my life
to not be judged for, you know, my past.
I'd repair chainsaws.
I cut a lot of wood for 'em.
I did a lot of welding for 'em.
And that's where I met Jim.
He was like a small, frail man
with a white beard.
He was always smoking his pipe,
he always had his pipe on him,
sitting there next to the fire stove.
I guess I would just sit there
and listen to his stories.
His, you know, ranching days.
It gets below zero quite a bit
in Red Lodge.
Jim's shack didn't have any heat,
didn't have any water in it.
He didn't have a place to go to
when it was cold.
And so, me and Shilo
decided to invite him into our home.
Me and Jim became inseparable.
I mean, everywhere I was, Jim was.
Everywhere Jim was, I was.
We went out shooting a lot.
We went fishing a lot.
We went and did everything.
He loved the outdoors.
Um, things were good till that
till awful day.
It was a regular day.
We stop at the store
and we buy some beer.
We drive out of town.
We kept driving out of town, and I
I believe the place was called Bear Tract.
We pulled in.
I got out.
I was kind of like, uh, you know,
"The creek's frozen here."
"I don't really want to fish here."
So Jim gets out,
and he had his .357 on him.
We just did what we loved to do.
We started shooting.
We just started shooting trees.
He tried to twirl it on his fingers.
I told him that he looked like
Billy the Kid.
"You look like Billy the Kid
with that thing."
He wasn't really twirling it.
He was just trying to.
He was trying to make the motions
to do it. It was hilarious.
By that time, we were
We had been drinking all day,
so we were just having a good time,
more or less.
I told him, "Let me see the gun.
I wanna try it, I wanna try,"
and see if I could do
what he was doing, you know.
So he handed me the gun, and I remember
there was two shots left in it.
And I was gonna try to, you know, twirl it
and act like some kind of cowboy,
some Billy the Kid,
see if I could do it, you know.
And I remember twirling it forward
and the gun went off.
I remember seeing Jim fall to the ground.
And at that point, I was just
I didn't I guess I didn't comprehend
at the moment what had just happened
because I didn't expect
the gun to go off like that.
I remember walking over to Jim,
and I grabbed his leg to, you know
I said, "Jim, get up, stop playing around,
stop effing around," and, uh
I felt how limp his leg was,
and I knew that there was something wrong.
And, um
That's when I saw the blood in the snow.
It felt like my soul
had been ripped out of my
out of my body at that time.
Because I
I knew Jim wasn't there anymore.
I can't tell you how many times
I told them it was an accident that day.
They tried to say
that I had Jim on his knees,
and that I had the gun to the back
of his head, and then I shot him.
I'm not gonna lie about what happened.
You know, I'm not
I'm not a cold-blooded killer.
I didn't mean for anything to happen.
I kept trying to tell them
I never meant to hurt Jim.
It was an accident.
I think about Jim quite a bit.
Uh, he He was the only friend
I really had.
When Jimmy was found deceased,
I was torn apart.
My heart was broken.
And to find out that such a gentle soul
was taken in such a violent manner,
it just it made it hurt that much worse.
I am John Price,
and one of my best friends
was Jimmy McGregor.
Whenever I work on a skull like this,
I think of Jimmy.
Knowing that he would look down right now
and just see how I'm preserving
someone's hunting memories for a lifetime.
Being that this occurred
in such a small town,
a lot of rumors went flying around.
People still speculate about it.
People still try to figure out a motive.
This sort of thing
just does not happen in Red Lodge.
Jimmy was a kind and gentle man.
Always had a smile,
always greeted you with a handshake.
Uh, wanted to know how the family
was doing and whether you were doing well.
Jimmy's relationship with money
was he had very little.
He pretty much was penniless.
Jimmy and I were talking one afternoon
and he had had some assistance
from a local woman
that helped him file
for his Social Security.
He realized that he was gonna get
one lump sum at the beginning
and then his monthly payment.
We were just so happy for him
to finally get to that stage
where he would have a steady income
to sustain himself throughout the year.
Red Lodge is a very small town.
So it doesn't take long
for word to travel around
that Jimmy was gonna be coming
into his Social Security finally.
TJ was very forward with Jimmy
as far as his affections and such.
It was like he had prior motive
for building that relationship.
I found out that Jimmy
had moved in with TJ and his wife Shilo
and was very concerned. All of us were.
Me and Jim became inseparable.
I mean, everywhere I was, Jim was.
Everywhere Jim was, I was.
I think about Jim quite a bit
because he was the only friend
I really had.
You know, there wasn't a lot
I wouldn't do for that guy.
It's all a lie.
He made out
that he and Jimmy were best of friends,
and that was far from the case.
TJ and Jimmy's relationship
was a relationship of convenience.
TJ played that part to a tee
by taking advantage of Jim.
I had discovered
that Jimmy had purchased a truck.
This was alarming
because Jimmy did not drive.
So he had no use for the truck.
I feel that he was taken advantage of,
that TJ needed a vehicle
and preyed on him.
I think TJ did it strictly for the money.
