Buried in the Backyard (2018–…): Season 1, Episode 9 - Two Counties, Two Bodies - full transcript

In March of 2009,
a cadaver dog

tracked a trail of death
in a Virginia backyard.

For the body to be
just discarded like that,

was really pretty shocking.

The discovery sent
investigators

down a bizarre road.

He's in the middle
of a bunch of outlaw bikers

and I'm gonna sic the police
on that group of people?

We got lie, after lie,
after lie.

Social security money
from two men

was still going in
to a different account.



This was salacious.

We just both basically
said at the same time,

"I think we have
another body."

Who were these two victims?

Now, it's like
our heads are spinning.

And who had been hiding
the deadly truth?

The body did not have a head.

As a reporter,
I'm going, "Whoa."

In March of 2009,

investigative reporter
A.J. Lagoe

received at tip about
a developing story

in the backyard
of a Louisa County
Virginia home.

I got a text saying,
"We're gonna be out looking
for a body on this property.

You might want to get
a camera out here."



Louisa County being
a largely rural county,

doesn't have a lot of crime.

And so,
regardless of whether
it's a murder,

we knew there was a story here

that we wanted to get
to the bottom of.

By the time Lagoe arrived,
police had already

secured the area
of the expansive yard.

The veteran reporter
sensed a huge story
was about to break.

It's not every day
that you have a big news story
in Louisa County.

My reporter alarm bells
were definitely going off.

I was thinking, "I wanna
find out just what's going on."

But we had no idea just how
strange this was gonna get.

From behind the police tape,

he and other reporters
watched a cadaver dog

sniffing for the unmistakable
scent of death.

It looked like
it had a purpose,

like it was on to something.

Investigators hung on hope

that a mystery that had been
plaguing them for months

was about to be solved.

This case has got to be
the craziest case

that I've ever had to work.

You always hear about it
in other communities,

but never
in your own backyard.

In November of 2007,

Lee Bowles arrived
in Virginia

to celebrate the Thanksgiving
holiday with his dad Cody.

I made a phone call
to my dad

to find out what time
Thanksgiving was gonna be.

Lisa, my dad's girlfriend,
answered,

and was like,
"Your dad's not here."

She just said that
he met a friend

and they went on
a bike ride to Sturgis
in South Dakota.

If he was gonna go
all the way across the country

and do something which would
be a super exciting thing,

he would have told me.

Family was really
important to him.

That was probably the most
important thing to him.

But my dad,
he did love riding bikes.

Even after he had
his heart attack,

they put a pacemaker in,

and he still continued
to get out and do things.

He had his heart attack
when I was ten.

I knew that he had
a heart condition
at a young age.

So every time I went
to visit him,

I didn't know if that
was gonna be the last time.

Lee was surprised
and disappointed

when he left that weekend
without seeing his dad.

That's not like him.

He wouldn't
just stand everybody up

for Thanksgiving.

Days turned into months,

and with no word from Cody,

Lee and his two siblings
started to get concerned.

We were calling Lisa
and we were like,

"What's going on?
Have you seen him?"

And she said he got in
with some kind of militia group

or anti-governmental
type of group,

and he was hanging out
with them, and, you know,

they were an illegal
operation-- biker gang.

Lee got a sinking feeling,

maybe his dad
had gone off the grid

with the wrong group of guys.

He's a biker,
he's a motorcycle guy,

and I did notice
in the last few years

he got to be be more
of a conspiracy theory
type of person.

I don't particularly want to
call the police on him.

He's in the middle
of a bunch of, you know,
outlaw bikers

and I'm gonna sic the police
on that group of people?

What do you think
they're gonna do to him?

Though worried,
Lee held off getting in touch
with authorities,

because surely his dad
would reach out eventually.

But after about a year,
and still no word from Cody,

Lee finally made the call

he knew he should
have made long ago.

I made a phone call
to the police department

and filed a report.

Lee was concerned
about his father

and his father's health.

