Deadly Detour

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1:12He was rich. She was richer. The lawyer and the tycoon. Lavish didn't begin to describe it. Diane was very flamboyant. She was the life of the party. A good mix of wealth and power. They knew how to live life. Then came that deadly night. I hear a big explosion. I just knew immediately that I had to get out of there. A single gunshot, and she was gone. Couldn't cry. The love of my life. You said Tex was emotional and distraught. Yes. He's never been the same since. What happened in that dark SUV? And what was hiding beneath the surface? I was trying to cover up something. It just took my breath away.

1:55She said, I cannot trust anyone else. Power and privilege, love and greed. She was in control of the money. This had to be an intentional act. Did a secret lead to murder? I just looked at him and I said, I can't lie. All that glitters is not actually gold. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline.

2:27All they wanted was to get home, turning off the interstate, to escape the crawling Atlanta traffic. He says, girls, this is the wrong place. We don't need to be here. This is a bad idea. It's still hard to fathom what happened next or why. I was trying to figure out where the explosion was. But here's what's pretty clear. One wrong turn really can destroy your life. To think that one moment in time you have an accident and you lose everything after that. Our story begins and ends with her, Diane McIver. Nobody knows her better than Danny Jo Carter. Oh, she's beautiful. She's funny. She's brilliant.

3:14And she was driven. Oh, she's very driven. Diane was born in Auburn, Alabama, where she survived a sad and difficult childhood. She realized her dreams in Atlanta, a place that matched her ambition. What was she looking for? She was looking for success. Diane was barely out of high school when she went to work at U.S. Enterprises, a company in Atlanta. She was a bookkeeper, but soon caught the eye of her boss, Billy Corey. There were some people that were working there that weren't really doing their jobs, and she told him that she could do her job and their job. And what happened? I think he fired them and she did their job.

3:51It was back in the 80s when Danny Joe and Diane first teamed up, best friends and confidants. Danny Joe was a cosmetologist with a front row seat to Diane's brilliant career. She loved crunching numbers and along with Billy Corey, I think she learned how to wheel and deal. She rose through the ranks and with her boss's blessing, became president of the company, hiring, firing and calling the shots. She would say, I don't want to hear about the labor pains, just show me the baby. Jay Grover was a vice president at Diane's company. When she started in business here in Atlanta, there were not a ton of female executives.

4:34No, absolutely. And I think that's one of the things that really set Diane apart. I mean, she was a woman in a man's world. She had a big personality, loved clothes, furs, hats, and kids. although she never had any of her own. She survived one bad marriage and was in her 50s when she met Tex McIver. He was self-made too, a military brat from San Antonio who earned a rep in Atlanta as a labor lawyer and a champion of Republican candidates. He had great relationships. He had everybody's direct dial and mobile number. Bill Crane is a political commentator and public relations consultant in Atlanta and a longtime friend of Texas.

5:18Tex always described as a gentleman. He was a gentleman, he is a gentleman, both in terms of that old courtly ship manners and standing when a lady enters the room. Tex was divorced too. That's how he ended up living in the same condo complex as Diane. They started going out. She said she enjoyed talking to him, but he was too short and he was too old. Obviously she got over that. It didn't hurt that he had this ranch east of Atlanta. It was nice enough back when Tex first bought it, but it was fabulous after Diane got through with it. It had a pool, a gun range, ponds, horses, a saloon, and some Texas longhorn cattle.

6:00That's Diane. They were there a lot. Diane was a great hostess. She was the life of the party. Soon, Tex and Diane decided to make it permanent, and a wedding date was set. November 5, 2005, at the ranch. Everyone at the rehearsal could tell this wedding would be over the top. And it was. It looked like something out of a Disney movie. Sheriff Howard Sills was on the guest list. There were hundreds of people here, people of all aspects of society here. They'd both been married before and decided, this time, to keep finances separate. Nearly a year later, their lives were blessed with a little boy.

