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Stop by a Warby Parker store near you. Whoever went in this house, they went in there with one motive: to execute the people that were inside. There were three victims shot, each with single shotgun blast. The shooter comes to carry first, fires. He was a wonderful husband. He was a wonderful father. And he was just a good man.
My name is Robin Hite, and my husband, Kerry Hite, was murdered. And it's been really, really hard. The shooter leaves Kerry, proceeds to the parents' bedroom. The second shot was to Phillip. Kerry and Mr. Phillip were very, very close. And they saw each other every day. Linda was the mother. She's coming out of the bathroom to see what's going on, because she doesn't have a clue. I opened the bathroom door and went in and said, Phillip.
and then I saw the blast as the gun was turned on me. The left side of her face was extensively damaged, and then the shot continued through her right shoulder. I remember waking up, and I was on the floor, and I prayed. I remember very distinctly saying, "God, if we're going to do this, I need your strength because I have none of my own."
- F and M 911. - I'm shot. - You're shot? - Yes. - Dead James, 1018, hurry up! - Stay with me ma'am. Keep talking to me. - God took over. He was showing me what to do and telling me what to do. - Whoever shot Linda meant to kill her. So I was very concerned for her safety. - Everybody here feels like Robin had something to do with it. What part does she play in this? - Think she was the catalyst
that caused all of this to happen. What is your view on Robin's role, if any, in this whole awful thing? I really would rather not comment on that. And I don't really worry about what people say. Does she or doesn't she know? I had a secret, and once that secret was exposed, hell broke loose. "Family Affair," tonight's 48-hours mystery.
August 25, 2008, hours before dawn. Sheriff Jimmy McDuffie was called to a house on Springfield, Egypt Road. He braced himself for what lay ahead. Somebody had been killed, at least two. I did not know who it was. They just gave us an address on the page. At some point, and I don't remember where that was at, it was like, oh my God, that's got to be Phillip's house.
Phillip was Phillip Hite, a man to be reckoned with in Effingham County, Georgia, and a pal of McDuffie's. I knew Phillip ever since I came to the county back in probably '87, '88. Hite was a successful real estate developer who'd made millions in the sprawling county, which is about an hour north of Savannah. Patriarch of a close-knit family, he'd been married to wife Linda for 42 years.
We met at the county fair in Savannah and he stole my heart right away. And things weren't always easy, but you know there was love. The couple had three sons, Craig, Chris and Carrie. Good men, fine men, church-going men. They had values and they believed in each other. We all got along well.
Chris Height was the middle son. We were family. Nobody was perfect, but we grew up very close together. Each of us had our own personalities. Were the brothers very different? They were all three pretty different, yeah.
Chris and Craig are the most alike. They both like to hunt outdoors, things like that. And Carrie was the baby of the family. It was Carrie who followed his dad into real estate, becoming his business partner. And he and wife Robin had three kids of their own.
Carrie and I met in high school, our senior year, in English class. You got a big smile when you said that. Yeah. We were really good friends in the beginning and realized that I was in love with Carrie. And not long after high school, we got married. When he asked you to marry him, then this just seemed like this was meant to be. It was definitely meant to be, yes. The Height clan was turning out just as its patriarch had hoped. Phillip wanted the family to be perfect.
Good Christian family, good folks. Phillip was just, he was a man of the house. Popular. Popular, extremely. Murder just didn't fit with the seemingly perfect family the sheriff knew so well. Too well for him to oversee the case, he decided, so that first day he turned it over to the GBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. I arrived at the scene at approximately
8:45 that morning. In charge was agent Eugene Howard, who quickly realized that the crime scene was not what it seemed. The scene was staged to look like it was a burglary. The killer had cut the phone lines and smashed a pane of glass in a door.
There was nothing of note taken. Jury was still present. Nothing was rummaged through. There was money left out. No impression that anything was taken from the residence. So you think that's just because the person panicked and fled before they had a chance to take anything? No, robbery wasn't the motive. Murder was the motive. Both of the men had similar entry wounds, that is, shotgun wound to the face.
