Dateline Tonight NBC

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Once a hometown hero in Coldwater, Michigan, Tom Foley is shocked to find himself the lead suspect in the case of his wife Darlene's murder.

When Darlene failed to show up at their son's 10^th birthday party, Tom said he feared the worst and returned home to find her shot dead in the shower. Though investigators never found the murder weapon, a suspicious bag of shotgun shells found in the basement along with testimonials from Tom and Darlene's son and his friend about a strange noise they heard that day, lead to Tom's conviction. Thinking the case was over, the defense team is soon approached by a stranger with new evidence that would turn everything upside down.

Dateline NBC's Josh Mankiewicz reports The Mystery at Heath Bar Farm on Friday, November 18^th, at 10pm/9c.

I'm up in the air about this one. Tom's not calling home to see why his wife was late shows consciousness of guilt, IMO. But I don't think that's enough to convict. There are his fingerprints on a sporting goods store bag containing 3 shotgun shells (but no fingerprints on the shells). It would have been pretty stupid for Tom to leave the shells there if he killed his wife. It appears the prosecution wasn't able to find evidence of Tom buying the shells. There's also no evidence tying any shotgun to Tom. And where is the gun? There was a fairly small window of time when Tom could have disposed of it. And where are Tom's blood-spattered clothes? The boys must have seen what he was wearing before they heard the noise that could have been a gunshot. Did LE ever find these clothes?

The boys' hearing a noise that could be a shotgun blast at the approximate time of the murder is somewhat compelling. The noise could have been from another source, but that's a pretty big coincidence.

I tend to discount the niece's story (that wasn't allowed into testimony) that the wife had told her to avoid the porch because of broken glass a week before her murder because if the glass had been broken earlier, I think the wife also would have warned her son and his friend about it.

It sure would have been nice if LE had immediately tested Tom for gunshot residue.

It sounds like the son thinks his father killed his mother -- I can't imagine what it would be like living with a parent whom you suspected of a crime like that.