Blood and Money on Horseshoe Bay

0:09Charlie White was bigger than life. The way he carried himself, his enthusiasm, his come on let's go. He had a zest for life. He always wore a huge smile. My name is Kathy Hastings, and I was a friend of Charlie White's. Charlie White on the jet plane. He had his own jet and his own pilot. He loved the Cowboys. Charlie was in the top three or four of the longest season ticket holders. He loved the Mavericks. $500 seats. He knew all the players. He watched their points. It was his love. He lived in a million dollar home on the waterfront. Charlie was a very successful person in life. He was a self-made millionaire.

0:51He was a playboy. He fancied himself as being a ladies man. He loved being around beautiful women. He loved looking at women. There's no crime against having girlfriends in the United States of America to my knowledge. Well, the three times I had sex with him, it was the worst I've ever had in my life. Hi, Jordan. Charlie was a very likable person by first impression. Hi, baby. But once you got to know him, he became a very evil person. They have absolutely no clue who Charlie White is. They know one side of him. I know both. I'm Adrian Ramos, a friend of the White family. How much time did you serve?

1:32Serving? I don't think a lot of people really saw what Charlie was like. Condescending, nasty, vile. I don't owe you any money yet, mother. Very cruel.

1:58He did the wrong thing at the wrong time on the wrong day. And somebody had had enough, and they weren't going to take it anymore. This was not a robbery or a burglary that went wrong. Charlie was badly battered about the face and head.

2:17Had an extension cord wrapped a number of times around his throat. I think that Charlie White brought all this upon himself. With his lifestyle and his attitudes and arrogance, we probably had an uphill battle to try to determine which of his enemies might have done this to him. A lot of people didn't like Charlie White. Sleeping with someone's wife or daughter or girlfriend. He wasn't very nice to people. And it got him in the end. He was our good friend. And nobody, nobody deserves to die the way he did.

2:57Blood and Money on Horseshoe Bay. Tonight's 48 Hours Mystery.

3:16In the Texas Hill Country just outside Austin sits a little piece of paradise called Horseshoe Bay. Nice place, huh? Beautiful place. I think it's one of the most beautiful places in the world. Police Chief Bill Lane has patrolled these waterways for the past nine years. It's a laid back but fun-loving community. What's it like to be police chief here? I've died and gone to heaven. All around us are signs of wealth, success, and ultimately happiness. These are people who are living a good life. That's correct. Nobody came to Horseshoe Bay to be miserable. But the serenity of this tranquil setting was shattered in November 2005 when police were dispatched to the lakeside mansion of one of its most colorful, eccentric citizens, millionaire Charlie White.

4:10We felt the night that we found the body that this could be a very broad investigation. So Chief Lane turned to a legendary band of lawmen, the Texas Rangers. Veteran Ranger Joey Gordon. We had to go through the area between the house and this fence. You eventually enter this house with an officer with a video camera. Yes, sir. Fix and make entry into the residence. What did you see as you made your way downstairs? It looked very orderly. There was nothing out of place. But as we entered into the living room, we began to detect the odor of a decomposing body. It was clear to Ranger Gordon that Charlie White had been brutally beaten.

4:51We found that his ribs had been broke. He had received several blows into the jaw and head area. Gordon believes this liquor bottle was used to smash Charlie's face. To knock a tooth completely out and across a body and halfway across a room takes significant amount of force. Somebody had beaten the hell out of Charlie White. It sure did appear so, yes, sir. An extension cord was also found wrapped several times around Charlie White's neck. What ultimately was the cause of Charlie White's death? The ME's office listed blood force trauma and strangulation as the cause of death. I couldn't believe it.

5:30Charlie's friends, Roseanne and Jerome Davis, Carol Noble, Liz Tabor, and Kathy Turner soon learned of Charlie's fate. It was horrible. We live in this beautiful community. These things aren't supposed to happen. They're not supposed to happen. They said, it's Charlie. He's gone. I wailed. I wailed. I called Liz. I could tell by her voice. I just knew that he was called. He was just a very, very good man and a lot of fun. And I miss his spirit. It was hard to imagine that this larger-than-life man was gone. Well, hello, Charles White. Besides his friends, Charlie White left behind a family and an ex-wife.

6:24I wanted to go to college, but I guess I wanted to marry him more. Gerda was 16 when she first met Charlie at his military school prom. He was tall and good-looking. We danced once. I went home and told my parents that I had met the man I wanted to marry. Charlie and Gerda went on to have five children. Darren was the youngest. A lot of the memories came from his little league coaching. I was a 7-year-old on an 8-year-old team. I remember one game where he sent me into the middle of the line with all the big kids, and that was quite fun. And I came back with a big grin on my face. Charlie made his fortune building a profitable chain of beauty schools throughout the Southwest.

