Up next,
a family mourns
in unexpected death...
They came
to the conclusion,
she fell off the step-stool
and ruled it accidental.
But some things
about the scene don't add up.
Was it as it appeared initially
or is there something
else going on?
Local police
assured everyone,
there is no foul play.
A grieving family disagrees.
They hired
a private investigator
to take a second look.
And he finds
that quiet,
rural neighborhoods
can harbor some
very dark secrets.
They'd only been there
for a few months
their finger pointed
straight at him.
Michigan is divided
into the upper
and lower peninsulas,
the lower peninsula
is famous for being
shaped like a mitten.
The tiny village of Hubbardston,
home to less than 500 people,
sits right in the middle of it.
It's a very close-knit
community,
they all kind of know
each other.
I love the town Hubbardston.
For all her
80 years, Hubbardston was home
to Bernita Cunningham.
The mother of seven
and grandmother of ten
was known to everyone as Billie.
Mom and Dad
went to school together
and, then, after Dad
got back from the service,
he was in World w*r II
in the South Pacific.
They ended up getting married
and my Mom lived
in the house he whole life.
We always called it
the good side of town.
In 2006,
Billie had been widowed
for 17 years.
She was notorious
for being a creature of habit.
She did
the very same thing
on every day of the week,
every Tuesday she'd do this,
every Wednesday she'd do this
and, uh, it wouldn't take long
for you to pattern her
in Hubbardston
where there's almost
zero crime goes on.
So, on November 30th,
when there was a break
in Billie's routine,
her next-door neighbors noticed.
She didn't come over
for an afternoon
cup of coffee,
which she did every day.
And that night they noticed
yet another break
in Billie's routine.
One of them got up
in the middle of the night
and they noticed
the lights were on.
Like, at 2:00 or 3:00 o'clock
in the morning.
And they thought,
"Oh, Billie must not
be sleeping well."
In the morning,
the curtains were open.
She wasn't sitting
at the dining room table
where she should
have been at that time,
having her coffee
and saying her prayers.
And that was suspicious.
So, they called
Billie's son Bill Cunningham
who lived just a couple miles
down the road
and suggested, he come
and check on his mother,
so he did
and Bill and the neighbor
went into the house together
and found Billie dead.
Billie was lying
face-down in the foyer.
It looked
as if she'd met her death
after accidentally
falling off a step-stool
while hanging
a Christmas decoration.
They said she hit
a very large mirror,
shattered it on the floor.
Then she went down on the floor
and, uh, laid there
and probably moved around
quite a bit which caused
a lot more cuts to take place.
The circumstances
of Billie's death
were clearly unusual.
Local police, who had
little to no experience
investigating murders,
believed the possibility
of foul play was unlikely.
But, to be sure,
they still called
for an autopsy.
In Michigan,
the law really doesn't
absolutely require autopsy
in any cases,
it's always up to the decision
of the local medical examiner
and then, hopefully,
but not always,
a forensic pathologist
to do the case.
This autopsy
officially ruled Billie's case
an accidental death.
She had trauma to her neck
and some fractured bones
in her face.
The pathologist said
this damage and the blood
at the scene
resulted from Billie
smashing into the mirror
before she hit the floor.
After they found out
she was diabetic,
they came to the conclusion,
she fell off the step-stool.
They ruled it accidental.
They said that she probably
had a diabetic spell
and fell.
Billie's family wasn't so sure.
After the scene was processed
and Billie's body removed,
they were let into the house
and immediately grew concerned.
My Mom was very organized.
The house was always spotless.
Julie and several people
described Billie to me
as being very, uh, organized.
Everything is going to be
in the exact place,
she's very neat.
Uh, and she's really,
um, a**l about that type
of things.
So, it didn't make sense
that a lot of things
were out of place in rooms
far away
from where Billie's body
was found.
We noticed some things
that weren't correct.
Just some things
that were just
not characteristic
of how Mom would have
kept her house,
some chairs tipped over
and some things like that.
