To Kill A Cheerleader | How to Hire a Hitman in Channelview, Texas | 3

It's the afternoon of January 30th, 1991, and Wanda Holloway is tired.

She just put in a full day's work down at Channel View High School, where she's a temp in the office.

It's not glamorous and she doesn't need the cash, but it'll keep her close to the action at the school and the lead up to this year's cheerleader tryouts.

Wanda pulls into the driveway of her modest family home in Sterling Green, parks and gets out.

She's just getting a bag of groceries out of the trunk when she hears someone calling her name.

Wanda turns to see two men walking towards her from across the street.

Her heart sinks when she realizes that both of them are holding leather wallets up, their police badges glinting in the setting sunlight.

There's only one thing this could be about.

Still, Wanda acts dumb, asking the officers what she can do to help them.

They tell her that she's under arrest for solicitation of capital murder.

Wanda knew that was coming as soon as she saw the cops, but it still hits her like a punch to the gut.

She doesn't let them see or react, though.

While one of the officers reads her her rights, she forces herself to remain as impassive as possible.

She won't cry.

She won't get angry.

She won't let them have the power over her.

When the cop's speech is over, Wanda gives a short sharp nod of acknowledgement and asks if she's allowed to stop inside before they take her away.

Her teenage daughter Shanna is home alone, and Wanda needs to phone someone to come watch her.

She'd also like to take off her jewelry before she's taken to jail.

The two cops' eyes flick to the canary diamond ring on Wanda's left hand.

The jewels on her earlobes.

They tell her that should be fine, but they'll be stepping inside with her.

Wanda nods again, her permed hair bouncing.

Then, without another word, she turns and walks up the sidewalk to the front door.

She holds it open for the officers who follow her.

As she walks into the kitchen to call her mother to come watch Shanna, Wanda's thoughts are a whirl.

She should never have trusted Terry Harper.

She'd known it was a mistake from the start, but she'd gone and done it anyway.

Now he screwed everything up.

He had one job, and he couldn't even do that right.

Dialing the phone, Wanda's kicking herself.

She thinks she's the victim of Terry's incompetence.

But she's got no idea.

From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this is American Criminal.

By the end of the 1980s, Wanda Holloway just wanted one thing, for her daughter Shanna to be on the school cheerleading squad.

But it felt like she was being blocked at every turn by two people, Amber Heath and her mother Verna.

First, Verna had talked her way into Amber competing in cheerleader tryout she should have been ineligible for.

Then she had the nerve to complain about Wanda using forbidden rulers during the election campaign the following year.

It was this last part that got Shanna disqualified from the competition, blocking her from being a cheerleader for a second year in a row.

And Wanda was seeing red.

Sure, she was sad at first, devastated actually, but then she was mad, mad enough to kill.

Or to pay someone to do it for her.

This is episode three in our three-part series on Wanda Holloway, how to hire a hitman in Channel View, Texas.

It's March 1990, the day Wanda Holloway's daughter Shanna was disqualified from cheerleader tryouts at her junior high.

At the school, Wanda cried and begged in the principal's office when she heard the news.

Shanna went to the bathroom to cry in private, but those were mostly tears for her mother.

She knew how badly Wanda had wanted her to be a cheerleader.

Now, Wanda's all done crying, she's mad.

In the kitchen of her family home, she's ranting to a family friend, Patrick Gober.

She goes on and on about how Verna Heath and her daughter have screwed her and Shanna over.

She's especially furious at Amber, that little bitch she calls her.

Patrick's a patient listener, and he's happy to sit and drink coffee while Wanda fumes.

Eventually though, his patience wears a bit thin.

Rolling his eyes, he says sarcastically, Oh, Wanda, why don't you just have her killed?

He smirks as he takes a sip of coffee and is surprised when Wanda fixes him with an intrigued look.

Deadly serious, she asks, can I do that?

Patrick Gober isn't the only one to get an earful from Wanda in the aftermath of Shanna's disqualification.

She complains about the situation to anyone who listen or anyone who's standing still, really.

And the topic gets old pretty fast.

People just don't care about the drama between two middle school girls and their mothers.

And even Wanda's husband, CD., gets sick of hearing his wife go on about Verna and Amber Heath.

One night when they're driving home from choir rehearsal at their church, he sighs and says, Oh, why don't you just blow them away?

