Tina Caronna murder investigation uncovers financial fraud, secret affair

Produced by Sara Ely Hulse, Ruth Chenetz and Charlotte Fuller
[This story first aired on March 2, 2013. It was updated on Sept. 7]

(CBS News) MEMPHIS Tenn. -- Tina Caronna had it all - a great job, a garage full of fast cars, a doting husband and an active social circle. So when she suddenly disappeared on Oct. 25, 2008, friends knew something had to be wrong.

Fellow members of the Corvette Memphis club put together a search party to find Tina. They got terrible news two days later when she was found dead in the backseat of her Chevrolet Avalanche. Was Tina Caronna the victim of a carjacking... or was it something else?

Shelby County prosecutor Tom Henderson had a mystery on his hands.

"When they see Tina Caronna in the backseat wrapped up with blankets obviously this is not -- this is not a suicide, it's not a natural cause. They know they have a homicide," Henderson told "48 Hours" correspondent Maureen Maher. "They find no gunshot residue, no knife wound ..."

Investigators weren't even sure yet how the 44-year-old had been killed. For that they'd have to wait for the medical examiner.

Meanwhile, friends tried to process the news that Tina had been murdered.

"We were devastated because we were hoping to find her alive of course," friend Cathy Struna said. "You always have hope until it's over, and then it's just overwhelming."

It's hard for Struna to picture Tina gone, as life with her close friend was always an adventure.

Tina's social life revolved around cars. As active members of a Memphis Corvette club, she and her husband, Joe, travelled in their three Corvettes to various events, frequently socializing with Cathy and her husband, Matt.

"I would put Tina in my top five friends from my lifetime. She made you feel that special and she was that special," said Matt Struna.

That charm helped Tina professionally. Despite never graduating from college, she earned about $200,000 a year as a vice president with the financial firm, Cantor Fitzgerald.

Joe Caronna was also involved in finance, running his own company, Caronna Investments. In his spare time, he tinkered on cars with friends like Gary Hathaway.

"He had a great sense of humor and he was a funny guy to be around. And I actually did enjoy being around him," said Hathaway.

Tina met Caronna in 1993. She was divorced, with a 4-year-old son, Todd. Joe, also divorced, was managing a shoe store, where Tina, known for her collection of hundreds of shoes, was a regular.

The couple married several months after they met and holidays quickly became family affairs.

"She loved decorating for Christmas," said Todd Gray.

Gray, now 24, has fond memories of those early years with Caronna.

"He loved me and tried to act like my father," he said. "We had fun together ... We've been to baseball games together, football games together. We went all sorts of places."

Over their 15-year marriage, Tina and Joe Caronna enjoyed a lifestyle filled not just with cars, but also cruises and casinos - pastimes they shared with fellow Corvette club members, Gary Hathaway and his wife, Pat.

Asked how they were as a couple, Gary Hathaway told Maher, "A very happy couple. You know, she called him "Joe-Joe.""

"They were always holding hands," Pat said. "He would always buy her jewelry. If it wasn't every week, it was every other week -- or flowers,"

"They were a great couple," Todd Gray said. "I never really saw 'em fight, argue or anything."

Caronna accompanied Tina most everywhere -- behavior that could seem doting, but to friends, it was peculiar.

"He would never let her go to a nail appointment or a hair appointment on her own," Cathy Struna explained. Turning to her husband, she said, "He would never go with me at gunpoint."

"And did you ever talk to her about it?" Maher asked.

"She wanted desperately to please him because she really thought he was all that. She had chemistry for him," she replied.

More time with Joe meant less time with Tina's mother, Clara Murphy.

"I could see a change in Tina, you know, after she married Joe," Murphy said. "I felt like Joe was trying to keep Tina from me."

Eventually, daughter and mother were completely estranged - a rift stemming from an argument over thousands of dollars Murphy said Joe Caronna owed her family.

"After it was all over, Tina gets up from the table ... and she said, 'I've lost my family.' And they left. And I never talked to her again for 14 months," said Murphy.

