1300
The first people in the area were Native Americans, called the Mountain Indians or Stonebox Indians, who had disappeared from the area by 1300.
about 0:10:19Spoilers are covered until your reading preferences load.
FILE 90 / 18 October 2018 / 158 MIN / full
James says this is Brentwood, Tennessee, about 20 minutes outside Nashville, in Williamson County, zip code 37024, area code 615. about 0:08:19
The first people in the area were Native Americans, called the Mountain Indians or Stonebox Indians, who had disappeared from the area by 1300.
about 0:10:19The first settlers were planters and farmers who came in the late 1700s, on land granted to Revolutionary War soldiers by the state of North Carolina.
about 0:10:46Cotton was a big crop and there were many plantations; the town grew quickly in the 1800s and by the Civil War it was one of the wealthiest areas in the state.
about 0:11:06During the Civil War the plantation houses were used to treat soldiers, but by the end of the war most had been destroyed and there was little left in the way of crops or farm animals.
about 0:12:01The first people in the area were Native Americans, called the Mountain Indians or Stonebox Indians, who had disappeared from the area by 1300.
about 0:10:19The first settlers were planters and farmers who came in the late 1700s, on land granted to Revolutionary War soldiers by the state of North Carolina.
about 0:10:46Cotton was a big crop and there were many plantations; the town grew quickly in the 1800s and by the Civil War it was one of the wealthiest areas in the state.
about 0:11:06During the Civil War the plantation houses were used to treat soldiers, but by the end of the war most had been destroyed and there was little left in the way of crops or farm animals.
about 0:12:01On March 25th, 1863, Confederate cavalry under General Nathan Bedford Forrest raided the Union-held area, cut telegraph wires and destroyed artillery; the Union surrendered Brentwood the next day, with 305 Union casualties and six Confederate.
about 0:13:12Among the first buildings were a general store, a grist mill, a post office and many Methodist churches.
about 0:14:24After the Civil War the large properties were cut up into smaller farms and tobacco became the main crop.
about 0:15:12The population stayed fairly stable through the 1900s, with a prosperous little boom in the 1920s; in 1960 the population was 1,065.
about 0:15:32In the late 1960s housing boomed after an interstate was built giving a 20-minute drive to Nashville; the town incorporated in 1969.
about 0:15:47The population went from 3,500 in 1970 to 9,400 in 1980, 16,400 in 1990, 23,500 in 2000 and about 29,000 in 2005.
about 0:16:08On May 1st and 2nd, 2010, the city received 14 to 17 inches of rain in less than 30 hours, the worst natural disaster in its history, damaging almost 300 homes plus roads and bridges.
about 0:17:13Brentwood takes part in the Sister Cities programme and is twinned with Brentwood in Essex, England.
about 0:18:24Money Magazine named Brentwood the twenty-first best place to live in 2017.
about 0:21:02The town motto is Latin, given as 'Ardens fide', meaning burning faith; the town covers 34.7 square miles, zip code 37024, area code 615.
about 0:08:4965%
Biggest faith: Baptist, 17%
about 0:24:02White about 85% · Black 4.05% · Asian 5.49% · Hispanic 2.56%
Ethnicity can overlap race.Property crime
▼ less than half of normal
Violent crime
▼ about half the national average
Teen crime rate
▼ one third of normal
Listing: five-bedroom, four-bath, 3,500 square foot house
about 0:28:18Listing: four-bedroom, four-bath, 5,150 square foot house
about 0:28:35Listing: five-bedroom, five-bath, 8,284 square foot house
about 0:28:59"40,000"
Comparison: "up 155% since 1990". Direction: above.
As told in 2018 about 0:21:20
"41"
Comparison: "a little older than normal". Direction: above.
As told in 2018 about 0:21:41
"72%"
Comparison: "usually 50-50". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:22:20
"about 85%"
Comparison: "pretty white for Tennessee". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:23:25
"4.05%"
Comparison: "about 12.5% is the national average". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:23:41
"5.49%"
Comparison: "more than the average". Direction: above.