Based on those injuries and the pellets found at the scene, medical examiner Dr. James Down says the shooter used a 12-gauge shotgun, up close and personal. How close roughly are we talking about here? Based on what I see at the scene, looking at the photographs, my estimate was something like two feet. You're two feet away. My goodness, you don't really need to aim. You just kind of point and shoot.
To get an idea of the damage a 12-gauge shotgun does at such close range, we asked the Sheriff's Firearms Instructor Ed Myrick to demonstrate. What exactly do we have here? This is the Remington 870. This is their most popular shotgun. The gun is similar to the one used by the killer, loaded with the same type of 3-inch shells and the same type of buckshot. If you're going to fire that at someone, it's a deadly force incident.
- Oh, jeez. Oh my God. - Given the close range, Linda too probably would have died instantly had she not turned her head at the moment of impact. - It's amazing that she did survive because basically it looks like she was left for dead. - But almost as if the power of those shotgun blasts wasn't enough, the gunman next drenched the entire house in gasoline, a lot of gasoline.
Gas fumes out by the road was just horrific. You could even smell it from the road. You could smell it from the road. I wrote down in my journal that I knew what hell smelled like. What hell smelled like? Gasoline and gunpowder. Wow. I remember smelling the gas, yes. You had gasoline on your clothes? Yeah, well, I was sitting on the floor, so I knew they were wet.
But the killer never set the gas ablaze, perhaps panicking when he heard Linda's desperate call to 911. Where are you, ma'am? Four miles off highway... News of the murders spread quickly in this rural southern community, and so did fear. They must have thought a killer was out in the loose. They did. Investigators checked the alibi of a local drug dealer but quickly ruled him out.
They next turned their attention to the Heights real estate dealings. Every time Phillip had had an argument with somebody, you know, we had to go and investigate and talk to those folks, see what was going on with it. They found no motive and no suspect. But then McDuffie recalled an unsettling conversation he'd had with Carrie Height only a month earlier. He knew that his wife was running around on him.
Oh. But he did not tell me who it was with. That must have been something of a shock. It was, because every time you saw them together, it was just like the perfect family. Hardly. As the whole county soon would learn, not only was Robin having an affair, it was with none other than Craig Height, her husband's own brother. I am definitely a woman in the center of a storm.
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Only hours into the Height murder investigation, as Linda Height fought for her life, the whispers began. Rumors that this seemingly perfect Southern family was anything but. It's not something that I'm proud of, but it's a mistake that anyone could make. Robin Height's mistake was having an affair. That happens. But with your husband's brother? Robin admits she made the first move on her brother-in-law, Craig.
I told him that I had feelings for him that were more than, you know, brother and sister-in-law feelings. And he said that he shared the same feelings. It just took off from there. Craig Height, self-described "black sheep" of the family, was divorced, owed child support, was unemployed, and lived off disability checks. And Robin found him irresistible. What? You were head over heels in love?
I was infatuated, not love. You still loved your husband? I did. Where did you think this was going to go? I wasn't really sure. I was really confused. And I told Carrie about it two weeks into the affair. Was he prepared for this? No, he wasn't prepared. And Craig did not want me to tell Carrie. Why did you?
I just couldn't hide it from him. He knew that something was wrong with me and that I wasn't acting like myself. But telling her husband about the affair didn't stop Robin from pursuing it. Never mind that brother-in-law thing, never mind her three children, who at that point were 10, 7, and 3 years old. I definitely wasn't thinking about my children when I did it, how it would affect them.
The relationship got more intense, with Robin and Craig often sneaking off to this isolated hunting cabin. Whenever people hear about these situations, I say, "This is why there's divorce." You know? People just, sometimes these things happen and people get divorced. It was very complicated because Kerry was very dead set against a divorce. He told me when we got married that we were going to be married for life.
Her husband was distraught, but he was no fool. A few weeks before he died, Carrie Height changed his $3.5 million life insurance policy, removing Robin as the beneficiary. I did not find out until after Carrie passed away that he had the life insurance money put into a trust fund for our three children.