It's entirely the wrong joke to make to Wanda.

But it's not like everyone's egging her on, intentionally or not.

Her former mother-in-law, Peggy, advises Wanda to move on with her life.

Just forget it.

Peggy's Shanna's grandmother, and she loves her dearly.

But even she can see that the girls already passed the whole thing.

Isn't it time Wanda put it behind her, too?

But Wanda can't move on.

The sarcastic advice from Patrick and her husband echo in her mind.

Why don't you just have her killed, they said?

Blow them away.

It's right around the start of fall 1990 when Wanda drives her jeep over to the south side of Channelview, where she grew up.

But instead of the neat suburban streets of her childhood, she heads for a part of town with more trailers than houses, more swamps than playgrounds.

This is where she's sure she'll find someone who can help her with her problem.

In fact, she has someone very specific in mind.

Wanda pulls up outside the double-wide trailer of her ex-husband's younger brother.

At 35, Terry Harper's got a rap sheet a mile long, unruly behavior, drug possession, firearm possession, DUI's public intoxication.

But Terry's been trying to turn his life around in the last year or so.

He's given up drugs and embraced religion with a new zeal.

He's holding down a steady job, and is determined to stay married to his current wife, his sixth wife.

Wanda doesn't know about this recent about-face, though.

To her, Terry's still the closest thing to an underworld figure Channel View has.

She doesn't even want anyone seeing her near his home.

So she honks her horn until he comes outside, then tells him to follow her to a convenience store down the road.

Of course, Terry's got no idea what his brother's ex-wife could want with him.

They haven't seen each other in years.

He doesn't fully trust her, though, and he's never really liked her either.

Back when Wanda was still married to Tony Harper, she accused Terry of trying to sleep with her.

Terry denied the whole thing, but it caused a lot of trouble between the brothers.

Now, over a decade later, they've mostly put it behind them.

But still, Terry's wary of this woman.

At the convenience store, Terry climbs into Wanda's car, and she fills him in on the problem between Shanna and the Heaths.

Once she's heard him vow that he loves his niece with everything he has, that he'd do anything for her, she tells him what she needs from him.

She wants Amber and Verna Heath killed, and she wants it done before the tryouts for the high school cheerleading team happen early next year.

Terry's shocked.

He's certainly not the kind of guy to kill someone, especially not a 13-year-old girl.

And he doesn't know anyone else who would either.

Even if he did, he wouldn't want anything to do with this kind of thing.

He tells Wanda all of this, but still she's insistent.

She has to have this done.

Terry's got no idea how awful these two people are.

Nervously, he jokes that Wanda could have a Colombian drug lord kidnap Verna and take her out of the country to be sold into slavery.

Terry, he laughs a little as he says it, still hoping Wanda might be kidding about this whole thing.

But she's not kidding.

She's dead serious.

She looks thoughtful, like she thinks it might be a decent solution to her problem.

But how much would that kind of thing cost, she asks.

It's chilling.

But Terry throws out some numbers.

I don't know, 5, 10, 15,000, maybe more.

Wanda's perturbed by the thought of that much money, but Terry reminds her that this is a big thing she wants done.

Eventually, Terry tells Wanda that he'll at least look into it for her.

Ask around and see if anyone knows anyone.

But he says she should probably cool it with the little girl.

Just get rid of the mom and the kid will be too upset to even think about cheerleading for at least a year.

Wanda doesn't look totally convinced by that argument, but Terry's relieved to see that she seems to be considering it.

The idea of asking someone to kill a teenage girl is too creepy to even think about, at least for him.

Wanda doesn't look all that bothered by it, and Terry's eager to get out of the car as soon as possible.

He's got no intention of trying to find someone to help her.

Still, he says that he'll get in touch if he makes any progress, then says goodbye, hoping he won't see her again for a long, long time.

After his unexpected meeting with Wanda, Terry can't stop thinking about her unusual request.

And the more he thinks about it, the more worried he gets.

Yeah, he's concerned that some girl and her mom could be murdered, but mostly he's scared for himself.

What if Wanda was serious?

What if she doesn't wait for Terry to find someone and she goes out and finds a guy herself?

What if she then pins the blame on him?

Maybe that's been her plan all along, and the meeting was just part of some big setup.

Unable to shake the feeling, Terry tells the whole thing to a supervisor at work, who does double duty as a spiritual advisor.