6:50Sort of. A couple of friends asked Tex and Diane to be godparents to their baby, named Austin. Diane's assistant, Terry Brown, says Diane would do anything for that little boy. He was the sun for her, the moon and the sun, I guess, the stars. He was the whole thing. It's all about Austin. That was never more obvious than at the birthday bashes she and Tex threw for Austin, an annual exercise in excess. We love you very much, don't we, darling? Yes, forever and ever. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. I love you. Three weeks after Austin's 10th birthday, Tex and Diane with their friend Danny Joe were headed home after a weekend at the ranch.

7:38They were driving a King Ranch Ford Expedition, virtually identical to this one, and they made a short stop for dinner. It was September 25, 2016, the day everything changed. After dinner, they headed for home, a trip of about 45 minutes. Tex and Diane had had a little wine at dinner, so Danny Joe drove. Diane sat next to Danny Joe here in the front seat, and Tex was right behind Diane in the back seat. and off they went. Well, we headed on into Atlanta on I-20 and as we got off of 20 to get onto the connector, it was just eight lanes of brake lights. Danny Jo says Tex was dozing in the back seat as the two women decided to get off the interstate to avoid the traffic.

8:28As we're riding down the ramp, Tex becomes fully awake, I guess, and he looks around and he says, girls, I really wish you hadn't done this. This is a bad idea. This is a bad area. That's when Tex McIver made a request of his wife. And Tex said, darling, will you hand me my gun? Tex regularly kept a gun in that car. It was right in the center console, a Smith & Wesson.38 caliber revolver. And so she reaches down and gets it and hands it back to him. A plastic bag. In minutes, they were out of the sketchy area and moving up Piedmont Avenue to the cushier parts of Midtown. Everything was normal, unremarkable.

9:16We were talking about politics and the debates. And what is Tex doing? He wasn't really talking. I'd kind of, I thought that he'd gone back to sleep. They were at Piedmont and 14th Street. So we were just sitting there still waiting for the light to turn. and I hear a big explosion. Within seconds, Diane turned around toward the back and said, Tex, what did you do? He say anything? He said the gun discharged. Then she started moving forward and she kind of turned around and she was moving funny and she said, Tex, you shot me. When we come back. Tex was calling her name and she was kind of breathing panicky.

10:04He said there's been an accident. What happened in that SUV? The questions began. I was handling the gun. I didn't realize it was in my lap. I'm going to cry. The love of my life. When Dateline continues.

10:29Danny Joe Carter's best friend Diane had just been shot right at Piedmont and 14th in Midtown Atlanta. What was crazy, impossible to understand, was that the shooter was Diane's own husband, Tex, sitting right behind Diane in their SUV. She started making these noises that I'd never heard before, and I thought I was hearing her die. A street sign pointed the way to Emory University Hospital. Tex told Danny Jo to head there. Tex was calling her name, and he leaned forward and kind of grabbed her head, and she was kind of breathing panicky. They arrived at Emory. That's Tex in the red shirt. Hospital personnel heard him yelling gunshot, and Diane went into the ER.

11:20Less than an hour later, a doctor came out to tell Tex and Danny Joe that Diane was alert. And she said that Diane had spoken and that her heart was strong. They had taken her up to surgery. By then, police had arrived. They wanted to talk to Danny Joe outside. They wanted to drive the route. Oh, they drove the route with you right then? Yes. Then they took her to headquarters for questioning. She told the police what happened in the car. He woke up and I guess he had it in his hand and he just pulled the trigger. As she sat there, Danny Jo was still thinking Diane was going to be okay. But then...

12:06They had gotten a call and they both left the room. I was sitting alone. And then I get this text from my husband that Diana died.

12:34It turned out the gunshot wound through Diane's back was catastrophic. The blood loss, too great. And I was devastated. I was, I couldn't believe it. Diane McIver, so much larger than life in so many ways, was suddenly gone. Tex called me in the early hours of the morning and he said, there's been an accident and we've lost Diane. Dixie Martin, Tex's sister. How long until you realized that the accident involved something that he had done? later in the conversation. And he was very emotional on the phone. I mean, we were both crying. What was it like to break that news to people at the office?