And his father, Philip, told Craig flat out, "Knock it off with your brother's wife or lose your entire inheritance." There was a lot of tension. Very heated conversations. Several. Very heated conversations. I gotta tell you, Robin, this is a mess. It was very much a mess.
The weekend before the murders, August 2008. Once again, Robin was at Craig's cabin. So I had a few drinks there and ended up staying that night. She and Craig get a rude awakening the next morning. We heard a helicopter that sounded like it was very low. Phillip had tracked them down, enlisting a friend with a helicopter to take photos to get hard evidence of Robin's infidelity.
I looked at Craig and I said, "That helicopter is here watching us." And what was Craig's reaction to this? Very angry. And that Carrie and Phillip better watch out or he was going to play old school on them. Which means what? I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure what that meant. She then went home where she and husband Carrie had a nasty argument. And how did this end? Him leaving and he said, "I'm going to go stay with Mom and Dad tonight." Had he ever done that before? No.
Everyone was very upset, very on pins and needles, not knowing what to say or what to do or how they could help. And how did you expect this was going to be resolved? I thought that Kerry and Robin would probably divorce. And then if the situation between Craig and Robin still worked out, that they would be together.
Later that Sunday, Robin called her lover, Craig. I told him that Kerry had left, and he asked me where he had gone, and I said that he had gone to his parents, and he said okay. It was the night of the murders. When did you find out what had happened? Around 5 o'clock in the morning on Monday morning. I was asleep, and I heard knocking on the door.
Detectives gave Robin the news. And the detective asked me if I knew of anyone that would have wanted to hurt Carrie and Phillip. And I just said, "I can't. I mean, I just can't think of anything right now." I just, I was just in shock. Craig doesn't just instantly occur to you? No. As many fights as they'd had and as much bad blood as there was at this point? It did not. It did not come in my mind right away.
But she confronted her lover that afternoon. I walked right up to him and I said, "Did you do this?" And he said, "I can't believe you would ask me that." I said, "I need a yes or no. Did you do this?" And he said, "No." And you believed him? I did. Because the Craig Haight that I know couldn't commit such an act.
Investigators weren't so sure. As Linda Height slowly recovered, they all wondered the same thing. She's the only surviving witness of the crime. Could she identify the killer?
Crime scene investigators have yet to leave the scene of the Heights home on Springfield, Egypt Road. By noon, the day of the murders, Robin Height had admitted to investigators that the shocking rumors were true. Yes, she was having an affair with her brother-in-law, Craig. Why are we getting indication that you had sexual relations with Robin? But Craig was having none of it. I'm not having sex with Robin.
He says flat out, "No affair." He denied that there wasn't an affair at all. How'd that make you feel? I can't even describe how it made me feel sick. Over the next few days, when talking with police at the crime scene, Craig made several more startling statements.
He pointed out to the officer that was present that was doing security that his shotgun was missing. Had the officer asked about his shotgun? No. He later said that his boots were missing. Hadn't asked about that either? Hadn't asked. And through conversation with both Craig and his brother, they said at one point that they thought a gas can was missing.
A shotgun, boots, a gas can, all missing, all possibly related to the crime, and all tied to Craig Height. Did he have an alibi for that night? No, actually he was the only one that did not have an alibi. Prosecutor Michael Muldrew. He lied about things he didn't even need to lie about. It's just his character.
He lied, says Muldrew, even when taking a lie detector test. What questions did he fail? It was something to the effect of, were you holding a shotgun when your parents were killed, I believe. That's a pretty significant question. Yeah. And when Agent Howard asked Craig directly, had he killed his father and brother and shot his mother in the face, Craig said he didn't know.
If he did it, he had no recollection of it. He actually said that? Basically, yes. Do suspects often say this? No. And we commonly call that in law enforcement just the wrong answer. But the answer investigators most wanted was from the grievously wounded Linda Height. Could she identify the killer? Though improving in a Savannah hospital, she was still unable to talk.
And then one day, an officer guarding Linda saw something that set off alarm bells. Craig had entered the room, put his hand on his mother's and said, "Mom, this is Craig." And her blood pressure went from, I believe it was 98, and skyrocketed to about 140. Her eyes got really wide and it appeared that she had been shaking as if she was afraid. James Dingledine was on duty that day. What did you take from that?