Murphy says she tried communicating with Tina, but her daughter refused ... until she received a surprising email.

"And Tina writes to you, 'I guess as long as I'm married to Joe and I pray that we stay married as long as you and Dad did, we will never ever work things out. I know how you feel about him,'" Maher read aloud.

"That's exactly right," an emotional Murphy said, nodding in agreement.

While the message may not have seemed hopeful, it did end with the words, "I will always love you mom..."

One month later, Tina was dead.

"I can't imagine what it was like for her mother and son," Cathy Struna said. "They'll never be the same.

Friends gathered at the Caronna home to support a distressed Joe.

"He walked in and there was this glass bowl with marbles in it and a candle on the table. And he flung that on the floor," recalled Pat Hathaway.

"He did seem upset," Todd Gray said. "He came up to me and gave me a hug and says, 'You're not gonna leave me now, are you?'"

Joe Caronna told friends and police he believed Tina may have been murdered in a gang-related carjacking gone bad.

"Is it conceivable ... that people might have said, 'Hey, you know, she was carjacked,' or it was a random act of violence?" Maher asked Henderson.

"I think it's conceivable that the average person would believe that. The average law enforcement officer would not believe that," the prosecutor replied.

The carjacking theory would immediately be called into question when it was revealed how Tina's body was found. She was in the backseat of her Chevrolet Avalanche, partially nude with her hands loosely bound together with duct tape. Thousands of dollars worth of jewelry had been left on her body.

"I'm thinking, 'Why would a criminal or a robber or somebody do that?" Cathy Struna said. "It didn't make sense to me, it didn't add up."

There was a lot that didn't add up for Henderson and the rest of the prosecution team of Danielle McCollum and Karen Cook.

"She was wearing sandals and the sandals were placed perfectly, side by side, just to the right on the front driver's side..." said Cook.

"Law enforcement officers who looked at the scene would think this has gotta be staged," added Henderson.

Then there was the location: Tina's body and truck were actually found in a suburb of Memphis, on a safe, residential street in the town of Bartlett.

"Crime is everywhere, but certain types of crime are not everywhere. And there weren't many carjackings in the suburbs," explained Henderson.

So, you'd expect law enforcement to be suspicious -- but not Gary Hathaway, Joe's friend and alibi, who was about to make a disturbing discovery.

It was time for friends and family to not just mourn the passing of Tina Caronna, but to come together and celebrate her life.

"It was standing room only. People were standing up all -- it was just packed," Tina's mother, Clara Murphy said.

"When we were leaving to go the gravesite ... hundreds of -- hundred Corvettes lined up back following us there," said Tina's son, Todd Gray.

"We just tried to keep it upbeat because Tina was just such a fun, happy, loving person and loved to party and dance," friend Matt Struna explained. "It was Joe's wish ... to keep it ... lighthearted -- not a real sad, formal affair."

But some people thought the tone of the service was wrong and that Joe Caronna's behavior in particular was inappropriate.

"They played, 'I'll have another "Beer in Mexico"', at her funeral, which was disgusting for me. And he would do thumbs up to somebody over there on the side. I don't know," said Murphy.

"He was sittin' in the front row bent over like this [with elbows on knees], tapping his foot to the music," Pat Hathaway demonstrated.

"I think we were all -- we were just so numbed and confused and -- about the whole thing," added Gary Hathaway.

Gary Hathaway started having serious reservations about Joe Caronna as soon as Tina's body was found in the back of her truck on a quiet dead-end street in a Memphis suburb.

"We're on Brannick Street in Bartlett," he told Maher. "This is where they actually found the Avalanche-- with her body in the back seat."

"And in relationship to this, where is the storage unit?" Maher asked.

"The storage unit is -- is straight line probably about two blocks that direction," he pointed out.

"Were you suspicious?"

"I was suspicious, yes," Gary Hathaway replied.

Hathaway was at the Caronna's house on Monday when police broke the news about Tina. The coincidence about where the truck was found was still bothering him when he noticed there was one car too many parked at the house.