He knew Jimmy had money,
and killing him
was gonna be the quickest way
for him to get all of it at once.
My name is Josh McQuillan.
I am the Carbon County sheriff
in Red Lodge, Montana.
So we're heading south
out of Red Lodge right now.
This is the area in which
we had received a call at dispatch
that Jimmy's truck had been found.
It was very unusual that we found
Jimmy's truck all the way down here.
This is an area that is frequented
during the summer by campers,
but not so much during the winter time.
At that time, snow down here was
well over a foot to 18 inches deep.
And simply put, people just don't come
down here when there's that kind of snow.
As we proceeded down here,
we could see the truck,
and then we actually found
some blood on the ground.
And then drag marks
that led us over here to this embankment
that drops down into Rock Creek.
We were able to see Jimmy's body
covered in snow laying on his back,
and he had obviously been dragged
about halfway down this embankment.
We could clearly see that there was
one gunshot wound to the head.
This spot can't be seen from the highway.
So there's a good chance
that if we hadn't received that tip
and came down here when we did,
it's unlikely we would have found him
until the spring thaw
when this became a more popular area
with people.
It was apparent
that whoever had done this to Jimmy
had tried to hide his body
and had no regard for trying to help him.
What did I do? What did I do?
You played a game.
I'm not What did I do?
You killed somebody.
No, I fucking hell
I don't even have the balls
to kill somebody. Are you serious?
Oh, I'm dead serious.
It was an accident.
It wasn't supposed to happen like that.
As soon as I cocked back the hammer,
the gun went off.
And I saw Jimmy fall.
And it scared me.
You know, I really don't know, uh
what happened that day.
Only TJ and Jimmy know
what happened that day.
And I don't want to speculate on that.
I do know that they spent
a lot of time together
playing with guns and drinking,
and that doesn't mix.
My name is Suzanne Russell,
and I am TJ's mother-in-law.
Why would TJ kill Jimmy?
He loved Jimmy.
He always would say, "I love Jimmy."
Jimmy was his friend, his best friend.
I went over and seen them
maybe a week before this all happened.
Everybody was happy and laughing
and getting along just fine.
People in the right frame of mind
would probably have called 911
if they shot somebody accidentally.
But TJ was scared to death.
Nobody in Red Lodge liked TJ.
So, I think even if it was an accident,
nobody would believe him.
I think he would run scared
because he wasn't
in his right frame of mind.
I can understand him doing that.
I'm not justifying it, but I
I can see that he would do that, yes.
TJ had a lot of issues growing up.
You know, I don't want to get
into a lot of his personal life,
but there was abuse in different areas.
He had it rough.
He's sentimental, he cries over movies.
He's gentle, he's kind.
If this had went to trial,
I don't think TJ would have had a prayer
because this is a small community
and he was the bad guy.
Nobody cared about TJ.
Jimmy was well-loved in this community.
And TJ, they figured
he was just a monster.
People know I'm TJ's mother-in-law
and I keep in touch with TJ.
And people say, "You talk to him?
Why would you talk to him?"
It's like, "Why wouldn't I talk to him?"
Who does he have to turn to?
I'm all he's got right now.
My name is Dave Beuscher.
I'm the owner of AY Supply
in Red Lodge, Montana.
I've had many men come and help me,
kind of down-and-out men.
People show up and they're hungry
and they need a day's work.
TJ, he was needing work
and couldn't find any.
It worked out fairly well at first.
Since TJ was working for me,
I let TJ and his wife Shilo
live in a house that I owned
about six miles that way.
I kind of overlooked the fact
that occasionally,
they couldn't pay the rent.
Jim was a neighbor
that lived a couple of blocks away.
He was a very nice guy.
We had a number of guys hanging out.
TJ and Jim met each other here
and became somewhat of friends.
But another fellow here at, at the shop,
he said to me
it was like mixing gasoline and matches.
I guess he thought less of TJ than I did.
Me and Shilo, we were
common-law married, I guess,
because we'd lived together for so long.
For a long time, I'd watch these jewelry
commercials or whatever,
and I always wanted to get her
a real wedding ring.
So I had asked the guy I worked for,
Dave at AY Supply,
for some of the money
to buy a ring for her,
and he ended up loaning me money.
I don't know exactly how much.
A couple thousand, I guess.
This was a few days
before all this happened.
Huh.
That's crazy.
I never loaned him two thousand dollars.
Not that I know of.
And certainly not
a few days before this crime.
There was no point at,
at which TJ came to me and,
with a sob story,
and said, "I need to get Shilo
a nice piece of jewelry, a ring."
He, he never said that to me.
That just didn't happen.
He didn't borrow 2,000 bucks from me.
And And my gosh,
I wouldn't trust TJ with it.
I knew him well enough that I didn't need
to be giving him any money,
ring or no ring for his wife.
I remember twirling it forward,
and my thumb had caught the hammer on it.
And when the gun started coming back,
my first instinct was to push
my finger down, and the gun went off.
And it was so loud, it scared me.
And I remember seeing Jim
fall to the ground.
