Speaker 1: Two brothers are blaming one another for the murder of
Speaker 1: a college student.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine what an agonizing decision that would be
Speaker 2: to have to squill on your brother like that. But
Speaker 2: your brother's done a terrible thing. Your brother's done a horrible.
Speaker 1: Thing, Anchorage. Please have to figure out which brother was
Speaker 1: telling the truth.
Speaker 3: Someday, when I'm eulogized, all I wanted somebody to say
Speaker 3: is I stood up.
Speaker 2: And did the right case.
Speaker 4: I always strayed to do the right.
Speaker 1: And in the end, one brother would do the unthinkable.
Speaker 2: It's a hard decision, but I think it was the
Speaker 2: right decision to make, and it resulted in this tragedy.
Speaker 1: Today we're an Anchorage, Alaska for the conclusion of the
Speaker 1: search for Bethany Carrera. I'm Sloan Glass and this is
Speaker 1: American Homicide. Just to note that this episode contained some
Speaker 1: graphic content. Please take care while listening.
Speaker 5: Alaska is a place where people disappear and where people
Speaker 5: find bodies in the springtime. We have really high rates
Speaker 5: of violence against women, and women become victims of violent
Speaker 5: crime a lot.
Speaker 1: Journalist Julia O'Malley covered the case of twenty one year
Speaker 1: old Bethany Carrera.
Speaker 5: Bethany was a college student coming to Anchorage looking for
Speaker 5: a place to stay, but it must have felt pretty
Speaker 5: exciting snagging a job, getting furniture, setting.
Speaker 1: Up Bethany's moved to Anchorage was supposed to be exciting,
Speaker 1: but instead she disappeared.
Speaker 5: So it wasn't somebody who had like lost touch with
Speaker 5: their family and gone up to Alaska and just kind
Speaker 5: of quit talking to anybody. It was somebody who like
Speaker 5: needed to pick her brother up from the airport, and
Speaker 5: who had a plan with her mom the next morning
Speaker 5: and was supposed to call her boyfriend.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: She was somebody who was watched after and very connected
Speaker 5: to other people. So when she just dropped out of
Speaker 5: her life, it seemed very apparent that something had happened
Speaker 5: to her.
Speaker 1: Inside Bethany's apartment were her keys, cell phone, and purse.
Speaker 5: It was as if she had gone out to take
Speaker 5: out the trash and just not ever come back.
Speaker 1: Detectives were looking at Bethany's property manager, Mike Lawson and
Speaker 1: his brother Bob as suspects.
Speaker 5: The Lawsons are just these really shady characters.
Speaker 1: If you remember from the last episode, Mike Lawson served
Speaker 1: time in prison for sexually assaulting his girlfriend back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. After his release, Mike moved to Alaska
Speaker 1: and started a roofing business with his brother Bob.
Speaker 5: And the cops were looking for something to bring them
Speaker 5: in on so that they could have some leverage to
Speaker 5: see if they could get one of them to talk.
Speaker 1: Mike slipped up on a lone application for his business.
Speaker 1: Mike Lawson failed to disclose that he was a convicted felon,
Speaker 1: which gave the police a warrant to arrest both Lawson
Speaker 1: brothers for fraud. Once in custody, detectives hope that one
Speaker 1: brother would flip on the other, but no one expected
Speaker 1: both brothers to flip on each other. First, it was
Speaker 1: Bob who flipped on Mike. Bob told detectives that on
Speaker 1: the Saturday morning Bethany went missing, Mike phoned him in
Speaker 1: a panic. Here's what he told investigators.
Speaker 4: He said, I'm on the trouble. I need you to
Speaker 4: help me.
Speaker 1: Mike Lawson was in the apartment next door to Bethany's
Speaker 1: and told his brother Bob to bring him some heavy
Speaker 1: duty garbage bags and duct tape. Bob said he was reluctant,
Speaker 1: but did what my guest, and when he arrived, he
Speaker 1: said he saw Bethany's naked body on the floor.
Speaker 4: Did I just remember taking peces? And I said something like,
Speaker 4: what have you gotten me into? I said, if I
Speaker 4: was smart, i'd walk right now, and I didn't.
Speaker 2: What did your brother say to that?
Speaker 6: I didn't say anything.
Speaker 4: He said, well, at some point during this thing, he said,
Speaker 4: it's not your falt. He said, I did it, and
Speaker 4: he said, I'm sorry I got you into this.