"The Chevelle is normally -- kept in -- in the storage shed and his red '80 Corvette, during that period, was kept in -- the house garage," he explained.

In 2008, the Caronnas had eight cars; four that were kept at their house and another four that Joe kept six miles away in a storage unit.

"-- and in order to get one car out of the storage shed," Gary Hathaway explained. "It's a whole lot easier to just take one car down there, swap it out, bring the other car back."

So the fact that the red Corvette and the red Chevelle were both at the Caronna house that Monday was a big problem.

"Why is the red Chevelle being in the garage such a big deal for you? Why is it so telling for you?" Maher asked Hathaway.

"If both of those cars are there, what car did he drive to the storage shed to get the car? He would have had to have left a car there. Every car that's normally at the house was still at the house except for the Avalanche," he replied.

With four cars at the house and three cars at the storage unit, the question becomes which car did Caronna drive to the storage unit and leave behind in order to drive the Chevelle back to the house? Gary Hathaway realized the only car missing was the Avalanche, which was parked a half mile away from the storage unit.

"And the Avalanche has just been found several streets over with -- the body of his dead wife," Maher noted.

"Exactly," Hathaway replied.

"Is that the moment that you said, 'He might -- have done it?'"

"He did it," stated Pat Hathaway.

"Yep," agreed an emotional Gary Hathaway.

Hathaway kept his suspicions to himself until he and his wife, Pat, finally had a moment alone.

"We actually went to bed that night -- [On Monday?] --"Yeah. And we couldn't sleep. He said, 'Are you awake?' And I said, 'Yeah.' And he goes, 'Let's get up.' He goes, 'I think Joe did it.' I said, 'Yeah, he did it,'" Pat recalled.

Pat Hathaway had already thought Joe had been acting unusual the day Tina disappeared. But she immediately became concerned when she walked into the Caronna home that Saturday night and was blown away by the overwhelming smell of bleach in the couple's bathroom.

"Tina didn't like bleach. She didn't buy bleach," Pat Hathaway explained.

"She didn't use bleach?" Maher asked.

"... She liked Pine Sol," she replied.

The Hathaways continued to wrestle with their suspicions ... that is until Joe Caronna asked them to accompany him to the morgue.

"The act he put on was just amazing. Quite the act," Pat explained. "I never saw a tear shed."

"Yeah, he kind of stumbled back a couple -- couple of steps like -- like, you know, makin' it look like he was gonna fall," added Gary.

"On the ... way back, he -- he got in our front seat with Gary," said Pat.

"And as we're drivin' along, he gets on his cell phone and - and -- you know, he -- he's sayin' -[nonchalantly], 'Yeah, yeah, it was Tina. Yeah, I've got closure now. No, no, don't send flowers. Tina didn't like flowers. Send some-- some-- to--charity,'" Gary explained. "I look in the mirror at my wife and she's looking at me and we're -- we're both going, oh, you know --"

"That's when I started getting' afraid of 'em. That -- at that moment," added Pat.

Even more chilling for Gary Hathaway was the realization that Caronna may have used him for an alibi.

"Obviously I'm thinkin' that he had already killed her when he -- when he called me at -- 11:30 and was lookin' for -- for an alibi," he told Maher. "So Thursday afternoon, we went over -- we went over to the -- I called the -- the Bartlett Police and said, you know, we need to come over, need to talk."

The Hathaways immediately began to distance themselves from Caronna, but friends like Matt and Cathy Struna continued their support.

"We arranged for grief counseling for Joe at our church. And we took him to church with us. We took him-- we had him out here for dinners -- at our home," said Matt Struna.

Cathy Struna even helped Joe pack up Tina's belongings about a week or two after her death.