And, at that point, I was just I didn't
I guess I didn't comprehend at the moment
what had just happened
because I didn't expect the gun
to go off like that.
Am I guilty for killing somebody?
Yes, absolutely. I did.
Am I guilty of deliberate homicide
for intentionally killing somebody
and premeditated killing my best friend?
Absolutely not.
What TJ just said
is basically nonsense.
I don't know why TJ won't admit
to what actually happened that day.
So, this is This is the murder weapon.
So, what you can see, that is a the .357.
King Cobra revolver.
This is a pretty heavy gun.
Then TJ talks about,
while he's twirling it on his finger,
he accidentally pulls this back
And you can see,
this requires pressure to pull this back.
A true effort to do that.
While at the same time,
pulling the trigger.
Um
You know, just, even doing this right now,
this is not something you accidentally do.
Um
That's a deliberate act.
And Jimmy just happens to be
right in front of him.
And if you look at the autopsy photo,
it can show the trajectory of the bullet,
and it's a straight shot.
The bullet goes basically level with him,
enters and exits his head in that,
in that line.
So, I don't believe TJ,
and I don't think it's
even remotely possible
that that's what happened.
This was a strong case
from the very beginning.
And certainly,
we were ready to go to trial
when, uh, we learned that he was ready
to change his plea.
What would somebody do
if they did accidentally
shoot their friend through the head?
Are you going to try to call
law enforcement or medical aid?
Or do you take his money?
Do you drag his body down to the creek
where it's going to be harder to find?
There's nothing that he does
that is consistent
with any sort of concern
for the, uh, the well-being of his friend.
My name is Alex Nixon.
I'm the Carbon County attorney
in Red Lodge, Montana.
It's pretty hard to believe that, uh,
this was anything but a homicide,
and we were very confident
that we could get a conviction.
We had an actual first-hand admission
of what happened that evening.
TJ tells Kristen
that he had killed the man
because he was homeless and disrespectful.
She said that he, he begged for his life.
She said that, uh, TJ described
dragging the body, uh,
where it would be harder to find.
It was a big deal
because here you have a description of not
a person who was sorry or sympathetic
because he had just killed
his so-called best friend.
What you have is somebody who is angry
who felt like he was a victim,
that he was being disrespected.
He wasn't being properly appreciated.
What you heard about was
somebody describing a,
a brutal, cold-blooded homicide.
It was anything
but the story of an accidental killing.
It made me really sound like
a monster.
They tried to say
that I had Jim on his knees,
and then I had a gun
to the back of his head,
and then I shot him,
which is not even close to the truth.
Listening to this,
it seems that, uh
TJ was, uh, trying to say that
the narrative of Jimmy being on his knees
was one that was
created by investigators, uh,
when, in fact, we have him to blame
for that story.
That is the story he told Kristen.
What the final, uh, motivator was
for TJ to kill Jimmy, I don't know.
What was most important was
there was no doubt that TJ killed Jimmy.
It was just a matter of which,
which story you wanted to believe.
At the end of the day, TJ wants you
to believe he's not a murderer,
he's just a really shitty friend.
I don't know how
I don't know how to defend myself anymore.
I don't know what to say
to convince people.
If I would have kept my mouth shut,
denied the whole thing, and lied about it,
I probably wouldn't be sitting here today.
Yeah, I didn't go to the cops at the,
at the beginning. I was terrified.
I just took somebody's life.
You know, put yourself in my shoes
during that 30 seconds. Two seconds.
You know, that fraction of a second
changed the course of many people's lives.
I do understand why there's
a lot of people that don't trust me
or don't believe anything that I say.
I do understand that.
And there's no way that I can fix that.
There's no way that I can fix that.
You know.
So this is,
this is the murder weapon.
And TJ talks about,
while he's twirling it on his finger,
he accidentally pulls this back.
This requires pressure,
while at the same time,
pulling the trigger.
It's not something you accidentally do.
That's a deliberate act.
Well, whatever, I guess.
Whatever.
He's saying, "It takes a lot of pressure."
It don't take a lot of pressure.
I've shot that gun many, many,
many hundreds of times.
That very same gun I've shot.
Me and Jimmy went shooting all the time.
It's quite compelling
seeing the sheriff
show how hard it is
to pull that trigger back.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I imagine.
And I imagine he put on
a good act and tried
and made it look like it was, uh,
quite a bit harder than it actually is.
Because it's not really that hard.
He's trying to make it sound like
it's, it's
"There's only one way that this is,
and this is the way
it could have happened."
That's a lie. It's a lie.
I don't care what people think.
You know, I was there, I know happened.
You know, I never intentionally
intended to hurt anybody.
Never have and never will.
I'm just not that person.
So everybody
that's saying otherwise is wrong?
They're dead wrong.
They're liars.
I'd love to tell them to their face,
"You're lying. You're a liar."
What do I have to lose?
I got a life sentence.
I killed a man.
That man was my best friend.
And I'm sorry. I'm very sorry.
There's no words to say how sorry I am
for what happened.