The guy down plays Terry's fears about being double-crossed, but he tells him that he should probably stay away from Wanda all the same.

On the off chance that she was serious, maybe she'll get over her anger at the Heaths and lose interest in her scheme.

But Wanda's far from getting over anything.

Soon enough, it's the winter break, and Shane is hanging out at the Holloway family home with an older friend.

Wanda's in the kitchen fixing the guys' snack and chatting with them about people they hate.

None of them are really sure how they got on to the subject, but they're not holding back.

Shane's nemesis is the girl at school who's his co-drum major.

He thinks he should have the position all by himself and hates the fact that he has to share it.

Pete, his friend, has a younger sister in the band with Shane.

He nods along.

Wanda jumps in to agree with Shane.

Not only does she hate this Nancy girl, she also hates her mother.

She rigged the whole thing to make sure that Nancy got the drum major position.

Funnily enough, that's just what the mothers at the junior high did with the cheerleader election earlier this year, Wanda says.

Before anyone knows it, Wanda's going over the whole thing with Shanna and the Heaths, again.

Then she stops and looks at Pete like she's just realized he's there.

He's in his early twenties and works for an export company.

It's a position that requires him to carry a gun on occasion, which Wanda knows.

She stares at him unblinking and asks if he'd kill Verna Heath for her.

Obviously, Pete assumes Wanda's kidding and laughs it off.

But Wanda's deadly serious.

She is not letting go of this grudge, not even at Christmas.

A few days later on Christmas Eve, Terry's at his parents' place for the family celebration.

Everyone's there.

His wife, his brother, his niece and nephew.

It's just getting dark outside.

Peggy's calling everyone to dinner, and Terry's deciding whether he needs another beer during the meal when someone taps him on the shoulder.

He spins around to find Shanna standing there, holding a piece of paper out to him.

Quietly, so no one else can hear, she tells him that her mom asked her to give this to him.

It's their phone number.

Wanda wants him to call her as soon as he can.

Terry swallows, his mouth suddenly dry.

He thanks Shanna and makes a show of pocketing the number, then ushers her ahead of him into the dining room.

Terry doesn't follow her right away, though.

He decides that he'll have that extra beer after all, because from the sounds of it, Wanda Holloway is ready to hire a killer.

It's the afternoon of New Year's Eve, 1990.

Terry Harper sits in a police interview room, nervously drumming his fingers on his thighs.

Across from him is Detective Marcel Dion from the Channel View Homicide Division.

In the corner of the room sits a stenographer, quietly taking notes while Terry answers the detective's questions.

A few hours ago, 35-year-old Terry called his older brother Tony to tell him about Wanda Holloway's scheme to have a woman and her daughter killed.

Tony had insisted that Terry come down and tell the authorities the whole story.

Now Detective Dion slides a telephone across the table to Terry.

If the detective is going to believe him, he needs to hear about the plot from Wanda herself.

Terry doesn't hesitate.

He picks up the receiver and dials a number.

For a second, his heart is pounding out of his chest while he waits for someone to answer.

But it seems the Holloways are all out celebrating the holiday already, because he only gets the answering machine.

Dion seems satisfied though.

The fact that Terry was willing to call this woman indicates that he's confident she'll confirm everything she says.

So snapping his case notebook shut, Dion stands and shakes Terry's hand.

He promises to take this case to his supervisors, and to let Terry know if and when there are any developments.

Terry breathes a sigh of relief as he walks out of the police station.

He's currently on probation for a DWI, and he was afraid of coming anywhere near the cops, with the suggestion he's wrapped up in some kind of murder plot.

But he feels better now.

Hopefully, this detective will take care of everything, and Terry can stop worrying about Wanda Holloway.

Terry Harper's far from being done with his brother's ex-wife, though.

Just over a week later, on January 9th, he gets a message asking him to meet two investigators from the Harris County Organized Crime Task Force.

They rendezvous at a McDonald's, where Terry goes over the whole thing again.

The new officers, Sergeant Flint Blackwell and Detective George Helton, keep a close eye on the report they got from their colleague, Marcel Dion.

They notice that Terry doesn't embellish or change any details, just sticks to the same story.

That's a good sign.

Still, they tell him that they need more.

Like Dion before them, they need to hear from Wanda herself before they can take this any further.

Ideally, they'd like to get her on tape.