The question now was
if this was not
an accidental death,
was there any way to prove it?
Hubbardston,
Michigan sees
very little violent crime,
so, when Billie Cunningham's
death was officially
ruled an accident,
townspeople didn't give
it a second thought,
but Billie's family did.
People in town
didn't wanna believe...
that Mom was m*rder*d.
Couldn't happen
in their little town.
No, it had to be an accident.
They didn't wanna
believe that...
she was m*rder*d.
The family
didn't just conjure up
this m*rder theory
out of thin air,
as they did their own
post-mortem examination
of Billie's house,
they noticed all sorts of things
that simply didn't make sense.
The contents of a care-package
Billie was preparing
for a great-nephew
serving in the m*llitary
were all over the place.
And everybody says,
"No way... would Billie,
uh, leave something
that, like that
laying on the floor."
Perhaps, most disturbing
was the finding
of a family heirloom shattered
against one of the walls.
A Christmas Santa Claus
statue was broken,
a piece of it was 22 feet away
in an opposite room
And this statue
shattered with such force
that it left a fist-size dent
in the wall.
Where she was found
or where she would
have fallen,
if that were to happen,
that Christmas decoration
wouldn't have gotten
around the corner
and hit the other side
of the, the living room.
But it was
some missing money
that convinced Billie's family
that police didn't realize
they were dealing
with a potential m*rder.
We go back
to her bedroom
where she kept her purse
and I started going through
her wallet
and there was no money.
Mom always kept a $100 bill
in her... Hidden in her wallet
for emergencies
that my Dad made
her do that, early on.
And there wasn't any there.
Just some loose change.
And I said, "Uh,
something's up here."
Despite
an official ruling
that there was no foul play,
Billie's family was convinced,
she'd been att*cked
and the scene may have been
staged to make it look like
it was an accident.
We had, uh, a cousin
that was a retired
state trooper,
we told him what we had found
and he said, "Well,
you really need to get
a private detective
involved in this."
And, and at that point
we, we did.
Don Brookes,
a 25-year-veteran
of the Michigan State Police
and a Private Investigator
for 15 years
was well-known and respected
by law enforcement
all across the state
and after examining
photos of the scene,
he reached his own
preliminary conclusion
about how
Billie Cunningham d*ed.
Based on what
the family told me,
based on what
the evidence I've seen
and based on the amount
of blood and the amount
of injuries,
I would have treated it like
a homicide from day one.
And as he started
asking questions,
he uncovered
some potentially
disturbing information.
It turned out
that Billie Cunningham
was herself worried
that she might come to harm
in the days before she d*ed.
I learned
that Bernita Cunningham,
Billie,
um, had a certain amount
of fear for a couple of kids
in the town there.
In the original investigation,
these teenagers
had been questioned
and eliminated
as potential suspects.
Now, the people involved
in this new, technically
unofficial, investigation,
wanted to re-interview them.
But these unofficial
investigators found themselves
in a tough spot.
As a private investigator,
I do not want to cross the line
and interfere with anything
the investigate...
police investigation
going at the time
'cause I know if any
of the investigations I did
when I was running these...
Um, as a detective,
uh, I'd have been
a little bit ticked off.
But when
the Michigan State Police took
their own look at the case,
they reached the same conclusion
as Don Brookes
and Billie Cunningham's
family.
It was clear
that there was v*olence
at the time of her death,
I believed we had a homicide.
But if Billie
was m*rder*d,
who had a motive to k*ll her?
This, after all,
was an elderly woman
with no known enemies
in a town that saw
almost no violent crime.
After weeks
of official
and unofficial investigations
into the circumstances
of Billie Cunningham's death,
Michigan State Police
became convinced,
she'd been m*rder*d.
The question, now,
was proving it
and some serious obstacles
were in the way.
There wasn't a lot
of evidence at the time,
we had some pretty good
photographs from the scene,
the day of.