Several years before,
his father had a heart attack,

and was on approximately,
he said, ten medications,

needed these medications
on a daily basis.

And he said that they always
had a good relationship,

and it was quite
out of character for him

not to stay in contact
with him.

Hoping to make
better sense of the situation,

Detectives Howard Porter
and Carlton Johnson

paid a visit to Cody's
live-in girlfriend
Ulisa Chavers.

She offered investigators
the same story

she shared with Lee.

She told us
that he had gone to Sturgis

for the motorcycle rally,

met with some
motorcycle gang out there

that's involved
in the militia,

and that he left
and traveled back out there
to stay with them.

She said he wouldn't
contact his family

because, you know,
he was upset with them.

You know, he thought
that they were just

trying to
take advantage of him,

trying to borrow money
from them,

and he wanted less
responsibilities.

The detectives felt
like they may have

just stepped into the middle
of a family drama.

I gave her my business card

with my cell phone
number on it,

and I told her
when she hears from Cody,
have him call me,

so we can get this issue
cleared up.

For Detectives Lowe
and Johnson,

the truth of Cody Bowles'
whereabouts wasn't adding up.

Was he intentionally avoiding
contact with his family?

Or could he be in harm's way?

We started
looking into the files

just to make sure he hadn't
been arrested somewhere

or he hasn't been
in an accident.

After that, we started
looking at driver's licenses
and bank accounts.

And also,
we started working with

the Social Security
Administration,

'cause he was receiving
social security checks.

So we wanted to see if--
was he receiving money out west?

How was he living?
Where was his social security
check going?

Were Cody's social security
checks still being cashed?

Turns out that it was
going into his bank account.

So then at that point,
at least we know he's alive,

he's doing okay, and he's
out there on his own.

The detectives delivered
the news to Ulisa,

and surprisingly, she had
some news of her own to share.

She said that Cody
had stopped by with
a friend of his.

Came in Christmas Eve,
stayed the night,

and he left out
Christmas day.

And I asked why, you know,
you didn't call me.

She goes,
"He didn't want to.

He doesn't want to have
any contact

with any kind
of law enforcement."

She told us that they had
a little party,

Christmas party next door.

And she actually said,
"Wait a minute,

we took some pictures,"

and pulled out
a digital camera

and started showing me

some of the pictures
that she took.

We have proof that, okay,
he did come into town,

and they did have
Christmas together.

At that point, in my mind,
the case is done.

The detectives
were eager to show the photos

to Cody's worried son Lee.

We were
getting ready to leave

and Lieutenant Porter
says, "Hey."

"Can I borrow
the memory card out of it

and I'll bring it back
to you?"

She said sure.

So I pulled it out
and took it back
to the office.

Lieutenant Porter
showed me a picture

and he just wanted
my opinion on it.

Immediately,
when I seen the picture,

I did not believe that
it was a current picture.

Both of them looked a little
younger in the photo to me.

It made me realize
at that moment

that there was
something very wrong.

We just put the card
in the computer

and started looking
at all the pictures,

and right away we knew
some of the pictures

had been manipulated.

And that's when we said,

"Wow, this is a picture
of a picture."

We all basically said
at the same time,

"I think we have
another body."

What shocked us was
his head was gone.

53-year-old Cody Bowles

mysteriously disappeared
over a year ago.

His live-in girlfriend
Ulisa Chavers

appeared to have
nothing to hide

until investigators
caught her in a lie.

It's enough to serve
Ulisa with a search warrant

for her home and property.

I told her why we were there,

that we had a search warrant.

And her question to me was,

"So you think
you're gonna find his body

on this property some place?"

It was just strange,

and immediately
I became suspicious.

We had thought that
at this point

we're looking for a body.

Investigators call in
a search team

and a cadaver dog to scour
Cody and Ulisa's yard

for any signs of a body.

Cadaver dog walked around
the well and then sat down.