I took that. She was scared for a reason. Linda Heitz says that is ridiculous. How do you interpret that? What do you think was going on? I don't know. Maybe it was from hearing talk that was going on around me. Not a fear response? No, not a fear response. Weeks later, investigators finally were able to interview Linda. Could you identify the person? I didn't see a face or anything.
I did not see Craig in that room. I did not see anyone in there. The blast was what I saw. Can you be absolutely certain that it was not Craig? Yes, I can. I know my child. I know the man he is. I know the heart he has. He does not have a cold-blooded heart. And I can be certain that Craig did not do this to our family. Have you ever looked him in the eye and said, "Craig, son, did you do this?" Yes, I have.
And he's looked me right straight in the eye and said, "No, Mama, I did not do this. I couldn't do this."
But investigators zeroed in on Craig Height early on, and their case got stronger when Agent Howard followed up on a colleague's hunch. Investigator John Bradley with the Sheriff's Department mentioned, "I wonder how his arm looks." And why would he say that? Typically, that type of ammo shot from that weapon will leave a bruise. You'll get a big kickback. Yes. So Howard asked Craig to take off his shirt.
There was two bruises on his right bicep and one on his left. There were three shots.
at the home that night. One that killed Carrie, one that killed Phillip, and the one that wounded Linda. So those bruises were significant. So even an experienced hunter would be bruised using anything that big? I would think so. This one right here is about 48 to 50 pounds of pressure on your shoulder of recoil. So that a giant wallop. It is, yes.
No question you'd be bruised. Is there any way to avoid it? I don't see how, no. But Craig insisted the bruises came not from a shotgun, but from a freak fall, a misstep in the shower that sent him headfirst over the toilet. It was laughable. Not only was it laughable, it was scientifically and physically impossible.
The bruises, the affair, the lies, the missing items, all were circumstantial, and investigators wanted a stronger case. So the GBI just kept watching Craig Height and Robin, and so did everyone else in town. It was very, very difficult. He was being, you know, basically treated as the murderer.
and me as a conspirator right there along with him. And then, four months after the murders, Craig Height moved in with his brother's widow and their three kids. What did you think when you heard this? I think most of the community thought it was like a slap in the face. It didn't do anything for Craig, his appearance of innocence, for him to be staying there. It was not smart.
it was definitely not smart. And my family was telling me, you know, "Do you know how this looks?" I mean, then I was like, "I don't really care what people think. I believe that he's innocent." But now prosecutors had their motive. Craig wanted not just his brother's wife, but his brother's life and had killed to get it. He is living in his dead brother's house.
Sleeping in his dead brother's bed next to his dead brother's wife. He's taking his dead brother's children to school. And he's driving his dead brother's truck. He has become, for all practical purposes, Carrie Hyde. Hi, I'm Kristen Bell. Carvana makes car buying easy. Isn't that right, hon? Dax?
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you safe go to selectquote.com spotify pod today to get started nine months after the height family murders came bombshell news craig height was about to marry robin his dead brother's wife you were going to get married to craig take the kids get out of effing that was the plan the future plans the community had some questions why aren't y'all putting him in jail
I had one lady even call me and tell me I need to go see the governor and make the governor make GBI make an arrest. Finally, in May 2009, the GBI made its move, arresting Craig Height for the murder of his brother. Did that shake your faith in him? No. I was convinced he was innocent and that he was being treated unfairly.
Craig also was charged with killing his father, Phillip, and attempting to kill his mother, Linda. But she is convinced that her oldest son is innocent, denying suspicions that she secretly knows otherwise. As a mother, I could not sacrifice the son that was killed and my husband that was killed to protect
another son if I really thought that that son did that. And brother Chris is just as sure. It took a coward to walk in 3 o'clock in the morning into a dark home and do what they did to our family. That's not Craig. Craig's not a murderer.
But prosecutors think a jury will decide that's exactly what he is. On December 1st, 2010, the murder trial of Craig Height begins here in the Effingham County Courthouse. We're here today in the case of the State of the Orange River, which is Craig Height. When you sit down and dispassionately look at the evidence, it couldn't be anybody but him.