As told in 2018 about 0:23:43
"2.56%"
Comparison: "17% is the normal". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:23:57
"26%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:24:55
"73%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:24:55
"4.2%"
Comparison: "lower than the national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2018 about 0:25:13
"65%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:24:02
"17%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:24:08
"12%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:24:11
"0.7%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:24:34
"0.7%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:24:40
"0.1%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:24:55
"$138,395"
Comparison: "national average $53,482". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:25:27
"33%"
Comparison: "usually 5%, the national average". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:25:34
"165"
Comparison: "100 is average". Direction: above.
As told in 2018 about 0:26:21
"317"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:26:25
"$621,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:26:25
"22%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:26:50
"10%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:26:50
"8%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:27:04
"$2,520"
Comparison: "about $1,200 is the national average". No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:28:13
"$525,000"
Comparison: "under the average, the bargain of the week". Direction: below.
As told in 2018 about 0:28:18
"$935,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:28:35
"$2,150,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2018 about 0:28:59
"less than half of normal"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2018 about 0:31:30
"about half the national average"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2018 about 0:31:37
"one third of normal"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2018 about 0:31:52
1.0 / 5 · average of 3
“The governor, state representatives and local representatives are not good enough to do their jobs.”about 0:18:35
“The weather can go through all four seasons in a single day, starting cold, turning breezy, then terribly hot, then raining.”about 0:18:45
“Restaurants are either very expensive with great service or cheap with bad service.”about 0:20:10
Brentwood, Tennessee, is an affluent suburb about twenty minutes from Nashville in Williamson County, a town of large plots that grew from 1,065 people in 1960 to about 29,000 by 2005, the year of this story. They ran Rezifax, a background-check company for apartments and employers, out of an office in Brentwood after building it up at home, and Jeffrey had left a well-paid career to run it full time. She found background checks boring, and by 2004 she was taking a great deal of prescription medication.
She was not alone.
They carried on an on-and-off relationship with the help of an English-Spanish translator. Cantrell assumed the affair was over. It was not.
Jeffrey, meanwhile, had consulted a Nashville divorce lawyer, John Hollins, on 29 December 2004 about what a divorce would do to the business and the property. He never went back. She said she heard water running and a lot of thumping and that she was terrified. The medical examiner, Dr Thomas Deering, put the time of death between about 10 p.m. on 10 April and 2 a.m. on 11 April. Jeffrey had been struck four to seven times about the head, bound at the wrists and strangled, and his body was found in a partially zipped sleeping bag on the master bathroom floor with a plastic bag taped over his head.
Shortly after midnight on 10 April she telephoned Jeffrey's mother, Hazel Freeman, and said her son was ill and would not be calling. At 10.01 p.m. that evening she had filled a hydrocodone prescription at Walgreens; over the previous four months she had collected a long list of medicines there, including alprazolam, Lexapro, Lipitor, Ambien, gabapentin and birth control patches. At 7.45 a.m. on 11 April the neighbour Karen Neal saw her standing alone on the front porch smoking a cigarette, still and unusual. Between eight and eight-thirty she telephoned Tara Cantrell at Rezifax to say Jeffrey was sick and would not be in. In the afternoon she pounded on Regine Beverly's door, shaking and panicked, and said, 'A man killed my husband.' Asked whether she had called 911, she said no.
The first officer at the Freeman house, Joseph High, found Jeffrey dead. He was wearing a T-shirt from a boxing school in East St Louis. He was in the country illegally. A search of the Freeman house produced the closet, the magazines, the mattress, latex gloves, a telephone cord, a wet and bloody pillowcase and bath mat, a shotgun, and a silver ring in a white bag in the pantry which turned out to be Jeffrey's, taken from his body.
In September 2005 police were called to her home after a psychiatric worker reported she had taken sixty antidepressants; it was treated as a suicide attempt.
The prosecutor said it took two people to orchestrate the killing; her defence said two men fought over one woman and one man died, and that she had never intended her affair to lead to her husband's death, pointing out that she did not hide the body or flee.
April 10th to 11th, 2005 / the Freeman house, Brentwood, Tennessee
As told in the episode, on 18 October 2018.
Accused
Accused
Public places are marked on the map.
crime scene
about 0:48:37body found
about 1:18:38business
about 0:49:08business
about 0:44:53business
about 1:03:42other
about 1:17:09other
about 1:57:20business
about 2:16:17police
about 1:48:14