FILE 90 / 18 October 2018 / 158 MIN / full

A Closet Full Of Murder

Brentwood, TennesseeListen

The town

N ↑Public placePublic placeTown centre (approximate places)
Static locations; no street basemap. Places and details. OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap.

James says this is Brentwood, Tennessee, about 20 minutes outside Nashville, in Williamson County, zip code 37024, area code 615. about 0:08:19

History, in brief

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 0:10:19

Town note

The 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 0:10:46

Town note

Cotton 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 0:11:06

Town note

During 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 0:12:01
All 14 history facts

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 0:10:19

Town note

The 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 0:10:46

Town note

Cotton 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 0:11:06

Town note

During 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 0:12:01

1863

On 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 0:13:12

Town note

Among the first buildings were a general store, a grist mill, a post office and many Methodist churches.

about 0:14:24

Town note

After the Civil War the large properties were cut up into smaller farms and tobacco became the main crop.

about 0:15:12

1960

The population stayed fairly stable through the 1900s, with a prosperous little boom in the 1920s; in 1960 the population was 1,065.

about 0:15:32

1969

In the late 1960s housing boomed after an interstate was built giving a 20-minute drive to Nashville; the town incorporated in 1969.

about 0:15:47

1970

The 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 0:16:08

2010

On 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 0:17:13

Town note

Brentwood takes part in the Sister Cities programme and is twinned with Brentwood in Essex, England.

about 0:18:24

2017

Money Magazine named Brentwood the twenty-first best place to live in 2017.

about 0:21:02

Town note

The 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 0:08:49

The figures, as told

Religious

65%

Biggest faith: Baptist, 17%

about 0:24:02

Who lives here

White about 85% · Black 4.05% · Asian 5.49% · Hispanic 2.56%

Ethnicity can overlap race.

Crime / national average

Property crime
▼ less than half of normal

about 0:31:30

Violent crime
▼ about half the national average

about 0:31:37

Teen crime rate
▼ one third of normal

about 0:31:52

Money

Median home value$621,000
Two-bedroom rent$2,520
Median household income$138,395
Cost of living165

For sale

$525,000

Listing: five-bedroom, four-bath, 3,500 square foot house

about 0:28:18

For sale

$935,000

Listing: four-bedroom, four-bath, 5,150 square foot house

about 0:28:35

For sale

$2,150,000

Listing: five-bedroom, five-bath, 8,284 square foot house

about 0:28:59
All figures and comparisons, as told in 2018

Population

"40,000"

Comparison: "up 155% since 1990". Direction: above.

As told in 2018 about 0:21:20

Median age

"41"

Comparison: "a little older than normal". Direction: above.

As told in 2018 about 0:21:41

Married

"72%"

Comparison: "usually 50-50". No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:22:20

White

"about 85%"

Comparison: "pretty white for Tennessee". No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:23:25

Black

"4.05%"

Comparison: "about 12.5% is the national average". No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:23:41

Asian

"5.49%"

Comparison: "more than the average". Direction: above.

As told in 2018 about 0:23:43

Hispanic

"2.56%"

Comparison: "17% is the normal". No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:23:57

Voted Democrat in the last election

"26%"

No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:24:55

Voted Republican in the last election

"73%"

No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:24:55

Unemployment rate

"4.2%"

Comparison: "lower than the national average". Direction: below.

As told in 2018 about 0:25:13

Median household income

"$138,395"

Comparison: "national average $53,482". No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:25:27

Households earning over $200,000 a year

"33%"

Comparison: "usually 5%, the national average". No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:25:34

Overall cost of living

"165"

Comparison: "100 is average". Direction: above.

As told in 2018 about 0:26:21

Housing cost index

"317"

No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:26:25

Median home cost

"$621,000"

No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:26:25

Homes worth $400,000 to $500,000

"22%"

No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:26:50

Homes worth $750,000 to $1 million

"10%"

No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:26:50

Homes worth a million dollars or more

"8%"

No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:27:04

Average two-bedroom rent

"$2,520"

Comparison: "about $1,200 is the national average". No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:28:13

Listing: five-bedroom, four-bath, 3,500 square foot house

"$525,000"

Comparison: "under the average, the bargain of the week". Direction: below.

As told in 2018 about 0:28:18

Listing: four-bedroom, four-bath, 5,150 square foot house

"$935,000"

No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:28:35

Listing: five-bedroom, five-bath, 8,284 square foot house

"$2,150,000"

No direction stated.

As told in 2018 about 0:28:59

Property crime

"less than half of normal"

Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.

As told in 2018 about 0:31:30

Violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, assault)

"about half the national average"

Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.

As told in 2018 about 0:31:37

Teen crime rate

"one third of normal"

Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.