And then all the activity
was centered on this well,

and that's where
all the attention was
very quickly.

As soon as I saw
the dog sit down,

we had that sick feeling
in our stomach

that I hope he's not down
in that well.

Once the cap was off,
there was a very strong odor.

Looking straight down
on the top of it,

we could see
what appeared to be

something encased
in a blanket of some sort.

At that point,
we drop a ladder down,

and had him crawl down.

Not the best decision
I've ever made in my life.

Once I got to the object
in the well,

I started bobbing it
with my feet,

so I knew
it was kind of floating.

We had gotten a shark hook
down there

and we snagged the object

and started lifting it out,

and then we saw a mostly
decomposed body.

Made the hairs on the back
of our necks stand up
when we first saw it.

It really was a creepy moment
to realize

that someone's body had been
just shoved down this well.

And for the body to be
just discarded like that

was really pretty shocking.

The badly decomposed body
was beyond recognition.

But suddenly,
investigators noticed
something significant.

As soon as we got it out,
I could see the pacemaker

that Cody had because
of his heart condition

hanging from the body.

That's when I was thinking,
"Yeah, we found Cody Bowles."

As the gruesome scene
unfolded outside,

Detective Johnson sat inside
with Cody's girlfriend Ulisa.

I get a text from
Lieutenant Porter.

He says, "We found the body."

So, I looked out the window

and I saw that they were
surrounding a well

at the back of a property.

I said,
"Ulisa, come over here."

I said, "Look,
they found the body."

And she looked at me,

she never got emotional,

never got upset,
never cried,

was just very, very calm.

It's remarkable,
her ability to remain calm

and to not
get emotional at all.

For Lee Bowles,

the long painful search
for his father

came to
a heart-breaking end.

We had our answer
to where he was at.

He was there the whole time.

He was on the property
the whole time.

And, it was a pretty
horrible feeling.

Words are way overrated.

There's no words to describe
certain things and, like,

that's just an empty feeling.

You're like, "I don't know
what to do at this point."

It's just kind of like,
"Where do we go from here?"

Growing up, Lee knew Cody
was the kind of dad

other kids dreamed about.

He was my father,
but we had a relationship

more like a friendship.

He would joke with me
about things

that he probably shouldn't
joke about with me,

and it thought it was cool.

He really liked to do
outdoor things.

He was an outdoor
kind of guy.

He liked camping, fishing,
going on motorcycle rides.

He'd throw me on the back
and drive me around
the mountains

and stuff like that.

My best childhood memories
of my dad,

was when I got into
Go-Kart racing

and building Go-Karts,
and he was really good at it.

You got an adjustable hub
on the axle.

You can't adjust
the engine hub--

you can't adjust that hub
on the axle.

You know,
he was really good
at mechanics

and building things,

and that was really fun,
you know?

And a lot of it was
just sitting in the backyard,

you know, working on things,
and talking, and hanging out.

While Lee and his
family mourned Cody's death,

Ulisa had some
explaining to do.

For more than a year,
she'd insisted

Cody was very much alive.

Could this seemingly
sweet lady

be hiding something
about Cody's death?

They were stunned when
Ulisa eventually admitted

she was with Cody
when he died.

Ulisa proceeded to tell me

that Cody had died
of natural causes,

that his pacemaker
had kept going off.

She had begged him to let her
call the rescue squad,

but he wouldn't allow that,

and sometime during the night,
he passed away.

She said that
he was so adamant

that he didn't want
the government involved
in his life,

and as respect to him,
she did not do that.

Ulisa had lied for
so many months,

but investigators
had to consider the fact

she was genuinely trying
to honor Cody's wishes.

Even if Cody did die
of natural causes,

Ulisa still had a much
bigger issue to address.

How did his body wind up
in the backyard well?

She said at that point
the problem she had

was that he laid in
the bedroom for a day or two,

but his dog kept scratching
at the door.

and that was getting
nerve-wracking.