So, the next afternoon, a Thursday, Terry meets Blackwell and Helton at a motel payphone to try calling Wanda again.

The cops attach a recording device to the phone and listen in as Terry places the call.

This time, Wanda picks up.

Terry takes a deep breath and asks Wanda if she's still interested in taking care of her problem.

She says she is, but that's about all she'll say on the phone.

Either she's afraid of being overheard on her end, or she doesn't want to think too hard about what she's asking for.

So the two of them dance around the plan in vague terms.

In the end, Terry promises Wanda that he'll speak with the guy he's found over the weekend and get back to her.

Wanda agrees to meet the following Monday to go over things in more detail.

It's not exactly what Blackwell and Hilton were looking for from the phone call, but they're still intrigued by what they heard.

So the next day, they take the story to Assistant District Attorney Joe Magliolo to find out how he wants them to proceed.

Now, none of these men are strangers to murder for hire cases.

They've all run into stories of people seeking out hitmen to have a loved one killed for insurance money or to avoid the trouble of a lengthy divorce.

So, although this particular report seems disturbing, it's no different than any other investigation.

To that end, Magliolo tells the investigators that they'll need to gather more concrete evidence against Wanda before they do anything else.

That will likely mean some kind of surveillance, and it'll have to be done very carefully.

They don't want Wanda to get spooked and stop talking to Terry because there's no telling whether she'll just take her plan to someone else.

If she does that, things will become much harder to manage.

So, a couple days later, Terry goes ahead with a scheduled meeting with Wanda in the parking lot of a Grandies restaurant just outside Channel View.

With a tiny police recording device in a shirt pocket, he climbs into her Jeep.

Wanda is nervous and giggles while cracking a joke about making sure neither of them were followed.

Terry plays along for a second, then gets down to business.

He's found their guy, he says.

That brings Wanda back down to earth real quick.

She asks what the deal is, but Terry says he first needs to know exactly what she wants done.

That will determine how much this guy will charge for his services.

Wanda's still not sure she wants to go through with this whole thing, but she tells Terry she has to do something.

Cheerleader tryouts are coming up for the high school squad this time, and the Heaths are already shaping up to be a thorn in her side again.

Terry acts outraged when he hears it, and Wanda's gratified to hear that.

It makes her own anger feel just.

She explains the situation to Terry again, though he's heard plenty about it before.

How Shanna needs to get on this squad.

How crucial this year will be for her.

How Verna Heath and her daughter are already brown-nosing down at the high school.

How Wanda herself is volunteering at the school three days a week just to try and be friendly with the right people.

The more Wanda talks, the more worked up she gets.

Eventually, she explodes.

She wants Verna and Amber Heath gone.

Her mind is made up.

She draws in a deep breath and asks Terry what this guy offers.

What's on the menu?

Terry spreads his hands in trucks.

He could break Verna's legs, burn down her house, kidnap her and send her overseas to be sold into slavery.

Wanda laughs again at the thought of her rival meeting one of those fates, at the idea that she could be responsible for that, at the sheer absurdity of the situation she's in.

Then Terry starts to narrow things down.

He needs details of these people, where they live, what kind of car Verna drives, what time the family is usually home, what the husband does for a living.

Wanda knows it all, but she refuses to write it down for Terry.

She knows better than to leave a paper trail in her own handwriting.

She makes him write it down himself.

After that, it's time to talk money.

Now Terry's prepared for this.

The detectives asked him to prod Wanda away from the idea of killing Amber.

It's just a plan they don't want Wanda even contemplating.

So when he gives her the prices, Terry says that it's twice as much to kill the girl.

Amber will be $5,000, Verna's $2,500.

Today, that would be just under $18,000 altogether.

Not a lot to have two people murdered.

Still, Wanda balks.

She's been talking about having Amber taken out for two years, she tells Terry.

Two years.

But that's a lot of money for her to get her hands on at once.

So with Terry's careful nudging, she comes around to the idea of just getting rid of Verna.

With her mother gone, Amber will be too devastated to perform well at the tryouts.

Maybe she won't even compete at all.

But Wanda says before Terry goes, if she can get the money together for both, she'll do that.

She really hates Amber.

Makes me sick, she says.

Later that night, after debriefing with the police, Terry gets home.

And according to his wife Marla, he makes a call.

Now Terry will deny this later in court, and at this exact moment, their marriage isn't in great shape.

