Dr. Jack Wilson was a 55 year old eye doctor, very successful, well-known and well loved in the community. The only person who had a motive to kill the doctor was a son from a former marriage who had been disinherited. This son was very violent and a known user of drugs.
D.A. Jimmy Fry
Betty Wilson's situation seemed hopeless until 1994 when James White wrote out a sworn affidavit claiming he had been coerced by authorities to lie on the witness stand. He was even scheduled to testify in a hearing on Betty's behalf but canceled after a jailhouse visit from D.A. Jimmy Fry who stated, "I confronted him with the fact if that's true, that he committed perjury in Tuscaloosa and that also he was triable for capital murder for having lied." QUESTION. When did James Dennison White lie? At the sisters' trials or in the affidavit? The bottom line is White would have sold his soul to the devil to avoid the electric chair and Jimmy Fry stated, "Prosecutors don't like to make deals with the devil but it happens, happens frequently..."
Betty Wilson #171316 Tutwiler State Prison 8966 Hwy 231 Dorm 7 Wetumpka, AL 36092 |
The Betty Wilson Case |
The following is a transcription of the "Inside Edition" television show concerning, twin sisters, Betty Wilson and Peggy Lowe, who supposedly hired James White to kill Betty's wealthy husband, Dr. Jack Wilson. Peggy Lowe was acquitted and Betty Wilson was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.
You Be the Judge!
Betty Wilson: I think I was convicted for having an affair with a black man. I was convicted for being a rich bitch.
Inside Edition: When her husband's killer said she hired him to do it, her loose lifestyle made it easy to believe but now from behind bars he says his testimony was a lie.
James White: I'm threatened with the electric chair. What would you do in the same situation that I was in?
Inside Edition: Our next story encompasses villainy, murder and ultimately the quest for truth. Betty Wilson serving a sentence for hiring a man to kill her husband, she says she is innocent and now the man who confessed to the killing is saying he was coerced to testify against her. Did justice fail Betty Wilson when she wound up behind bars?
Inside Edition: A fleeting moment of domestic bliss for Jack and Betty Wilson but on May 22, 1992, Dr. Jack Wilson would be brutally murdered in his million dollar home. Betty Wilson would then be convicted of hiring the killer and sentenced to spend the rest of her life behind bars.
Jim Schutze (Author of "By Two and Two"): I have covered a lot of murder trials and that was probably the wildest and woolliest that I have ever seen.
Inside Edition: It was a trial that rocked Huntsville, Alabama and while many still believe she is guilty some are now asking whether Betty Wilson was convicted by fact or by fiction and you may ask the same question when you hear from the hired killer whose testimony helped convict Betty Wilson.
James White (Convicted Killer): I don't know Mrs. Wilson.
Inside Edition: But first Betty Wilson's story.
Jim Schutze: I think she rubbed the community the wrong way and the community exacted vengeance.
Inside Edition: Jim Schutze is a reporter and author of "By Two and Two", the story of the Wilson murder. He covered Betty Wilson's trial and later the trial of her twin sister, Peggy Lowe. Both were charged with Jack Wilson's murder after the police arrested the killer who claimed he'd been hired by the sisters. Schutze now believes they are both innocent.
Jim Schutze: Twins, magnolias, naughty ladies doing bad in the South that was everyone's take on it initially.
Inside Edition: We examine Betty Wilson's conviction in 1994 when a T.V. movie starred Sharon Gless as the evil twins but there has been little national news coverage when Peggy Lowe was tried after Betty, in another county, with a different judge, jury, prosecutor, and defense attorney, she was found not guilty.
Jim Schutze: As the State's case was framed, if one was guilty both were guilty. There is no way in the story that one of them could have been in on it and the other one not.
Inside Edition: So what is the truth behind the murder of Dr. Jack Wilson? Well, the prosecution's case in both trials rested on the testimony of the admitted killer, James White.