She eventually wrapped him
in a sleeping bag

and drug him out
to the shed out back.

She said at that point,
she did cover him with lime,

and the reason you cover
a body with lime

is to cut the smell way down.

We didn't know what to think.

It was just bizarre.

Ulisa's story about covering
Cody's body with lime

is so strange,
investigators wonder
if it could actually be true.

Nonetheless,
Detective Carlton had to pose

the obvious question
that had yet to be asked.

I said,
"This is your chance
to come clean."

I said,
"Did you kill him?"

Nearly a year and a half
after disappearing,

investigators found
the body of Cody Bowles

floating in
his backyard well.

And the folks
in Louisa County, Virginia,
were beside themselves

when they heard
his girlfriend Ulisa Chavers

was being questioned
in his bizarre death.

The story that was getting
talked about

in the coffee shops
around Luisa County,

what everybody
was gossiping about is

"Why would his girlfriend
throw his body down a well?"

You don't know exactly
what's going on,

and so it's a very weird
emotional situation to be in.

Because
I never knew before that
if she was capable of that.

You don't know
what people are capable of.

After lying to investigators
for so long,

Ulisa finally fessed up to
being with Cody when he died,

and to dragging his body
to the backyard.

But did she kill him?

She just kept emphasizing
that it was natural causes,

that she had not killed him.

After he died, Ulisa admitted

she took Cody's body
to the shed on the property.

I did go out in the shed,

and lo and behold,

there was an imprint
the size of a body

and lime all around it.

So how did Cody's body
get from the shed to the well?

Ulisa claimed when
investigators initially
came to the house

before Christmas in 2008
asking questions,

she naturally got nervous.

She was so afraid that they
were going to find

the body at that time.

When they left, she knew
she had to move that body.

So, I put him back
in the little trailer

and opened it up
and took him down to the--
to the well.

And that's when she got
a little riding lawnmower

and a little trailer
behind it

and put the body in that.

Tell us about
what happened after.

Now, Ulisa's deadly
secret is out.

Clearly,
she'd been covering up

a tremendous amount
for a very long time.

What else was
she covering and why?

She was collecting
his social security

for over a year.

Collecting Cody's
social security was illegal,

but it certainly
didn't prove murder.

We still didn't know
what had killed Cody Bowles.

The medical examiner
was going to have to

determine the cause of death.

I didn't have anything to do
with his heart failing on him.

She stuck pretty much
to the same story

and she was being cooperative.

Determined not
to let Ulisa walk,

investigators arrested her
for social security fraud

and improperly disposing
of Cody's body.

Whether it was murder
or whether he passed away,

it made us so mad because
the disrespectful manner

of just treating him
like he's a piece of trash,

you know,
and discarding him.

I knew she would be
arraigned the next morning.

I set up with my camera crew
in back of the courthouse

where we knew they'd be
leading her from a patrol car

into the courthouse
for her hearing.

Can you tell us why your
boyfriend was in that well?

Do you know how he got there?

You could just see
the light bulbs

going off behind her eyes,
watch her expression change

like she was searching
for the right answer

but didn't know what to say.

I was thinking,
this is a cold woman.

Chavers is due back
in court on Friday.

By then investigators
hope to know

just how her boyfriend died.

Three days after
pulling his decomposed body
from the well,

Cody's toxicology results
came back,

and investigators received
quite a shock.

Cody had a high level

of benztropine in his body.

In fact, it was four times
a lethal limit.

Benztropine,
it's basically used for
Parkinson's disease.

The problem was,

Cody Bowles didn't suffer
from Parkinson's.

In my mind,
it did raise a red flag

that he didn't die naturally.

But we still don't know
if he was poisoned,

or did he self-ingest that,
or how did that happen?

We had a lot of
circumstantial evidence,

but there's a long road
between probable cause

and beyond
a reasonable doubt.

Convinced Ulisa
was hiding something
about Cody's death,

investigators pored
through records

to see if anything
in her past

would prove she was a devious
and deadly woman.