Speaker 1: Bob saw bowling ball sized hole in the wall from
Speaker 1: Mike's struggle with Bethany. If you'll remember, that's where the
Speaker 1: police found human hair, and Lant has confirmed it belonged
Speaker 1: to Bethany. Bob said he patched the drywall, helped Mike
Speaker 1: roll Bethany's body in plastic garbage bags, and put her
Speaker 1: in the back of Mike's suv.
Speaker 5: Then that he and his brother took her north to
Speaker 5: you know, a gravel pit along the highway and left
Speaker 5: your body.
Speaker 1: Later that night, Bob said he and Mike returned to
Speaker 1: the empty apartment and set it on fire. Then the
Speaker 1: two went out to the bars that evening to establish
Speaker 1: an alibi. And that brings us to Mike Mike was
Speaker 1: Bethany's landlord, who for months denied having anything to do
Speaker 1: with Bethany's disappearance. But then Mike said his brother Bob
Speaker 1: killed Bethany. He even offered to wear a wire to
Speaker 1: prove it. So now you have two brothers blaming one another.
Speaker 1: Detectives didn't know who or what to believe, so they
Speaker 1: came up with a plan. In April two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: nearly a year after Bethany's disappearance, the police bugged a
Speaker 1: jail phone line so they could hear the two brothers conversation.
Speaker 1: Here's some of what they heard.
Speaker 2: This whole thing ain't going away, Mike.
Speaker 1: That's Bob telling Mike how this whole thing was eating
Speaker 1: him up.
Speaker 2: You know, I've been drinking every night.
Speaker 3: I go to the bar at two shots, a crowned
Speaker 3: every mirror.
Speaker 2: I just need to talk to you. I don't know
Speaker 2: how we can talk about this, but I.
Speaker 1: Don't want to talk.
Speaker 4: I could talk to stark ass naked.
Speaker 2: In a moon where I know you're not wearing a
Speaker 2: wire and nothing's bogged.
Speaker 1: I know it's hard to hear, but Mike told his
Speaker 1: brother Bob he's not talking unless he was sure Bob
Speaker 1: wasn't wearing a wire.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know how the hell that would ever happen.
Speaker 1: Here's more from Bob.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to understand.
Speaker 2: I haven't been able to talk to you.
Speaker 3: We never talked about it.
Speaker 1: Mike told Bob that they did talk about what happened,
Speaker 1: and that mum was the word. And then Mike went off.
Speaker 3: You.
Speaker 2: Don't you the cat buried the kitty litter, and your
Speaker 2: showed everything.
Speaker 1: You may have missed it. But Mike yelled at Bob
Speaker 1: for telling the cops what the cat buried in the
Speaker 1: kitty litter. Well, that's not a direct confession. It's the
Speaker 1: closest thing to Mike saying they threw Bethany's body in
Speaker 1: the gravel pit. And then Mike revealed something that would
Speaker 1: completely change the way investigators pursued the case.
Speaker 2: Something that you don't know about that.
Speaker 7: I'm not thanking.
Speaker 1: Again, And I know it's tough to hear this audio,
Speaker 1: but Mike said something happened before she, meaning Bethany ever
Speaker 1: showed up.
Speaker 3: Just give me a name, Mike, who was there and
Speaker 3: who else?
Speaker 7: Cola?
Speaker 1: Mike was there with Coca Cola. Well, the cops translated
Speaker 1: that to cocaine. And that's important because that morning, Bethany
Speaker 1: was supposed to meet Mike at a vacant apartment in
Speaker 1: her building, and she may have unknowingly walked into a
Speaker 1: drug deal.
Speaker 3: Can I asked you one more question? Mar was already
Speaker 3: section round and I'm just trying to figure out why
Speaker 3: they're no clothes, no running, no what?
Speaker 2: No running? No running? Get away?
Speaker 1: Oh, Mike claimed Bethany wasn't wearing clothes so she wouldn't
Speaker 1: run away, And before their call ended, Mike wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure Bob wasn't cooperating with the cops.
Speaker 7: No, I'm not.
Speaker 2: I swear my mom's grave.
Speaker 1: And then Bob had one final thing to say to his.
Speaker 2: Brother, I want to be able to tell you I
Speaker 2: love you Bike.