Lot of it was circumstantial
evidence up until that point.
One of the biggest problems,
after Billie's death
was ruled an accident,
her house had been cleaned
by a company that specialized
in cleaning crime scenes
and they were very thorough.
Now, keep in mind,
the crime scene clean-up crew
had been there already
and cleaned up the home.
Another problem,
the original autopsy
which, despite Billie's
considerable injuries,
was conducted
by a general pathologist,
not a forensic pathologist.
This turned out
to be a crucial distinction
in what was now looking
less and less
like an accidental death.
We had a doctor
who was not
a forensic pathologist,
he was going right along
with what the, uh,
the sheriff detective...
"This kinda thing
doesn't happen around here
and let's see how we can, uh,
justify these injuries
from the, the crime scene."
And that's what they did.
Even worse for investigators,
Billie Cunningham
had been embalmed
and had been buried for weeks
and investigators
had already talked to everyone
in this small town
who had any interaction
with Billie Cunningham.
Early on in the investigation,
we had, probably, 30 or 35
persons of interest
that we felt necessary
to rule out.
But one
potential suspect
still stood out.
Just before her death,
Billie Cunningham
became concerned
about a young man
who had recently
moved in just across
the street from her.
Justin Stephens
was originally from Texas.
The family he was living with
up here in Michigan,
he had met
while they were living
in Texas.
He ended up dating
one of the girls of the family
and he moved up
to Michigan with them
and they were living
across the street...
from where
the incident happened.
He was unemployed
but, suddenly,
Justin was known to be
in possession of about $100
near the time of the crime.
He was 17-years-old,
and had apparently interacted
with Billie Cunningham
shortly before her death.
Billie Cunningham
went to the neighbors
for coffee,
and mentioned to them that,
"The neighbor boy came over
to my house this morning,
asked if he could
borrow a phone,
and offered to help me
put up Christmas decorations."
Billie told her neighbors
she didn't want
this young man in her house.
So, she handed him
her landline phone
and insisted he make the call
from the foyer.
But phone records showed
no call from Billie's phone
during this time period.
It looked as if Justin faked
needing to make a phone call
so he could get
inside Billie's house.
We were able
to determine that
with a strong likelihood
that Justin's knocking
on Billie's door that morning
was a ruse.
So, my theory
was that he had cased
the house that morning.
I was able to pull
phone records
for her landline for that date
and we determined
that there were no outgoing
phone calls that day.
Even more concerning,
a background check
on Justin Stephens
revealed some
disturbing information.
Justin Stephens
had quite a criminal history,
almost all of them
were burglary.
One was an as*ault.
So his criminal history
fed into the theory
that he had burglarized
Billie's home
and assaulted her.
In the story,
Justin was telling detectives
that Billie had invited him
into her house,
made no sense to anyone
who knew her.
Well, that in itself,
it is a red flag for me.
A teenage boy offering
to help an 80-year-old
woman hang
Christmas decorations...
I considered abnormal.
Once Michigan
investigators concluded
that Billie Cunningham
had been m*rder*d,
all roads led to Justin Stephens
but detectives had
no physical evidence,
until they got an incredible,
and as far as they knew,
unprecedented break.
The company
that cleaned the scene
after Billie's death,
was in the business
of cleaning crime scenes.
Despite local police
telling them they were
cleaning up an accident,
this cleaning crew had seen
a lot of crime scenes
and they weren't so sure.
The people that came
to do the clean-up,
also voiced their opinion
that there's something
not right here.
And, so,
this cleaning company
kept some items
from Billie's house in storage
on the off-chance
they might get a call
from investigators
which is exactly what happened.
I contacted those people
at that time
and, uh, talked to them
and they said,
"We're kind of glad
to hear from you."
And they said, "We're not
buying that, she had
way too mirror injuries
for what, you know,
the scene showed.
There is a massive amount
of blood and it was over
a very, very large area."
In this crime scene
clean-up company's
unofficial evidence locker
detectives found parts
of the shattered mirror.