That's when I was talking
to Lieutenant Porter

and saying
we really need to go back

and look at all her
relationships--

past boyfriends, past husbands,
anything like that.

Lieutenant Porter
and Carlton Johnson

came over to my office.

They said that
Ulisa's first husband

Clint Chavers
had died about 15 years ago.

Clint Chavers was
a military veteran.

They got married and then
eventually moved to Virginia.

Clint hurt his leg
jumping off of a truck.

He suffered from diabetes
and had lost his leg.

What investigators
learned next was shocking.

She was still collecting
his social security.

Investigators
tracked down the couple's
daughter Teresa,

who shared quite
a peculiar story.

When she was in high school
back in 1994,

she got a call from her mom

saying not to come home
from school,

stay the weekend
at a friend's house.

And then when
she came home after that,

what was strange was
the house was very clean.

It had an odor of bleach,
which was unusual.

Ulisa told her at the time

that her father
had passed away

and the veteran's
administration

sent a rescue squad out,

and they had him cremated.

Teresa said
her mother told her

that the VA had come

and taken the body away
so quickly

that there was no time
for the funeral.

And, you know,
being a teenage girl,

she believed whatever
her mother told her.

The extraordinary
coincidences in Ulisa's life

spoke volumes
to investigators,

who immediately tried
to corroborate Teresa's story.

First thing we did was
we contacted the VA,

and they had
no records of it.

They don't have
rescue squads,

they don't go out
to people's houses,

and they don't
cremate anybody.

Now, it's like
our heads are spinning.

In 2009, investigators
in Louisa County, Virginia,

suspected Ulisa Chavers
may have been behind

the death of her boyfriend
Cody Bowles,

and had charged her
with illegally disposing
of his body.

The deadly web
got more tangled

when they learned Ulisa
was married to another man

who mysteriously died
15 years ago.

This case had such
bizarre facts.

A body in the backyard
down a well,

social security money
from two dead men

was still going in
to Ulisa's account.

This was salacious.

Investigators just confirmed

the body of Ulisa's
former husband Clint Chavers

wasn't picked up
and cremated by the VA

like she claimed
to her daughter it had been.

We got lie, after lie,
after lie.

So we're getting quite a pile.

We all basically said
at the same time,

"I think we have
another body."

So once again,
we bring Ulisa in

to the interview room
and sit down with her.

And as always, she's very calm
and very polite.

I explain to her, you know,
what we found out,

what we believe,
that she had killed her husband.

And at first she denied that
she had done anything to Clint.

She kept saying that
we were barking up
the wrong tree,

and kept denying, denying.

Far too familiar with this
twisted song and dance,

investigators kept pressing.

At some point,
eventually she said that
he had been quite ill

and she took care of him
for six or seven years.

But then she says,
"Clint died of natural causes."

Just like she did with Cody,
Ulisa calmly explained

why she didn't report
the death of her husband.

She wanted
the social security money

'cause she felt like
she deserved it

'cause she spent so many years
taking care of him.

Investigators knew
there was more

to this outlandish story,

and invited Ulisa to detail
exactly what happened

to her former husband.

She said that she had
buried him in the backyard

in the flower garden.

So I gave her a legal pad.

She drew a picture
of the house

and the flower bed,
and put an X

where she buried the body.

Ulisa told us that the body
would be wrapped

in a striped sheet.

It was just
one of those "wow" moments.

It's just like,
what is going on?

This case is just getting
even more and more bizarre.

We went back out
with the same cadaver dog,

basically the same crew,
down to Amelia County.

I was at work and I got a text
from a law enforcement source

who told me,
"We're gonna be searching

for another body
tied to Ulisa Chavers,"
so I hit the road.

Shocking developments
in the case of a body

found in
a Louisa County well.

Authorities now looking
for another body.

This time it's
the suspect's husband

and it's in another county.

We got out there shortly
after law enforcement arrived.