Jim Schutze: James White is a life long psychotic, in and out of mental hospitals, kicked out of the army for trying to kill one of his officers, in and out of prison for serious things like attempted kidnap and so on.
Inside Edition: White also had major league drug and alcohol problems. He was just the kind of person, Peggy Lowe, a church going school teacher had always tried to help.
Peggy Lowe: He seemed to me to be pathetic, very needy.
Inside Edition: When Peggy and her husband hired White as a handy man, White would spend much of that time pouring his heart out to Peggy.
Peggy Lowe: I just felt sorry for him.
Jim Schutze: And there was a point at which her husband said...you've got..we can't help James White any more. We can't give him any more money. You've got to get him out our lives.
Peggy Lowe: And it was at that time that..uh..I told him about Betty. I said, "I know that she is having a lot of work done at this time and she can afford to pay you".
Inside Edition: If Peggy Lowe had followed the straight and narrow, her fraternal twin, Betty, had not. Betty like to party. She had problems with booze, drugs and men. She found some stability in 1978 in her marriage to Jack Wilson, a wealthy ophthalmologist [Dr. Wilson was not wealthy when Betty married him.]. She eventually sobered up but she didn't give up all her vices.
Jim Schutze: I think that Betty would tell you that she was pretty much on the prowl a lot of her life looking for some man to sleep with.
Betty Wilson: I'm not proud of that but that's the truth.
Inside Edition: At the Julia Tutwiler correctional facility in Alabama where she is serving the 6th year of her life in prison with no parole. Betty Wilson says it was her lifestyle not hard evidence that convicted her of murder.
Betty Wilson: I think I was convicted of having an affair with a black man. I was convicted of being a rich bitch.
Inside Edition: Did you murder Jack Wilson?
Betty Wilson: No. No. No I did not.
Inside Edition: Did you have him murdered?
Betty Wilson: No.
Inside Edition: Ironically the man who prosecuted Betty, District Attorney Jimmy Fry doesn't disagree that her lifestyle helped send her to jail.
Jimmy Fry: She had admitted that she had affairs that certainly did not..uh..represent..a..uh..real..uh.. positive..uh..point for her as far as her credibility..uh.. goes. That was something the jury considered.
Inside Edition: Was there any forensic evidence that would have convicted her?
Jimmy Fry: No I don't..I couldn't say there was any forensic..uh..evidence connecting her to the actual..uh.. murder.
Inside Edition: How did you characterize Betty Wilson?
Jimmy Fry: Greedy..uh..self- [not audible], vile, contemptible woman.
Inside Edition: Critics questioned why the jury heard the testimony of an African-American man with no knowledge of the murder who simply testified he had an affair with Betty and D.A. Fry made sure the jury knew about the lifestyle Dr. Wilson had provided for his ungrateful murderess wife.
Jimmy Fry: I characterized her as a woman who had..uh..a BMW and a Mercedes, a closet full of furs but never had enough. She wanted it all and she wanted it right now and that was our theory of the case.
Inside Edition: A theory with no tangible evidence linking Betty to the murder. There is only one person who could do that...and that was James White.
Jimmy Fry: He was critical because he was the only member of that conspiracy to kill Dr. Wilson who could give the inside details.
Inside Edition: To prove their theory, the prosecution needed James White to testify that the sisters hired him to kill Jack Wilson so that Betty could get her hands on his multi-million dollar estate. Betty never took the stand and there was something else the jury never heard, acquisitions that police and prosecutors had helped White formulate his story.
Jim Schutze: His early statements were transparent lies. Not only did the police not say to themselves well this guy's a liar and he has a long track record as a psychotic and we shouldn't believe him. Not...not only did they not do that but they went back and helped him repair his story.
Inside Edition: White testified at both trials after signing this plea agreement with the prosecution. [Actual excerpts from document shown on screen.] It states clearly that without his testimony the twins can't be convicted. White agrees to testify and in exchange he avoids the death penalty, provided he never changes his story or perjures himself.