So it's anybody's guess who's telling the truth about this next bit.

But as Marla tells it, Terry gets his brother on the phone right away and announces that he's come up with a plan to get Tony his kids back.

The two guys laugh about getting revenge on Wanda over any number of things she's done over the years, including how she got Tony fired from his job as a warehouse clerk back after the divorce.

It's possible that Marla's version of events is accurate, but given that Tony never made any other attempts to fight Wanda for more custody of their children, it's hard to buy that he'd go along with such a wild scheme to do so now.

Then again, people will do all kinds of things for the love of their kids.

Over the next couple of weeks, Terry continues working with the police to gather more evidence against Wanda.

He makes several phone calls to her to discuss the planned hit and to keep her updated on the man he's promised to hire for.

Crucially, he also gives Wanda a warning.

Once they engage this guy, he's gonna demand payment.

If he doesn't get it, he'll come after Wanda and her family, so she can't back out.

That's why Wanda goes to Terry and Tony's father, her children's grandfather, to ask if she can borrow money.

It's a strange request, since everyone in town knows that Wanda's current husband is loaded.

But it's for the kid, she says, so it sounds important.

But RE.

Harper doesn't have thousands of dollars just lying around.

Otherwise, he'd give it to Wanda, he says.

It's not what Wanda wants to hear.

She wants cash, and she doesn't want to just withdraw it from the bank.

She could just ask her husband for the money, but for whatever reason, she doesn't want to involve CD.

Holloway in this if she can help it.

So the next time Wanda speaks to Terry on the phone, she asks if this hitman will accept jewelry as a payment and instead, she has a pair of diamond earrings that are worth at least $2,500, she says.

Terry's not sure what to say to that and suggests that Wanda pawned the diamonds for cash.

That'd be the best option, he says.

But Wanda's not the sort of woman to hawk jewels.

She couldn't possibly.

By this stage though, the police are eager to wrap up this case so they can focus their energy on other matters.

So, on January 28th, Terry tells Wanda that the hitman will take the jewels as a kind of down payment for the job.

She'll still have to come up with the money, but this'll give her a few extra weeks to get the cash and get the job done in time to throw Amber off her game at the tryouts.

Then, when Verna's dead and Wanda gives the hitman the cash, he'll give her back the earrings.

That is music to Wanda's ears.

Later that night, she drops her kids off at church and meets Terry in the Grandies' parking lot again.

When he gets into her car, she hands him a ziplock bag.

Inside are two glittering diamonds, which Terry pockets.

Then he turns to Wanda and asks if she's certain she wants to go through with this.

It's a strange question to ask, given he's already told Wanda that a violent criminal will come after her if she tries to back out of the plan, but Wanda's resolute.

She'd have both Verna and Amber killed if she could afford it.

But she can't scrape together the cash right now, and she has to do something before the tryouts begin in March.

Terry nods, pats the pocket holding the diamonds, and tells Wanda he'll be in touch.

Then he gets out of the car and leaves her alone in the neon glow from the restaurant.

Wanda Holloway sits there for a long, quiet moment.

She thinks she's bought herself an assassination, but really, she's just sealed her own fate.

It's the afternoon of January 30th, 1991, and Verna Heath is in her living room, sitting on her couch attempting to catch her breath.

A pair of police officers sit opposite her.

She's trying to process what they've just told her.

Wanda Holloway tried to have her killed.

Wanda Holloway, a woman whose children Verna has driven to and from school, whose hair Verna once braided for a day at an amusement park, wanted to pay a hitman to kill her.

All to keep Amber from trying out for the cheerleading squad this year.

As if she's underwater, Verna hears one of the men ask if she's all right.

And as the room slowly comes back into focus, she realizes she's crying.

Through her tears, she asks why Wanda would want to do this over cheerleading.

Just hours ago, Wanda was arrested as she arrived home from her first day of working at the high school.

She's held overnight at the Harris County Eastside Lockup, where she's charged with solicitation of capital murder, a first degree felony.

She uses her phone call to ask her husband to please bail her out.

And thanks to C.D.'s habit of always carrying a large wad of emergency cash, he's there first thing in the morning to pay the $10,000 and whisk Wanda home again.

While Wanda recovers from her night in jail, word of her arrest spreads through Channel View.

And it doesn't take long for the news to ripple out across the entire nation and around the world.