District Attorney Michael Muldrew argues that the shooting made perfect sense, if you thought about it as Craig did. The only way I'm going to have Robin Hyde and have peace is Mama, Daddy, and Carrie have to be eliminated from the equation. He wanted the big house. He wanted the kids that adored him. He wanted to drive around in the nice truck to live the life of leisure of a Southern gentleman, so to speak.
Craig's lawyer, Dow Bonds, says the public perception that Craig somehow was trying to become his brother is completely distorted. The first thing I noticed about Craig when I first met him is what a genuine person he was and what a gentleman he was. Almost entirely circumstantial, conjecture, speculation, theory. What shocked me was just a clear lack of physical evidence linking him to the murders.
There was no DNA. There was no fingerprints. There were no eyewitnesses. There were no confessions. Perhaps the prosecution's strongest physical evidence are the bruises on Craig's arms. I was specifically asked to look at the injuries to the right arm. To the medical examiner, Dr. Downs, the explanation is obvious. I think they're very consistent with someone who had fired a shotgun.
But Craig sticks to his story that he got the bruises in that bizarre bathroom tumble onto the toilet. An event he recreated with himself in the starring role.
Craig, are you okay? What in the world happened? Well, here I am above naked, you know. And I said, no, don't come, nobody come in here. The video was made before Craig Height had a lawyer. If I had been representing him at that time, I would have said, you know, don't, a reenactment's not a good idea. So you hit right up in here? I guess, I mean, I know that whenever I was
But if you look at what Craig was thinking at the time he did that, he was trying to assist them in their investigation, and he was cooperating with them. I mean, it just all happened so fast, that's just how I wound up, you know? Prosecutor Muldrew shows the video in court, telling the jury Craig could not possibly have gotten those bruises falling on a toilet. To have happened like that is truly impossible. They started calling me Tidy Bowl Man.
Most people that saw it literally laughed at this reenactment he did. They laughed? They laughed. It was silly. Brother Chris Hite was not laughing, then or now. The position of the bruises on Craig's body were actually impossible to make.
from a shotgun. Chris says a shotgun would have to be held at a ridiculous angle to get those bruises and Craig knew better. But in the heat of murder, it can come off this way. Firearms expert Myrick thinks a shotgun easily could slip.
And if it does, it's going to get more on my arm, which is going to leave more bruising and it's going to hurt me more. So in an ideal world, if you were shooting, the bruising would be here. Correct. But if you're maneuvering around something or in a hurry or whatever, you can also suffer bruises more toward the outside of your arm. Exactly. If this gun slips at all, it will fall towards your arm and it will definitely tear you alive. What do you believe Craig Height did that night?
It's not really a matter of what I believe he did, it's what I know he did. For Muldrew, the key to the case against Craig is, quite literally, a key. He knew something that very few people knew, and that is the location and presence of another key, an outside key, which people commonly have. The prosecutor thinks Craig smashed the pane of glass to fake a burglary, when in reality, he simply opened the door with that spare key.
He knew where that key would have been located. He took that key, opened the door, went in. The cops later found that key in the door. Once inside, according to Muldrew, Craig methodically went room to room, shooting his brother, his father, and his mother, all for the love of Robin. Do you think their affair had anything whatsoever to do with the murders?
She's definitely responsible for Kerry being in the home that night, 100%. If Kerry was living happily at his house, he'd have never been at my mother and father's that night. His mother and brother stand by him. But if Craig Height thinks his former lover and sister-in-law is still with him, he's about to get a nasty shock. When I looked at him, I just felt disgust. Disgust at the affair. Disgust at just him, period.
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Only seven months after she planned to walk down the aisle to marry Craig Height, Robin Height instead walked to the witness box to testify against him. Murder charges will do that.