I'm thinking,
"Here we got again.

I wonder if they've got a well
in the backyard."

I'm standing about
20 yards away

from where investigators
are digging.

They let us stand
in the side yard there

and watch them
as the day progressed.

And all of a sudden,
it got quiet.

The dog was hitting
on something.

And then all attention
went into this one area.

We were digging.

The first thing we hit
was a cinderblock,

and next to the cinderblock
was a sheet that was striped.

The sheet was just
as Ulisa described.

Unbelievably enough,
she led investigators

straight to Clint's body.

Suddenly, they find the body
in the flower bed

wrapped up in a sheet.

We're talking skeletal remains
at this point.

But we knew we were gonna be
looking for a skeleton

that's gonna be missing a leg

because Clint
had lost his leg.

We were relieved when
we brought the body out

that it was missing a leg.

What shocked us was

he wasn't supposed to be
missing his head.

And his head was gone.

In a stunning turn of events,

Ulisa Chavers just led
investigators

straight to
the headless corpse

of her former husband Clint.

He was buried in the backyard

of the home
they used to share.

As a reporter, I'm going,
"What do you mean

the body didn't have a head?"

The body didn't have a head.

I'm thinking there's no way.
No way.

So once again, we bring Ulisa
in to the Sheriff's office,

into the interview room.
We told her, we said,

"Ulisa, where's the head?
The head's missing."

And she goes,
"Yes, the head's missing."

She told us that
she had initially buried
Clint Shaver's body.

And then about a year later,

she had decided to move away
from that residence.

But she didn't think it was
a good idea to leave the body

buried in the backyard,

so she decided
she's gonna dig Clint up

and dispose of the body
somewhere else.

One time a neighbor
almost came over.

Another time, somebody came
to read the electric meter

and it was scaring her
that somebody was going to

discover her with a corpse.

Eventually,
Ulisa took the head

and she just threw it away.

She threw it in the landfill.

Who does that?

With two appalling
confessions

that she deliberately
covered up

the deaths of her husband
and boyfriend,

investigators were convinced
that she murdered them, too.

But could they prove it?

At this point,
we do have two bodies,

but not enough to charge
for murder on either corpse.

So we charged her with fraud

as far stealing
his social security benefits,

and illegal disposal
of a body.

After the body was removed
from the gravesite,

it was taken to
the medical examiner's office
in Richmond.

Because it had been 15 years,

they were not able
to determine a cause of death.

Detective Johnson
was concerned

the autopsy wouldn't
produce any evidence

pointing to murder.

But then,
a small bit of hope.

What looked like pieces
of rock to me,

he goes,
"Here's three pieces
of facial bone."

Hoping the fragments
could be a vital clue,

detectives contacted
a doctor at the Smithsonian

who agreed to examine
the bones of Clint Chavers.

They are experts
at interpreting

all types of things
about remains, bones.

They have expertise
beyond what our

medical examiner's office had.

So, we were hoping that
they were going to be able

to help us determine
the cause of death.

Three days after
unearthing the remains
of Clint Chavers,

Detective Johnson received
the most critical tip yet.

The Smithsonian Institute
was able to determine

that those bones were subject
to blunt force trauma

at the time of death.

The way they were
cracked were consistent

with being blown out.

And in his opinion,

it's consistent
with the skull being shot.

We believe that Ulisa
shot him in the head.

After we got the report
back from the Smithsonian,

we were able to place
a murder charge against
Ulisa Chavers.

After 15 years,

they finally had Ulisa
for killing Clint.

But would she ever
face justice

for murdering Cody Bowles?

I felt like she should have been
hogtied for what she did,

but there's
an investigation process

that they're going through.

We felt certain that she had
murdered both men,

and we wanted her
to go to prison
the rest of her life.

In 2009,
Ulisa Chavers was charged

with the grisly
dismemberment and murder

of her former husband
Clint Chavers.

And investigators suspected
she killed her boyfriend, too.