13:20It was heartbreaking. Diane's company put her picture up on their landmark tower in Atlanta. All the while, police were trying to figure out what exactly had happened in that car that night. Three days after the shooting, Tex and his attorney Steve Maples went to answer their questions. Maples offered a preview. His only recollection is he had the brown paper bag, I mean plastic bag, and he's holding it down like this. He said he didn't play with the hammer. He didn't pull it back to full cock. This is Tex's attorney saying the gun wasn't cocked. You'll want to remember that part. Tex himself entered shortly after and went over the whole story, explaining why he was so scared on that drive he felt he needed his gun.

14:14We went through an area I thought that was particularly dangerous. At night, I'd seen police vehicles there. It's a route I take from my office to her office. That's one that has a particularly high population of homeless people. Okay. And I quickly said, this is a big mistake and we're in a place that we don't belong. That, Tech said, is when he asked for the gun. A few minutes later, the threat seemed to pass, and Tech said he fell back asleep. Anyway, I'm just, just time to wake up. But she came to a stop, and I was handling the gun. I realized it was in my lap, right? And it went off. He seemed emotional, as he recalled how doctors told him his wife was dead.

15:03Two surgeons in scrubs and a chaplain come around the corner and start walking towards him. I actually look behind me, hoping it was somebody else. Sorry. No, no. Take your time. The love of my life. If Tex McIver had done nothing after that, if he'd kept his mouth shut, if he'd just grieved, we probably wouldn't be telling you this story. But doing nothing? That's just not Tex McIver. Coming up, a media firestorm, and Tex provides the match. Tex's comment gets blown up into he's making this up to get out of the fact that he shot his wife. Could this have been more than an accident? There were no tears.

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19:08The death of Diane McIver at the hand of her husband, Tex, was big news in Atlanta. New at five, an Atlanta lawyer who says that he accidentally shot and killed his wife. And with two wealthy, prominent people involved in a shooting, rumors were on everyone's lips. That's when Bill Crane, a public relations consultant, offered to help his old friend Tex. Social media was reporting a lot of wild rumors. Yes, they were. For example. Particularly on Facebook, that Mr. MacGyver's having an affair with the driver. Now, you weren't. There's nothing to that. No. You think there's any chance he was having an affair with somebody else?

19:46I never thought so. Danny Joe came to a stop. Tex had given his statement to police, but the online rumors continued. There were also more substantive questions, like, why would the gun just go off? According to Bill Crane, Tex said it happened after the car jolted. That was part of Tex's initial account to me, that he was jarred awake, he thought, by a bump in the road. And why in the first place would Tex suddenly feel threatened by a homeless encampment he'd driven past many times before? And I ask him that. Bill says Tex claimed he was thinking of several 2016 Black Lives Matter protests in Atlanta and how protests in other places had gotten violent.

20:30So Tex said to me, I didn't know looking at those people, were they homeless people? Were they going to carjack us or were they Black Lives Matter protesters? But I was concerned. Tex apparently thought that would help explain to the public why he asked for the gun. So he told Bill to give that story to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It didn't exactly work as planned. Tex's comment, he didn't know whether the people around the car were homeless people or some kind of street criminal or a Black Lives Matter protest. It's blown up into bonfire over the vanities writ large in life, and he's making this up to get out of the fact that he shot his wife.

21:12And that comment somehow morphs into, I saw a Black Lives Matter protest, and I was afraid. That's correct, which he never said, and I never said that he said. The story, with its racial overtones, went viral. While Tex was fighting to repair his public image, Diane's colleagues were questioning his behavior after her death. There were no tears. There was no... I never saw him cry. Ken Rickert is the company's general counsel. I never heard him say, it was a tragic accident. I'm so sorry. Tex looked crushed, crying, sad. I didn't detect any of that. He was just kind of matter of fact. Diane's colleagues also thought Tex seemed way too interested in how his financial situation would change now that Diane was dead.

22:02And he asked a very strange question about, did I know anything about Social Security? Could he get any of Diane's benefits? And I was shocked. Tex's sister Dixie says she was flabbergasted that anyone thought Tex wasn't behaving appropriately. She says he was clearly devastated by Diane's death. He cried all the time. I don't know why no one else has seen this. Tears running down his face. He's never been the same since. Imagine losing your loved one at your own hand, and that's what he had to face. In perhaps another effort to counteract all the rumors and innuendo, Tex decided on his own to take a lie detector test, administered by an examiner his attorneys hired.