7:11He was a hard-working person. It didn't just happen for him. He wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But the more successful he became, the more his marriage began to unravel. Do you have any fond memories of your mother and father together as a married couple living in the same house? Not really. Not one? No. It's been a sad life. So no one was surprised when in 1975, Charlie and Gerda got a divorce. But far more serious tragedy was about to unfold. That same year, their 11-year-old daughter was struck by a car and eventually died. And in 2001, another son committed suicide. Charlie White's friends say he never got over losing those two children.

8:02He talked at length about each and every one of his children. And I'm like, this man has a huge heart, and he's been hurt deeply. But Charlie moved on, eventually retiring to a life of leisure and luxury. He's just gregarious, wonderful, happy. This is him 99 % of the time. There was not enough time in a day to do everything Charlie wanted to do. Time for the games and fun to begin. What were Charlie's passions in life? Women. Money, sports, and women. Some of those women, Kathy Hastings says, were dates. Many others were paid to party. High-priced prostitutes. I know he hired hookers. How do you know that?

8:53He told me. Charlie would have sex with one girl on Thursday, and maybe on the weekend he'd have sex with someone else. And he didn't keep it a secret. There were some unsavory women in his life. Yes, there were. No one's denying that. Would you say that Charlie White lived on the edge? Absolutely. A lifestyle that some people would say is risky? I would consider it risky. Police wondered if that risky lifestyle could have something to do with his murder. It could be that a hooker deal gone bad. Maybe the prostitute or the pimp took revenge on Charlie. At the crime scene, investigators continued piecing together the evidence.

9:34He had a briefcase that he kept a lot of his business papers in. and this briefcase was opened and dumped on top of his body. Papers on his body? Yes, sir. That's very strange, isn't it? Yes, sir. Somebody's making a statement with those papers. Could it be a bad business deal? And then there was another tantalizing clue found inside Charlie White's chest, this defibrillator, which monitors and regulates the heart. This is the actual device that was in Charlie White. Nick Lubbers works for Boston Scientific, the manufacturer of Charlie White's defibrillator. I've established communication between my computer and Charlie White's defibrillator.

10:12So basically what this device can tell us is what Charlie White's heart was going through at the time of this attack and when it was going through it. Absolutely. This is the picture of what his heart was doing at the time. The heart was in a normal rhythm. The device detects that it is now in an unstable rhythm and it needs to treat it. It delivers its first shock. Boom, right here. Charlie White got shocked eight times during this episode. There was nothing it could do to save Charlie White. Charlie White died at 9.38 p.m. November 11, 2005. I've never had a murder case where we could determine the exact month, day, hour, and moment that a person died.

10:59This information, coupled with credit card receipts found at the crime scene, placed Charlie at this Walmart just two hours before his death. This is Charlie exiting the vehicle, coming across the parking lot, going into the Walmart store. And the tape revealed he wasn't alone. When that second individual got out of the car, our hearts started beating faster. We said, bingo, we have got someone with Charlie just prior to his death. We absolutely have to identify who this person is.

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12:52That's real good when they answer you. Texas cattleman Jerome Davis typically keeps his emotions to himself, except when it comes to his good friend, Charlie White. It broke my heart. It broke my heart to know that the reason he's gone was not at the hands of God. It was the hands of someone else. But Adrian Ramos, a White family friend for more than 25 years, Did you have a good night, Charlie? It was a great night. Says Charlie had a darker side. He's a son of a bitch. Anybody that knew both sides of Charlie White knew he was an evil person. Adrian witnessed firsthand the other Charlie at a golf tournament just outside Austin.

13:47Typical Charlie White behavior. That would definitely be a ticket to jail. Adrian provided 48 hours with photos of the event. It was sponsored by a strip club, and they had the dancers out there basically running around the course, topless. Charlie had invited some business associates and friends to join him, where the term foursome took on a whole new meaning. What were these women doing? A lot of things that they shouldn't have been.

14:26Including having repeated sex with Charlie White. I've seen Charlie giving girls oral sex. I've seen girls giving Charlie oral sex. On the golf course? On the golf course.

14:41The strippers and exotic dancers on the golf course were just a small sampling of the women in Charlie White's social life. After he died, police discovered a list of more than 1 ,000 such women, complete with Charlie's own handwritten descriptions. He had no respect for women. Adrian claims Charlie was also an alcoholic. When he drank, it was a different person. Charlie just got mean. I mean, you did not want to get in his way when he was upset. He would be very intimidating. And threatening. As he once was with Adrian Ramos's brother after the two began arguing on the deck of Charlie's house.

15:33Charlie had walked into the house, grabbed a shotgun, loaded it, and started pointing it around. You're joking. True story. He pointed that shotgun at everybody there. And what was he saying? I'm going to kill you. He was basically directing that towards my brother. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, here's how you do it. Charlie's youngest son, Darren, defused the situation by taking the gun away from his father. Nice one, Charlie. Adrian says it was Charlie's drunkenness and temper that ultimately ended their friendship. There were a lot of people that wished Charles White dead. I used to dream of doing it.