Six hairs were pulled
from that wall mirror,
five of which were determined
to be grey and female.
There's an assumption
that most of those
were probably Billie's hairs,
but one hair was an animal hair.
The people that Justin
was living with across
the street had dogs.
Uh, me and Detective Morey
traveled to their house
where they had moved to
and obtained samples
from those two dogs
that they had.
There was packages
and something, you see,
there was her DNA testing
to be compared
to the hair that was seized
at the house.
Even if
that single hair placed
Justin Stephens at the scene,
prosecutors had a huge problem.
Billie Cunningham's death
had been officially
ruled an accident,
which any good lawyer would use
to create reasonable doubt
with the jury.
So, investigators made
an unusual decision.
They decided to exhume
Billie's body and redo
her autopsy,
even though she'd been
embalmed and buried
for weeks.
And for this autopsy,
investigators turned
to a pathologist
who was used to dealing
with suspicious deaths.
They just decided,
"Look, let's just take it
to a forensic pathologist
and have a re-look."
So, about two and a half
months or so later,
that's what happened,
she was exhumed
and sent over here.
As in the first examination,
Dr. Cohle saw extensive damage
to the victim's neck.
She did have some cuts
on the skin
made by something sharp,
could've been glass.
But, upon examining the body,
uh, some of these sharp
forced wounds penetrated
rather deeply into the body
and that was inconsistent
with her falling on the floor
and shards of glass
from the broken mirror
cutting her.
Thus, I probed
some of these wounds,
I said, "Man,
these are s*ab wounds,
you're not gonna get
s*ab wounds
from a broken mirror."
This answered
why there was so much blood
at the scene.
In the second autopsy,
Dr. Cohle determined
another detail missed
in the first autopsy.
She also had some fractures
of her face
including the nose
and some facial bones,
that's a blunt force injury,
that's a severe
blunt force injury.
You're not gonna get that
from falling off a stool
and from sharp shards,
so, it looked like
there was a lot more
going on than just a
simple accidental fall.
This second autopsy
led to a conclusion
that directly contradicted
the original finding.
This was unusual case
in which we, we did
a 180-degree turn,
from accident to homicide
and that was,
that was satisfying,
I felt pretty good about that.
Prosecutors
believed Justin Stephens
had been casing Billie's house
and knew she often left
her door unlocked.
On the day of her m*rder,
that's what she did.
And Justin later confessed
that he slipped into the house
while she was gone.
He was looking for money
or something to steal
when Billie
unexpectedly returned.
She grabbed her phone
to call 911.
Justin overpowered her,
shattering the whole mirror.
Justin had to act fast,
grabbed the nearest thing at
hand and hit Billie with
the Santa statue.
Justin apparently decided,
there was no turning back.
He stabbed Billie to death.
Then, may have staged the scene
to make it look
as if she accidentally
fell off a step-stool,
and it almost worked.
Except for one thing he missed,
a shard of glass
covered with Billie's blood
held a hair from a dog
who lived in his house.
And that was huge.
In my 22 years as a detective,
this was only the second...
homicide that I ever
investigated that involved
animal hair.
And the first that resulted
in a positive match.
In 2011, a jury deliberated
for just three hours
before finding Justin Stephens
guilty of first degree m*rder.
As a minor, when he k*lled
Billie Cunningham,
his sentence
was ultimately decided
at a minimum of 40 years
and a maximum of 60 years
in prison.
As for Billie's family,
they mourn her loss,
but are gratified that science
proved their hunch
was right all along.
Her death was no accident.
I think we all believed
it would happen,
that we would get justice,
eventually, but we didn't know
how long it would take.
My satisfaction
is from watching the family
get resolution.
They were right
and I, I'm so happy for them.
I have to admit,
there were times
in this investigation
where I was getting frustrated.
This went on for four years
and, ultimately,
when Justin was found guilty,
I absolutely felt like
it was worth every minute
of those four years.