I wasn't comfortable with the relationship anymore. After some soul searching, Robyn says she realized the man she'd once loved just might be a murderer. And I would finally allow things to come into my mind and in my heart, you know. There is, you know, there is this chance that
that he could have done this. She knew he was lying to her, she says, especially when he said he and Carrie had patched things up before the shootings. The only things coming out of Carrie's mouth about Craig were negative. But the jurors apparently were getting that same negative vibe about everything Robin said. The way she threw him under the bus, just, I mean, that told you right there. She just used him.
And these jurors weren't ready to throw Craig Height under the bus without something, anything, that directly linked him to the murder scene. Blood, fingerprints, DNA. Where's the gun? Nobody wanted to put a man away for life, you know, without it.
That was precisely the message defense attorney Dow Bonds wanted to get across. In every single critical bit of evidence, they want you to make a leap of faith. This is a court of law. This is not a time to take leaps of faith on another man's life here. But the defense had no qualms about appealing to the jury's emotions. Please look at this letter.
Do you recognize the handwriting on that letter? Yes, it's Phillip's. Asking Linda to read a letter her husband had written two weeks before the murders. Proof, Bonds said, that Craig had made peace with his dad and had no reason to kill him. Son, I appreciate everything you do. Remember family is important and we will always be there for each other. Love, Dad.
Prosecutors pointed out the letter never was sent. This man desperately wanted his son to start behaving correctly. And although certainly heart-wrenching, they called it irrelevant. I'm sure at the time he wrote the letter, he hoped that this might somehow resolve itself so the family had torn apart.
Craig Height never took the stand, and on day eight of the trial, the case went to the jury. The first vote I had voted, not guilty. I was leaning toward a guilty vote, but I guess I wanted to make sure that we looked at everything as closely as we possibly could.
Initially, the jury split eight to four, not guilty. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the court's informed that you have reached a verdict. But after just six hours, that changed. We did jury five defendant Greg Hyde guilty.
The verdict was guilty. The jury convicting Craig Height on all 11 counts of murder, battery, burglary, and attempted arson. What went through your mind when you heard those words? Oh my Lord, no way. This can't be happening. I've got to see if I can see Craig tonight. So I did. I went to the jail and saw him. And how was he? Very emotional.
So what made the jury convict? Once I seen the bruises, that was like, yeah, he's guilty. It was his gun missing, and to me, that was the hardest evidence. What was the constant lying about everything and, you know, telling things before they were even asked?
Craig and his family were devastated and frustrated, insisting he didn't get a fair trial. In my opinion, and in a lot of the community's opinion, the trial should have never taken place in Effingham County. The judge sentenced him to the maximum, two life terms plus 85 years, making parole almost impossible. So how did you find out the verdict? A friend of mine told me. And the sentence?
I felt like it was fair. Two life terms plus 85 years? You felt like that was fair? I mean, there has to be a part of you that was heartbroken over this. Well, I'm not rejoicing, but I feel like they have the right person. But do authorities have all the right people?
Even today, some jurors aren't sure. Robin Hite was a manipulative person who stopped at nothing to get what she wanted. I think Robin played him like a fiddle. Is there any real evidence to link Robin to the crimes? Where along the spectrum do you think her actions fall? I have to go by the evidence. And based upon her testimony she gave against him, it did not appear at the time that...
she was participating in any plan. And you believe her? I didn't say that. I said we have to go by the evidence. Today, life in Effingham County has returned to normal, or as near normal as it can be in a small community where so many suspicions linger. Do you see much of Robin these days? Seems like we run into her quite often around the county. And how would you describe the community's take on her right now?
The community still wants to know when we're going to arrest her. Well, are you going to arrest her? If we find evidence that she's done something wrong, by all means. Robin says that never will happen because there is no evidence to find. I know I didn't do anything. I didn't conspire with Craig. I didn't wish any harm on Carrie or Mr. Phillip or Miss Linda. You've forgiven yourself. I have. And I know that God's forgiven me.
Do you think the family has forgiven you? The Height family? I'm not really sure. You'd have to ask them. What is your view on Robin's role, if any, in this whole awful thing? I really would rather not comment on that. For Linda Height, healing has been a much slower process. When you look at the future now, and I assume you're doing your best to look ahead, what do you see for the Height family? I see life. I see hope.
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