It's just too good a story.

A suburban mother, a woman who plays piano at her church, paying to have the mother of her daughter's rival kill for a spot on the cheerleading team.

In Texas, the headlines practically write themselves.

Journalists descend on Channel View desperate for information about this crazed mother they're calling the pom-pom mom.

And to find out just what's in the water here that would drive her to such lengths.

Reporters stake out Alice Johnson Middle School, where both Shanna and Amber are still enrolled.

News outlets are desperate for pictures of the two girls and start offering kids money to buy their yearbooks from them.

In short, it's nothing like Channel View's ever seen before, and the circus isn't even close to leaving town.

Wanda's ex-husband Tony wants Shanna and Shane to see a counselor to help them deal with all the attention the family's getting.

Maybe work through any questions they might have about their mother's actions.

Wanda's not interested in that idea, though.

And when she refuses, Tony hires a lawyer and sues to amend their custody agreement.

It's an added layer of stress and scrutiny Wanda really doesn't need right now, but it's not something she can ignore.

And the process proves illuminating.

A psychologist meets with both the kids before the hearing, and notes that Wanda has a symbiotic relationship with her children.

That means that in his professional opinion, she fused her identity to theirs.

And it's particularly strong in Shanna.

Looking at everything that's happened, that take on the situation isn't that surprising.

Although if Wanda was really in tune with her daughter, she'd have seen that Shanna had never been all that into cheerleading.

She doesn't like football and has always thought that cheering for the players is kind of pointless.

She's also always dreaded the moment of performing for the judges during trials.

And it's not like she never said any of this to her mom.

Shanna tried telling Wanda she didn't want to cheer once before, but she was told that quitting wasn't an option.

They'd put too much into it by that stage.

Eventually, the custody dispute is settled.

Moving forward, the kids will spend half of every week with Tony, and he can take them to a counselor on those days.

Wanda's upset to be losing so much time with her children, but she's got other things to distract her.

On February 19th, three weeks after her arrest, Wanda's indicted by a grand jury, and the trial begins in August.

Right from the jump, her defense team starts earning their keep.

During voir dire, attorneys on both sides ask potential jurors questions about their background, their beliefs, and what they might already know about the case.

The lawyers can then ask to have certain people excused based on their answers.

Strangely, Wanda's lawyers allow a man to be seated on the jury despite his statement that he's already heard plenty about Wanda's case and is leaning towards convicting.

Ordinarily, that sort of thing would be an immediate red flag.

But the defense seems to have no problem with this guy.

And the prosecution isn't going to object for them.

Once the jury box is full, the proceedings get underway.

The judge doesn't allow cameras inside the PAC courtroom, but journalists from around the world fill the benches, eager to file their reports on the notorious Pom Pom Mon.

Terry Harper is the star witness for the prosecution and his account of Wanda's repeated request that he find a hitman to kill Verna and Amber Heath are chilling.

Then, the prosecution plays tapes of Wanda's conversations with Terry.

The jury get to hear her giggle as she talks through the plan, as she spits vitriol at the Heath family, and as she explains how much her diamonds are worth when she hands them to Terry as a down payment.

It's pretty damning stuff.

With those tapes, there's no way to deny that Wanda tried to have Verna Heath murdered.

But Wanda's gonna do her best.

So when she takes the stand in her own defense, she and her attorneys give a milk toast explanation for what happened.

According to Wanda, she never saw Terry out and just happened to run into him one day.

As for the hit on Verna Heath, well, that was just something that she said to Terry off hand while they were catching up, never imagining that he'd take it so far.

But then he kept coming at her until she got scared and gave him the earrings, hoping that that would be enough to make him go away.

In case you can't tell, not a very convincing story.

But Wanda's not actually the most important witness for the defense.

That's Marla Harper, Terry's wife.

She insists that Terry was plotting with his brother since his first interview with the police, that he pushed Wanda to go ahead with her plans so that he could get her on tape and win Tony full custody of his kids.

The tale is intriguing, but there are concerns about Marla's credibility.

She admits that she hears voices and that she has trouble telling the difference between reality and her own imagination.

And while Marla doesn't seem embarrassed to be discussing these things in open court, they undoubtedly count against her with the jury.

When both sides have finished presenting their cases, the judge sends the jurors off to deliberate.

They return with their verdict that same day.

Guilty.