Well, at this point
no one knew

if this was truly a murder.

There weren't any
obvious signs of trauma

on Cody Bowles body when
investigators pulled him up

out of the well.

And Ulisa was telling
investigators,

"I didn't shoot him
and I didn't stab him.

He died of natural causes."

Investigators knew
Cody had a lethal dose

of benztropine in his system
when he died,

a medication
for Parkinson's--

a disease Cody didn't have,

just like they knew
he had a heart problem

and wore a pacemaker.

We discovered that
a pacemaker is very similar

to a black box in
an airplane.

That there's a memory,
and they can actually tell

the date and time
that you died.

And they can also tell

whenever that
pacemaker goes off

and is being used.

Did Cody Bowles die
of natural causes

as Ulisa claimed?

Or like Clint,

did he meet
an unseemly demise?

It turned out there
was no serious activations

like Ulisa told us.

It proved that the story
that Ulisa gave us,

that there was
a cardiac issue

the night that he passed away,

was just another one
of her lies.

With all the evidence we have

and all the lies
that she's told us,

this was as good as
the investigation was gonna get

and it was time
to charge Ulisa

with killing Cody Bowles.

Ulisa Chavers was
absolutely a black widow.

She poisoned
her live-in boyfriend,

had him out in the shed,

covered his body in lime,

eventually
threw him down a well.

Meanwhile, she's got
a dead husband

whose head she's chopped off

in the flower bed
of another home.

It was so bizarre.

As they prepared their case
against Ulisa Chavers,

investigators gained
a clear understanding

into the motivation
of their black widow.

You have a combination
of probably anger and greed.

Cody had talked about
maybe moving out west,

but he wasn't talking
about taking Ulisa with him.

And I think
Ulisa became angry,

so she went ahead
and poisoned him.

What I think happened
to Clint Chavers
as far as Ulisa,

was once again,
she had taken care of a man

that was in a wheelchair
for six or seven years,

and was just sick
and tired of it

and wanted some relief
from that.

But also the motive of,
if he's gone

I can still collect
his money.

And I think Ulisa just woke up
one morning and had enough,

and I think she probably used
his own gun and shot him.

And then disposed of his body.

In December 2010,

62-year-old Ulisa Chavers
was scheduled to stand trial

for the murder
of Cody Bowles.

Today, multiple murder
suspect Ulisa Chavers

claimed she's innocent,
pleading not guilty.

Ulisa, is there anything
you'd like to say?

No comment today
for our cameras.

Ulisa Chavers made
an Alford Plea,

and an Alford plea
is basically saying that

they maintain their innocence,

but there is
enough evidence to convict.

A judge sentenced
Ulisa Chavers to 73 years

for the murders of Cody Bowles
and Clint Chavers.

Ulisa Chavers will be
100 years old

before she's even eligible
to apply for parole.

A.J. Lagoe, 8 News.

For Cody's son Lee,

it's small justice
to see the woman

who took so much
from so many

ultimately confess so little.

In the end,
she still won't admit

that she killed
or did anything wrong.

We all know she did.
Evidence shows that she did.

I'm just glad
that she's in there

for the rest of her life,
and there's no opportunity

for her to do this
to somebody else.

This is the craziest case
I've ever had.

Two deaths
attributed to one person
over so many years?

Finding them buried
in the backyard? It's crazy.

The only emotion that
I ever saw from Ulisa,

which I thought
was quite remarkable,

was at one point I saw her
shed a single tear.

And she looked at me
and said that jail is hard.

But nothing compares
to living life

without the people
you love most.

I have
a three-year-old daughter,

and I'd like for her
to know her grandfather,

even though she never had
a chance to meet him.

I'd like to kind of instill
some of the values in her

that he gave to me,
and just tell her

that even though
he died tragically,
that's not his whole life.

And I'd just like
to let her understand
that life is short,

and, you know,
that he would have wished

he could have been there
to meet her.