16:13I'm going to be really honest. But I never had the nerve. Charlie's ex-wife, Gerda, says living with Charlie was a living nightmare. I don't know how you could supposedly love somebody and call them the names that I was called throughout marriage. Those things stick in your mind, and you have very low self-esteem. Gerda says Charlie could also be cruel with his children. He seemed to find a certain bliss in taking the kids back to the bedroom and beating them with a belt. But no one, she says, endured more pain and humiliation than Darren, who lived on and off with his father right up until his death.

17:00It seems like all he knew how to do was bitch and moan and criticize and destroy people. So what do you think about Darren when you think of your father? Extremely violent. It wasn't a father and son relationship. It was a son that was terrified of his father. This is Darcy, Darren's ex-girlfriend. I saw times when Charlie would slap Darren on the head and tell him he was a no-good piece of crap, basically. And he would just kind of cower and walk away. Darcy says Darren was the polar opposite of Charlie. He's just the most kind, sweet, gentle person I've ever met. He was just an easygoing guy.

17:59But it was Darren's easygoing attitude that became a major source of friction between him and his hard-charging, ambitious father. Were you a disappointment in your father's eyes? I think because I didn't graduate college, I might have been looked upon as that. Darcy says Charlie enjoyed abusing and embarrassing Darren. Everything Darren did, he would put him down. Over and over? Over and over. Every day? Every day. It's like somebody yelling at you to the point where you think they're about to have a heart attack. On a day in, day out basis, what would he say to you? Give me some examples of how he treated you.

18:47You dumbass son of a bitch, you're just like your mother. And God, it just goes on and on like that, but it's so much louder. Darren had difficulty holding down a job and spent his time jockeying back and forth between parents. The older he got, the more he relied on his father. That's when, he says, he became more of a servant than a son. It was just the most degrading human being I've ever heard of. Darren says he was charged with making sure all his father's needs were fulfilled. It was just like I was a supplier of his girls. Charlie and Darren would go to a bar and Darren would be the one that would have to pick up the women.

19:44Darren was young and good looking and it made him sick. He was pimping in a way for his death. The way Darren tells it, no woman was off limits. Even Darren's own girlfriends. Are you telling me your father had sex with some of your girlfriends? Mm-hmm. Yeah, but he didn't get my favorite. He didn't get Darcy. Right. He tried, though. Yes, he did. Charlie asked me if I would have a threesome with him and Darren. That is just beyond creepy. What did you say to him? I said no. First I thought he was joking, and he wasn't joking, and I told Darren. And what was Darren's reaction? He was just, he was sick.

20:38He's just a sorry excuse for a human being. Darren's troubled relationship with his father caught the eye of authorities. At the scene, what was Charlie's friends telling investigators? Well, they were telling us that we sure needed to be looking at Darren.

21:08As the murder investigation unfolds, authorities were narrowing in on one man, Charlie's youngest son, Darren. The information about Darren White put him front and foremost. So Texas Ranger Joey Gordon decided to reach out to Darren, who voluntarily came in. D-A-R-I-N? Yes, sir. He was very cordial, but he was protective. I told him, the ball's in your lap. What do you want to do? After about an hour of questioning, Darren revealed he was with his father at the Walmart that night. It turns out Darren is that mystery man on the video. That is correct, yes, sir. What followed was a remarkable story.

21:56Darren admitted that after returning home, he and his father got into an argument. He tells me that his dad then began to swing at him, and that he then, in his words, where I had to respond. He threw, uh, just threw everything at me. Cases of beer and just everything that was in his vicinity started just coming at me. Did he hit you? Yeah, he was hitting me. As he was throwing, he tried to bulldoze me on his way to the playroom where the guns are kept. And that's when I started trying to keep him from going there. Where were you hitting him? Pretty much everywhere I could. Fists were flying. Your fists?

22:45All of our fists. Is it your belief that he would have killed you that night?

22:53Absolutely. Without a doubt.

23:00Did you pick up anything and hit your father? One of the last things I did, about an inch or so left in the bottle, I gave him one last drink as I was knocking his teeth out with it. The next thing I knew I was getting an extension cord out of the garage. So I tied him around just his leg and just wrapped it around the sofa. So if he did get up, he'd just trip or something. And then I decided that it looked better around his neck. I put my foot on one end of it and put my foot on the other end of it. and I wrapped it probably five or six times around his neck. What was your father doing while you wrapped this cord around his neck?

23:59Bleeding. He kept reaching up at me, trying to scratch me and grab a hold of my arm. Can you imagine what he went through as he watched his own son end his life?

24:19Yeah. And the thing that I get to remember is the last thing he did say was, son, I do love you.

24:31So I'll have that for the rest of my life to remember, too.

24:37Darren then walked upstairs and went to bed.

24:44The next morning, Darren drove to his mother's home in New Mexico. I got up and immediately went and hugged her. So you can feel my heart beating. It's just like being in another world. I think my son just told me he killed his dad.