Speaker 1: The secret recording confirmed everything the police had suspected about
Speaker 1: Mike Lawson, that he was responsible for killing Bethany Carrera,
Speaker 1: not his brother Bob.
Speaker 2: They allowed us to wire them and they were very
Speaker 2: incriminating conversations, so that is essentially what still the case.
Speaker 1: Ron McGee worked for the Anchorage PD. They were still
Speaker 1: searching for Bethany's body in early two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: Bob led investigators to a gravel pit where he and
Speaker 1: his brother Mike buried Bethany months earlier.
Speaker 2: And this is Alaska, and there was three feet of
Speaker 2: snow on and we couldn't recover the body until some
Speaker 2: of the snow melted, so we had to wait for
Speaker 2: the snow to melt.
Speaker 1: Mother Nature delivered a warm spring in two thousand and
Speaker 1: four that meant an early thaw, which allowed the Anchorage
Speaker 1: police to resume their search for Bethany's body. On May third,
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, exactly one year to the day
Speaker 1: she disappeared, a search crew returned to the same gravel pit.
Speaker 1: Officers very quickly found a blue and black fleece jacket.
Speaker 1: It was a woman's size small. Then they found a
Speaker 1: brawl that looked like it had been pierced by a bullet.
Speaker 1: It was near a pukashell necklace, the same necklace Bethany's
Speaker 1: boyfriend gave her just before she went missing. And then
Speaker 1: they found what was left of Bethany.
Speaker 2: When we found a body, the body was partially clad.
Speaker 2: She was naked from the waist down, so immediately we
Speaker 2: suspected that there was some sexual aspect to the crime.
Speaker 2: We had always suspected that, but this just confirmed in
Speaker 2: our mind that there was some sexual aspect of the crime.
Speaker 1: Finding Bethany's badly decomposed body was a bittersweet moment for investigators.
Speaker 2: I think everybody had sort of got to know her
Speaker 2: a little bit and fall in love with her. She's
Speaker 2: such a wonderful young lady, and I think that the
Speaker 2: sense was of relief that we can bring this beautiful
Speaker 2: young lady home to her parents. I was heartbreaking, is
Speaker 2: a very heartbreaking thing, and I pray. I don't know them,
Speaker 2: but I pray that they find some peace with this.
Speaker 1: The Anchorage police charged Mike Lawson with first and second
Speaker 1: degree murder, sexual assault, arson, kidnapping, and tampering with evidence.
Speaker 2: And of course, the brother's profession was a big part
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 1: It was Bob who would be a key witness in
Speaker 1: the trial against his brother Mike, but a tragedy would
Speaker 1: change everything. The search for Bethany Correra ended exactly one
Speaker 1: year after she went missing. Her body was found in
Speaker 1: a gravel pit just outside of her hometown of Tlkita, Alaska,
Speaker 1: and nearly two hours from her apartment in Anchorage.
Speaker 6: Not only did they find the actual bullet that she
Speaker 6: was shot with the round, but they found her necklace
Speaker 6: as well as her remains.
Speaker 1: Walt Monaghan was the Anchorage Chief of police.
Speaker 6: Such a beautiful young lady was victimized as she was well,
Speaker 6: she didn't deserve it, you know, losing a child and
Speaker 6: actually I lost one. It's a wound that will never heal.
Speaker 1: Mike Lawson, Bethany's building manager, was charged with her murder.
Speaker 6: She said that she had to go meet the manager
Speaker 6: and that was the last anybody heard of her. He
Speaker 6: was a convicted sex offender, which kind of doubled down
Speaker 6: on why he should be a suspect. So it was
Speaker 6: just a matter of doing due diligence and eventually make
Speaker 6: a case against him.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors had a star witness in the case against Mike Lawson,
Speaker 1: his brother Bob Lawson, who led investigators to Bethany's body.
Speaker 6: And the suspect's brother eventually kind of broke down and
Speaker 6: revealed what he had done to help his brother dispose
Speaker 6: of the body.
Speaker 1: The prosecution moved quickly with this. They wired Bob, recorded
Speaker 1: incriminating conversations and had what they needed to convict Mike
Speaker 1: Lawson of Bethany Carrera's murder. It all weighed heavily on Bob.
Speaker 1: He saw Bethany's dead body and knew what the future
Speaker 1: looked like for his brother.
Speaker 6: He committed suicide and that kind of took him out
Speaker 6: of the picture literally.