Jimmy Fry: Prosecutors don't like to make deals with the devil but it happens, happens frequently...
Jim Schutze: People have asked me if I think that the Huntsville Police Department corruptly or deliberately tired to frame Betty Wilson. I don't think so. Maybe it is worse than that. I think that James White was smarter than the cops.
Inside Edition: The defense theorizes that James White killed Jack Wilson in a rage after Betty accused White of trying to con her out of money and Betty says she never actually met James White and she only talked to him once when she called him in anger to tell him to leave her and Peggy alone.
Inside Edition: Do you think is it possible that you angered him in that conversation?
Betty Wilson: Oh, I'm sure that I did. I'm sure I did... but I didn't know that I would make him that angry.
Inside Edition: And when we come back you will hear from James White, the man who admitted killing Dr. Jack Wilson and what he tells us is a whole lot different from what he testified to in Betty Wilson's trial.
James White: I do not know whether Mrs. Wilson or Mrs. Lowe had anything to do with the death of Dr. Jack Wilson or not....
Inside Edition: Tell me about Betty Wilson. How did you meet her?
James White: I don't know Mrs. Wilson.
Inside Edition: You never met her?
James White: Never met her.
Inside Edition: So why did that man's testimony put Betty Wilson behind bars for life? You are about to hear more from James White and what he is saying now could not only free Betty Wilson. It could also send White himself to the electric chair.
Inside Edition: Betty Wilson's situation seemed hopeless until 1994 when James White wrote out a sworn affidavit claiming he had been coerced by authorities to lie on the witness stand. He was even scheduled to testify in a hearing on Betty's behalf but canceled after a jailhouse visit from the D.A.
Jimmy Fry: I confronted him with the fact if that.. if that's true, that he committed perjury in Tuscaloosa and that also he was triable for capital murder for having lied.
Inside Edition: Faced with the death penalty, James White refused to testify. Betty lost her appeal and now awaits a decision in the federal courts so we talked to James White, who incredibly is eligible for parole by the turn of the century, if he just keeps his mouth shut but guess what he's saying now?
James White: I don't know whether Mrs. Wilson or Mrs. Lowe had anything to do with the death of Dr. Jack Wilson or not but I..you know....I know that I didn't kill Dr. Jack Wilson...uh...even though I plead guilty to it.
Inside Edition: That's right. In this exclusive interview James White states once again that he lied on the witness stand.
Inside Edition: Did you ever met Betty Wilson before Jack was murdered?
James White: I don't know Mrs. Wilson.
Inside Edition: You never met her?
James White: Never met her.
Inside Edition: Why did you admit to murdering that Dr. Jack Wilson?
James White: I'm threatened with the electric chair! I'm threatened to be gonna sent and die. I'm not ready to die. So basically what would you do in the same situation that I was in?
Inside Edition: I would tell the truth.
James White: And I tried to tell the truth but they kept saying that I was lying so you know you're in a catch 22 situation but also tell me why they've got five statements of me and none of them correspond with the other one. Tell me why dates and times keep changing in 'em.
Inside Edition: Why do they keep changing?
James White: Because like I said before, I was basically coerced in my testimony.
Inside Edition: So you were listening to the police officers. Whatever information they gave to you, you would repeat?
James White: Turn it back around. I mean, I didn't want to die!
Inside Edition: We don't know if Betty Wilson is guilty or innocent but the question her supports are asking is should she have been convicted on the testimony of James White whose story continues to change.
Peggy Lowe: At my trial my lawyers proved that Betty was innocent and that I was innocent.
Inside Edition: Have you started to lose hope?
Betty Wilson: I lost hope a long time ago.
Jimmy Fry: You can't go back and say maybe..uh..could have.. uh..uh...should have. That's not the way it works. We had the trial. It was an imminently fair trial and it's over.
Inside Edition: District Attorney Jimmy Fry denies that James White was coerced by police or prosecutors. We will keep you up to date on this story.