Their unanimous decision about Wanda's crime is one thing, but their opinions on the punishment she should face is another.

The group is evenly split.

Half want to send Wanda away for life, and the others think she should be given probation.

So they reach a compromise.

Wanda will get 15 years.

It's a symbolic number based on comments Wanda made on tape that instead of killing her, maybe someone could kidnap Verna and make her disappear for 15 years.

Wanda can't appreciate the poetry of it right now.

I mean, not when she's facing down a decade and a half behind bars, but all is not lost.

She gets out on bail while her lawyers prepare to appeal her conviction.

And in the meantime, she's got press to do.

In the wake of her sentencing, Wanda makes several TV appearances on shows like Larry King, Oprah and Donahue.

Even as a convicted felon, people still want to hear her story.

The Heaths have to get in on this action too, doing their own round of interviews on similar shows.

Both families also hire professionals to handle Hollywood for them.

The Heaths sell their life rights, and Wanda enlists an attorney to deal with any modeling or acting offers that might come Shanna's way.

Soon enough though, it's back to the courtroom.

Towards the end of September, Wanda's attorneys file a motion to overturn the guilty verdict.

Their reason, remember that juror who said he was leaning towards convicting?

Well, it turns out, he had a felony conviction of his own on his record, which should have precluded him from serving on the jury.

This is information that the defense lawyers had available to them, because they had every potential juror fill out a questionnaire before voir dire.

But either they missed that crucial detail and just decided that a man who didn't like their client was a great pick, or they knew exactly what they were doing.

He was their backup plan, their fail safe if the verdict didn't go their way.

And if that was their idea, then it was a great one, because the judge is forced to vacate the conviction.

Wanda is given back the presumption of innocence and is free to go.

But the state can't just let Wanda Holloway get away with what she did, no matter how cunning her lawyers were during the first trial.

They're gonna run it back and try again.

But then in 1996, long after the media circus is packed up and gone home, Wanda cuts a deal.

Before her second trial is due to begin, she pleads no contest to the charges.

In exchange, she's handed a 10-year sentence to be served at the state prison in Gainesville.

It's not ideal, but it's less than her initial sentence and a lot less than the maximum penalty of life behind it.

And in the end, Wanda doesn't even serve a full year.

After just six months, she's released and given probation for the remainder of the sentence.

She's also ordered to perform 1,000 hours of community service.

When reporters track Verna Heath down for comment on the day of Wanda's release, she says that she doesn't intend to live her life in fear.

Still, she remarks, she'd feel better if Wanda was made to seek psychiatric help.

As for Shanna and Amber, the girls whose imagined rivalry inspired Wanda's actions, they quietly get on with their lives.

Upon entering high school, Amber's elected freshman class president.

Shanna runs for and wins the position of vice president.

It's an election that Wanda stays well away from.

Wanda and her family avoid talking about the episode altogether.

To them, it's like it never happened.

None of them want to grant any more interviews on the subject, cut book deals or sell the story rights to Hollywood.

Eventually, Shanna graduates high school and tries to move on with her life.

She has two kids of her own, who she encourages to play sports but doesn't force it on them.

Slowly, she comes to terms with what her mother did and finds a way to forgive Wanda.

But what's harder is forgiving herself.

She wasn't good enough, she thinks.

Maybe if she had been better at cheerleading, none of this would have happened.

That's the rub.

Because both of the mothers in this story, Wanda Holloway and Verna Heath, were alike in so many ways.

By all accounts, they were fiercely competitive.

They wanted what was best for their girls.

And make no mistake, they both loved their daughters.

They were best friends, after all.

Both women wanted their daughter to feel the glory of being the high school cheerleader.

But only one of them made her little girl feel like she wasn't good enough to succeed on her own.

From Airship, this is episode three in our series on Wanda Holloway.

On the next series, a young man discovers he has a knack for manipulating the people around him and uses it to launch one of the most infamous cults of the 21st century.

We use many different sources while preparing this episode.

A few we can recommend are Mother Love, Deadly Love by Anne McDonald Mayer, the Texas Monthly article, The Cheerleader Murder Plot by Mimi Schwartz, and the documentary, The Texas Cheerleader Murder Plot.

This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details.

And while in some cases, we can't know exactly what happened, all of our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

Audio editing by Mohammed Shahzeed.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Throm.

This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson and Lindsey Graham.