Speaker 1: In March of two thousand and six, Bob Lawson's roommate
Speaker 1: found Bob dead in the garage of the house they shared.
Speaker 6: Basically, it boiled down to he was feeling guilty. He
Speaker 6: was feeling torn between doing what was right and loyalty
Speaker 6: to his family.
Speaker 1: Sitting among a collection of beer and liquor bottles was
Speaker 1: a note Bob left behind.
Speaker 8: To my family. I'm so sorry. I missed my brother
Speaker 8: so much. Life has become unbearable. I can't endure the
Speaker 8: pain any longer. I helped do one of the most
Speaker 8: terrible things imaginable, and I can't live with that. Please
Speaker 8: take the money in my wallet and my final wages
Speaker 8: and give it to Mike.
Speaker 1: So what was that terrible thing Bob did. Was it
Speaker 1: helping to move Bethanie's body or turning on his brother.
Speaker 6: I don't know. I think that he knew what had
Speaker 6: happened was wrong, and I think that was weighing heavy
Speaker 6: on him. But again it's hard to judge family.
Speaker 1: Bob's lawyer told reporters that Bob struggled with doing what
Speaker 1: was right versus his loyalty to his brother.
Speaker 6: I think that his personal guilt of what he was
Speaker 6: feeling and what he had done, was his choice to
Speaker 6: avoid being disloyal and possibly going to jail himself.
Speaker 1: Not only was this sad news for Bob's friends and
Speaker 1: loved ones, but of course it was also damaging to
Speaker 1: the state's case against Mike Lawson.
Speaker 6: It would have been better if the brother had not
Speaker 6: committed suicide.
Speaker 7: I think.
Speaker 6: At the press conference I mentioned that this case will
Speaker 6: haunt me for a while. Still does.
Speaker 1: All eyes were on the courtroom as Mike Lawson's trial began.
Speaker 5: People were worried because Bob Lassen had killed himself. They
Speaker 5: were worried that the prosecutor like would have enough to
Speaker 5: go on.
Speaker 1: Journalist Julia O'Malley covered the trial.
Speaker 5: This case really high profile. The public's paying a lot
Speaker 5: has been paying a lot of at time attention to it.
Speaker 5: You know, there is a way in which the whole
Speaker 5: state is a small town in which one person's child
Speaker 5: is everybody's child. That might have been one of the
Speaker 5: reasons why the public followed that case so closely.
Speaker 1: The case got even more challenging for prosecutors when the
Speaker 1: judge ruled to exclude testimony about Mike Lawston's sexual assault
Speaker 1: conviction from the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 5: The jury is just there to look at what the
Speaker 5: prosecution can tell them and what the defense can tell
Speaker 5: them about the facts of the particular case and how
Speaker 5: that applies to the charges, and then consider the evidence
Speaker 5: and whether it fits. So they're not trying to convict
Speaker 5: him on a previous crime.
Speaker 1: Mike Lawston faced eight felony charges, including first and second
Speaker 1: degree murder. During opening statements, Mike's defense attorney gave a
Speaker 1: surprising admission.
Speaker 5: The defense admitted that he had killed her. They said
Speaker 5: it was an accident.
Speaker 1: Mike laws It, who repeatedly told the police he had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with killing Bethany, now said he did
Speaker 1: do it, but he was an accident.
Speaker 5: They were going for a lesser charge than murder.
Speaker 1: Mike's lawyer confidently told the jury that it was manslaughter,
Speaker 1: which carries a lighter sentence, but the prosecutor wasn't having
Speaker 1: any of it.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 5: The prosecution story was that she had entered the apartment
Speaker 5: and she may or may not have witnessed some illicit
Speaker 5: activity because there was some evidence that he was involved
Speaker 5: in sort of cocaine trade.
Speaker 1: That's where the taped phone call between the two brothers
Speaker 1: came into play.
Speaker 5: Bob Lawson's in jail. He's calling his brother and he's
Speaker 5: trying to get him to say, if there's anybody with
Speaker 5: him at the time of the.
Speaker 2: Killing, just give me a name, Mike, who was there
Speaker 2: and who else.
Speaker 5: Michael is like all cagy and he just says, you know,
Speaker 5: it was me and coca cola. So the prosecution took
Speaker 5: that to me and that he had been cutting cocaine
Speaker 5: at the time. They never found evidence of drugs in
Speaker 5: the apartment, but it was like a theory that was
Speaker 5: put forward by the prosecution.