22:51I think it's important to note that he passed with flying colors. Diane, we love you, and we're going to miss you. But a month after her death, Tex walked into the lion's den at the company memorial service for Diane. Dixie attended with Tex, and it was an evening she came to regret. We walked in through a little gangplank-looking thing, and to the left is her jaguar with a light on it and a red rose on the hood. And I'm thinking, OK. They passed Diane's car and entered a large room. And there's a mannequin with Diane's clothes on it. With godson Austin at his side, did Tex even notice the undercurrent in the room?

23:38Dixie sure did. And as I'm walking around, I notice that my brother is not in any of the photographs, not on the video. He has been basically erased from her life. No way that could be accidental. Oh, gosh, no. They removed him. Yes. That was the turning point for me. I realized that they had turned on him. It was a not-so-subtle shift in attitude away from a man who was once considered Diane McIver's loving partner and protector. Maybe he noticed, maybe not. But his next move would get people talking even more. Coming up, luxury for sale. There were over 100 jewelry items. Auctioning off Diane's estate.

24:25Another mistake? That's a text. That doesn't look good. I mean, if you don't have to do this right now, don't do it. And that frantic drive. Wait a minute, he's telling you to slow down? Yes. When Dateline continues.

24:49With police investigating, rumors flying, and even old friends becoming suspicious, Tex McIver seemed to be doubling down. About two and a half months after Diane was killed, Tex put her furs, clothes, and jewelry up for sale, even though his friend Sheriff Sills told him, bad idea. That's a Tex. That doesn't look good. I mean, if you don't have to do this right now, don't do it. But he did. Never met a mannequin she didn't like. That's right. Auction house owner Robert Ehlers ran the sale, and even he was impressed. How many pieces total? There were over 100 jewelry items. Not costume, but the fine jewelry.

25:37And one of the big lots was a pair of diamond studs that were several carats each. I heard people were lined up like three and four deep to try on the jewelry. Yeah, well, before the sale started, there were probably 150 to 200 people in line to get into the building. So the notoriety helped? The notoriety definitely affected the sale, yeah. Did you tell him that unloading all of Diane's stuff so soon after she died was going to be seen by some people as sort of callous? No, and I don't think it was callous. And more than that, Texas Sister Dixie says it was necessary. Diane was wealthy by any standard, but her estate was cash poor.

26:21Selling her belongings raised money for Diane's bequests. She left money to people that she didn't have. So the estate attorney said the quickest way to raise the cash is sell her things. So the idea to sell everything, that came from the attorney, not from tax? Oh, absolutely. Between the estate sale, the memorial service, and those nonstop rumors, it would have been easy to forget that the police were still quietly investigating Diane's death. On December 21, 2016, they made their move. Tex McIver was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct. Those were, to be sure, serious charges.

27:03But they also made clear police believed Tex didn't mean to kill Diane. Tex had dodged a murder charge. But his sister says Tex didn't seem to get that. He just kept saying, but it was an accident. And I said, but someone died. And I don't know what he thought. Who knows what was going through his mind at that point. Tex McIver was released on bond. And while he seemed clueless about why he was charged with anything, Diane's friends and colleagues wondered if he'd been charged with enough. I was angry. It's like I didn't care. I didn't care what, I was angry, I didn't care what happened to him.

27:43In the months since Diane's death, Danny Joe had become suspicious about Tex's behavior during that final, fatal drive. So we asked her to take us along the route they drove that night. This is the underpass where Tex says he first began to worry about the homeless people in the area. Danny Joe says there was no danger. Nothing that would have kept you from driving away, going on your way? No. Just a few minutes later, we came to where they made that fateful stop in Midtown Atlanta. And it was, says Danny Jo, just a stop. We were sitting at a red light. No bump. No bump. You know the rest. Diane was shot and Danny Jo took off for the hospital.