As told in 2018 about 0:31:52

The reviews

1.0 / 5 · average of 3

1 star

“The governor, state representatives and local representatives are not good enough to do their jobs.”
about 0:18:35

1 star

“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

1 star

“Restaurants are either very expensive with great service or cheap with bad service.”
about 0:20:10

In Tennessee

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The story

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.

The case

Murder of Jeffrey Freeman

Victims

Jeffrey Freeman (44). co-owner of Rezifax, a background-check business; five foot seven and 231 pounds; found dead in a sleeping bag on the master bathroom floor

Accused and outcomes

As told in the episode, on 18 October 2018.

Accused

Accused

Outcome

Other people

Regine Beverly. next-door neighbour across the street, did data entry for the home business, ran to her house and she called 911
Tara Cantrell. Tony's wife, worked at Rezifax from September 2002, took calls and later cleaned the bathroom where Jeffrey died
Karen Neal. neighbour who saw on the porch smoking at 7.45 a.m. on April 11th
Karen Kirby. neighbour who saw a Hispanic man run into a house under construction and identified
David Bixby. manager of the Candlewood Suites, where stayed with and met Jeffrey in the lobby
Scotty Dodd. housekeeping supervisor at the Candlewood Suites, said was overly friendly and he kept his distance
John Hollins. Nashville divorce attorney consulted by Jeffrey on December 29th, 2004
Hazel Freeman. Jeffrey's mother, telephoned by on the night of the killing to say he was ill
Margaret Cockerill. mother, cared for by and later moved in with the Freemans before she died
Joseph High. first police officer at the Freeman house
Brian Hampton. firefighter who found the body and questioned at the scene
Danny Collins. Metropolitan Police sergeant told to begin the investigation
Detective Corkerin. detective who found in the attic rafters and described his T-shirt
William Kirby. identification unit officer who processed the scene
Dr Thomas Deering. medical examiner who performed the autopsy and gave the cause of death as strangulation
Donna Nelson. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation forensic scientist who tested the DNA
Beatrice Ruiz. woman at Murfreesboro apartment who met the search warrant
Dr Nyquist. psychiatrist who prescribed most of medication

The timeline

  1. 2000 Regine Beverly becomes the Freemans' neighbour across the street (Freeman house)about 0:34:51
  2. 2001 and 2002 Tony Cantrell is paid to sit with elderly mother, Margaret Cockerillabout 0:43:04
  3. September 2002 Tara Cantrell starts working at Rezifax (Rezifax office)about 0:44:37
  4. 2003 The Freemans move to Brentwood; Jeffrey leaves his other job to run Rezifax full time and the company takes an office in town (Rezifax office)about 0:42:10
  5. July 4th, 2004 meets Roca at a Fourth of July celebration and goes to a hotel in downtown Nashville with him and two of his friends (Downtown Nashville hotel)about 1:57:11
  6. September 2004 moves out of the house and into the Candlewood Suites; Regine Beverly notices her car is gone (Candlewood Suites)about 0:47:18
  7. October 12th, 2004 checks into the Candlewood Suites, with Roca staying in the room the whole time (Candlewood Suites)about 0:51:23
  8. December 2004 has Tony Cantrell collect from the hotel and drive him to Murfreesboro with a map and $100 from an ATM (Candlewood Suites)about 1:43:31
  9. December 29th, 2004 Jeffrey Freeman meets divorce attorney John Hollins about the business and property, and never returnsabout 0:58:21
  10. January 29th, 2005 checks out of the Candlewood Suites after about six months (Candlewood Suites)about 0:51:23
  11. Super Bowl Sunday, late January 2005 Regine Beverly sees again and offers to take evening walks with her (Freeman house)about 1:01:56
  12. March 2005 Roca moves into a two-by-eight-foot closet in an upstairs bedroom of the Freeman house ('s closet)about 1:58:16
  13. April 7th, 2005 Tony Cantrell is resealing the Freemans' back deck but stops when it rains (Freeman house)about 1:45:57
  14. April 9th, 2005 Regine Beverly sees Jeffrey and standing and talking in the yard (Freeman house)about 1:03:15
  15. 10.01 p.m., April 10th, 2005 fills a prescription for hydrocodone at Walgreens (Walgreens)about 1:03:42
  16. the night of April 10th, 2005 Jeffrey finds in the house, tells him to leave and takes the dogs for a walk; on his return forces him into the bathroom with a shotgun while waits outside (Freeman house)about 1:58:23
  17. around midnight, April 10th, 2005 telephones Jeffrey's mother Hazel and says he is ill and cannot talkabout 1:05:38
  18. between 10 p.m. April 10th and 2 a.m. April 11th, 2005 Jeffrey Freeman is beaten, bound and strangled; the medical examiner's best estimate of death (Freeman master bathroom)about 1:33:44

Places and phrases

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Static locations; no street basemap. Places and details. OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap.

Places in the story

Public places are marked on the map.

Heard in this episode