Speaker 1: Since Bob Lawson took his own life before the trial,
Speaker 1: that recorded phone call was key for the prosecution. It
Speaker 1: also meant that Mike's colleague, Franco bez Nice would now
Speaker 1: be the prosecution star witness for me.
Speaker 7: I was ready. I was willing to do whatever it took,
Speaker 7: and when I was testifying, Mike was so frustrated with
Speaker 7: everything I was answering and I could see the frustrations
Speaker 7: in his eyes and the way he was. He couldn't
Speaker 7: stand me. He hid me so much that he didn't
Speaker 7: want to even see my face.
Speaker 1: Franco told the jury about Mike's white suv, how it
Speaker 1: was always filthy, and how Mike's suspicion had it detailed
Speaker 1: right after his first visit by detectives, and how a
Speaker 1: week before Bethany's murder, Mike's fourth wife left him. That night,
Speaker 1: Franco remembered Mike being livid.
Speaker 7: He told me that he went out to some bar
Speaker 7: and had met some woman, and he was basically telling
Speaker 7: me that when he was with this gal that he
Speaker 7: just met, that he was beating her. Why he was
Speaker 7: having sex with her. To me, that's right. So you
Speaker 7: don't meet somebody for the first time and do that
Speaker 7: and call it sex. That's not what it is. A
Speaker 7: week later, Bethany Krere comes up missing. That drew attention
Speaker 7: to me to really think that he has something to
Speaker 7: do with her disappearance.
Speaker 1: Franco remembers being at Mike's house right around the time
Speaker 1: Bethany was first reported missing.
Speaker 7: So I've been there numerous times and I've always had
Speaker 7: free rein just to walk around do whatever I wanted
Speaker 7: to do, and never had any problem about where I
Speaker 7: can go and can't go. For some reason, we wouldn't
Speaker 7: let anybody, including me, go upstairs. Nobody was allowed to
Speaker 7: go upstairs. So I thought that was odd, and that
Speaker 7: was always why I thought he had something to do
Speaker 7: with in the first place.
Speaker 1: Franco said. He eventually relayed his fears about Mike to
Speaker 1: the police, and that's soon afterwards the police had him
Speaker 1: wired up. So throughout their investigation into Mike, the police
Speaker 1: were always listening.
Speaker 7: Literally every encounter that I had with Mike was.
Speaker 1: Recorded for nearly six months. Franco's toolbox and tool belt
Speaker 1: contained recording devices, and at some point he thinks, Mike
Speaker 1: caught on.
Speaker 7: This is you know, two thousand and three, and they
Speaker 7: handed me this like basically like a walkman little cassette
Speaker 7: recorder and at the end of the cassette it makes
Speaker 7: us loud beat and it was so loud it was
Speaker 7: bet and I'm sitting there, I turn out the radio,
Speaker 7: I roll down the window, and I'm hitting my chest.
Speaker 7: He heard it, but he didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1: And that's when Mike turned on him.
Speaker 7: So my boss calls me and said, hey, Mike says,
Speaker 7: you're stealing money from the company. He goes, I got
Speaker 7: to let you go. So I got fired. And I
Speaker 7: looked at my boss and said, you're making a huge mistake.
Speaker 7: I can't tell you anything about what's going on. Maybe
Speaker 7: someday I will. My own boss turned against me, So
Speaker 7: Mike had a way to manipulate people into believing that
Speaker 7: he was in a sand or whatever was going on.
Speaker 1: Imagine that you're Bethany Carrera's parents who had to wait
Speaker 1: a year to lay their daughter to rest. Their family
Speaker 1: would forever be broken, but their fight for justice had
Speaker 1: just begun. Bethany's parents sat in court every day.
Speaker 5: They're paying close attention. They're just really witnessing it and
Speaker 5: it's super hard.
Speaker 1: Journalist Julia O'Malley was also in the courtroom.
Speaker 5: You gotta imagine losing someone like that and then having
Speaker 5: to go through the trial and having to hear all
Speaker 5: the things that happened, Like, no one needs to go
Speaker 5: through that.
Speaker 1: Throughout the trial, there was something else present in the courtroom.
Speaker 5: There's this backpack sitting with her dad, and in it
Speaker 5: were her ashes.
Speaker 1: Bethany's favorite backpack the Great North Face was sewn on
Speaker 1: patches from New Zealand, Nepal and Australia. Was perched on
Speaker 1: a chair next to Bethany's dad. Her dad said he
Speaker 1: thought it was appropriate for Bethany to have a present
Speaker 1: in the courtroom.
Speaker 5: I think it was important for them, though, to have
Speaker 5: closure in a certain way.
Speaker 1: For two long weeks the career, our family heard graphic testimony,
Speaker 1: learning in real time what happened to their daughter. At
Speaker 1: times it was just too much for Bethany's mother, who
Speaker 1: would exit the courtroom in tears, plus her parents.
Speaker 5: I can't, I really can't even process what that must
Speaker 5: have been like for them.
Speaker 1: It was a tent setting as prosecutors struggled to make
Speaker 1: their case without their key witness, Bob Lawson. Their one
Speaker 1: saving grace was that they could play the thirty two
Speaker 1: minute taped phone call between Bob and mikel.
Speaker 2: You was me.
Speaker 8: The cat litter.
Speaker 1: You showed everything, You showed them what the cat buried
Speaker 1: in the kitty litter.
Speaker 5: It was pretty damning, just that recording, which they were
Speaker 5: able to play.
Speaker 1: Mike Lawson's defense was that he accidentally shot Bethany. That's
Speaker 1: where the prosecutor honed in. She said that there was
Speaker 1: one thing in that conversation that Mike Loston told his brother.
Speaker 1: That one thing weakened Mike's defense that he accidentally shot Bethany.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to figure out where. No clothes, no running,
Speaker 3: no what, no running, no running, get away.
Speaker 1: Oh, Mike said, he accidentally shot Bethany, but he removed
Speaker 1: her clothes so that she wouldn't run away. In her
Speaker 1: closing arguments, it was something the prosecutor wanted the jury
Speaker 1: to think about. So all this.
Speaker 4: Time you have her sitting there without her clothes on, alive,
Speaker 4: with the bullet interest.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor argued that this was no accident and it
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't manslaughter. And here's where Alaska stay law comes
Speaker 1: into play. If Mike was involved in some sort of
Speaker 1: drug activity, that meant a felony was happening when Bethany
Speaker 1: was killed. When a death occurs during another felony, Alaska
Speaker 1: loss says, it cannot be called an accident. It's automatically
Speaker 1: second degree murder. On May third of two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: Michael Lawson, the manager of those apartments, murdered Deaphany's career
Speaker 1: Mike Lawson never took the stand in his own defense,
Speaker 1: and his lawyer did not call any witnesses. Instead, Mike's
Speaker 1: lawyer told the jury that Mike might have been getting
Speaker 1: high at the time Bethany unexpectedly walked in and that
Speaker 1: she startled him and that's why he shot her. And
Speaker 1: the reason Bob walked in and found Bethany with her
Speaker 1: clothes off, well, his lawyer said, Mike wanted to check
Speaker 1: her injuries.
Speaker 5: I mean, it was clear that he killed her, and
Speaker 5: he admitted it early in the trial. But why, like
Speaker 5: what caused it? That never got totally answered for me.
Speaker 1: Chances are if a journalist sitting in the courtroom is
Speaker 1: thinking that SO two is one of the jurors. And
Speaker 1: when the case went to the jury, deliberations dragged on
Speaker 1: for days, four days to be exact, and then the
Speaker 1: judge announced the jury had reached a verdict. Bethany's parents
Speaker 1: nervously sat next to their daughter's backpack, the one that
Speaker 1: contained Bethany's ashes. Whether Mike Lawson knew it or not,
Speaker 1: he had to face Bethany one more time on the
Speaker 1: most serious charge of first degree murder. The jury found
Speaker 1: Mike Lawson not guilty on the arson charge. The jury
Speaker 1: found Mike Lawson not guilty on the kidnapping and sexual
Speaker 1: assault charges. The jury found Mike Lawson not guilty. With
Speaker 1: Bethany's family clutching that backpack even tighter, they listened as
Speaker 1: the jury announced their verdict of the final charge.
Speaker 2: WI.
Speaker 4: The jury find the dependent Michael Lawson, guilty of murder
Speaker 4: in the second degree.
Speaker 1: The jury didn't buy Mike Lawson's claim that Bethany's murder
Speaker 1: was an accident and convicted him of second degree murder
Speaker 1: as well as tampering with evidence.
Speaker 5: Because that would have meant the difference between like a
Speaker 5: twenty year sentence for manslaughter or like ninety nine years.
Speaker 6: Mister Lawson, I sentenced you to ninety nine years.
Speaker 5: The judge was really forceful in the sentencing, and it
Speaker 5: was his opinion that Michael Lawson was a predator, a
Speaker 5: ticking time bomb like that he was just waiting to
Speaker 5: harm somebody else.
Speaker 1: Coincidentally, Mike's ninety nine year sentence was the same sentence
Speaker 1: he would have received if the jury found him guilty
Speaker 1: of first degree murder.
Speaker 7: So that verdict was announced and all along, I was
Speaker 7: just smiling knowing that I helped put this man away,
Speaker 7: and it mattered.
Speaker 1: Franco Beeznis was Mike's former colleague. They used to play
Speaker 1: chess together. After the verdict, Franco couldn't help but think
Speaker 1: about one match with.
Speaker 7: Mike early on. I remember in one of the games,
Speaker 7: I actually lost my queen, which is for sure loss,
Speaker 7: and they kept telling me, hey, we got you, we
Speaker 7: got you. I said no, we're going to continue to play,
Speaker 7: and I ended up winning that game, which even frustrated
Speaker 7: me even more. The game of chest is like you
Speaker 7: must know what the other opponent's doing as well as
Speaker 7: has strategy or self. It actually played forward into the
Speaker 7: courtroom at the end when they are giving him his sentencing.
Speaker 7: I stood up in the courtroom as he was walking
Speaker 7: right by in front of me. I said, check mate. Mike.
Speaker 7: All along he didn't know what I was doing, he
Speaker 7: didn't know my moves. So I thought to myself, what
Speaker 7: a perfect time to be able to tell him check mate.
Speaker 7: After he just received nine nine years.
Speaker 1: Mike Lawson remains incarcerated at an Alaska state prison. He'll
Speaker 1: be eligible for parole in twenty and seventy three.
Speaker 7: For me, it felt so good to be able to
Speaker 7: put this man away, and so there was peace for me,
Speaker 7: unlike peace for the parents. And in there they lost
Speaker 7: the child. There's really no peace to that. And I
Speaker 7: met the father for the first time right outside the courtroom,
Speaker 7: and he actually looked at me and we were talking,
Speaker 7: and he said that he goes Franco. He said, I
Speaker 7: can't keep going on. The pain that I'm feeling is
Speaker 7: so bad because I have to forgive him. I said,
Speaker 7: you're going to forgive Mike Lawson. He said, yeah, so's
Speaker 7: that way. I'll have to live with this pain. And
Speaker 7: that was the first time I witnessed a man actually
Speaker 7: forgive somebody that took something from him. I can't even
Speaker 7: imagine losing any of my children. They gave me a hope.
Speaker 7: I'm so glad that I witnessed that because that helped
Speaker 7: me in my life to move forward. And I hold
Speaker 7: on to any regrets or anything things that I do.
Speaker 7: I have to keep moving forward. The only way I
Speaker 7: can is forgiveness, the way he showed me.
Speaker 1: I'm slung glass. Thank you for listening to this season
Speaker 1: of American Homicide. Make sure you're subscribed to our feet
Speaker 1: to be notified of any updates on future, bonus episodes
Speaker 1: and brand new content. If you enjoyed American Homicide, leave
Speaker 1: a review. It helps others find the podcast. You can
Speaker 1: contact the American Homicide team by emailing us at American
Speaker 1: Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. That's American Homicide Pod
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. American Homicide is hosted and written
Speaker 1: by me Sloane Glass and is a production of Glass Podcasts,
Speaker 1: a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gantz.
Speaker 1: The series is also written and produced by Todd Gans,
Speaker 1: with additional writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our
Speaker 1: associate producer is Kristin Melcurrie. Our iHeart team is Ali
Speaker 1: Perry and Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing, mixing and mastering by
Speaker 1: Nico Auruka American. This Homicide's theme song was composed by
Speaker 1: Oliver Bains of Neiser Music Library, provided by my Music.
Speaker 1: Follow American Homicide on Apple Podcasts, and please rate and
Speaker 1: review American Homicide. Your five star review goes a long
Speaker 1: way towards helping others find this show. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.