"I asked him, I said, 'What do you want to do with all of this?' And he said, 'I don't care what you do with it.' He said, 'I just want it out of here. I don't want to look at it, I don't want to see any of her stuff ever again,'" Cathy explained. "... so we were goin' through everything and putting it in boxes. And I found a box of her high school albums and photos and stuff like that. And he said, 'I'm just gonna throw that in the trash.' I said, 'Oh no, you're not.' I said, 'That should go to Todd.'"

More and more, questions were coming up about Joe Caronna.

"The Bartlett Police Department ... they worked hard to eliminate every other logical suspect and Joe Caronna -- stood out," said Karen Cook.

But what possible motive would a man who routinely showered his wife with flowers and jewelry have to kill her?

How about an affair with another woman.

"She thought that she was his one true love," said Danielle McCollum.

As the investigation into Tina Caronna's murder continued, friends, like Gary and Pat Hathaway, had grown increasingly suspicious of Tina's husband, Joe.

"I sat there everyday expecting at any moment, there's gonna be half a dozen squad cars come with the lights flashing and everything and they were gonna haul him off," said Gary. "To get him," added Pat.

But many questions remained, including why would Joe Caronna want his wife dead?

Searching for answers, some eyes turned to a woman the Caronna's knew from church, Becky Black.

"Becky Black was a friend of Tina and Joe's. And she started having an affair with Joe, started walking at the track in the gym and it started to grow into something more intimate and ended up lasting about eight-to-10 years," prosecutor Danielle McCollum explained.

"And did she cooperate?" Maureen Maher asked.

"Yes," McCollum replied.

"So right away, she copped to everything, the relationship?"

"Yes, said prosecutor Karen Cook.

Becky Black met Joe Caronna when she was in her mid-30s, feeling unappreciated in a troubled marriage.

"He was filling in the gaps of the stuff that I wasn't, you know, getting at home," Black told "48 Hours". "You know, opening the door and putting a rose on my door, my windshield, sending flowers to me at work."

"He paid her attention. He paid her compliments, like he did with Tina. And so that gave her, you know, a false sense of security with him and she was happy," said Cook.

Even after police questioned Black, she continued to see Joe.

"After the murder, I was kind of caught in between. I considered him my best friend," she continued. "I didn't want to betray my best friend."

But soon, her support turned to suspicion as Joe allegedly bullied Black. She had had enough.

"He was talking and he was getting meaner, more vocal, demanding that I do this and demanding that I do that," she explained.

Becky Black told her husband about the affair and her concerns about Joe, which she now also shared with police.

Seeing an opportunity, investigators convinced Black to keep the pretense of the relationship going -- and to meet Joe, in her car, in a parking lot ... wearing a wire.

"I was afraid for my family's safety and when they approached me to do that, I was more than willing," she said.

While Joe Caronna did repeatedly profess his love for Black in those recordings, he did not profess guilt:

Becky Black: Do you love me more than you did her?

Joe Caronna: Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I love you more than I've ever loved anybody.

Becky Black: All this time, I just kept thinking that maybe you - you know, you may have done that for me, thinking that was the only way that you could get me. And then I started thinking - at first I was scared - and then I thought, if you did, that made me feel...special, that made me feel like -"

Joe Caronna: Honey, I didn't do it. OK? And when I say I would do anything for you, I mean I wouldn't do something like that.

"He was convincing Becky that, you know -- he didn't do it. And the police don't suspect him. He told her multiple times, 'I'm off the list. You're off the list,'" said McCollum.

Actually, Joe Caronna was at the top of the list, but investigators doubted the affair was the motive for murder -- especially when they learned Tina had known for years Joe was cheating on her.

"There's a lot of people who think this was all about Becky Black," Maher commented to McCollum.

"I think Becky Black was just a side issue," she replied.

Investigators were still searching for a motive, when they learned about a home the Caronna's were planning to buy.

"Tina had been wanting a brand new house in Fayette County, a big house. And they had been discussing it since the beginning of 2008," said McCollum.

One week before the murder, after many delays, Tina believed the closing was finally going to happen.

"This house closing was a big deal to us, as far as realizing that he was really running out of time," McCollum continued.

Prosecutors believe that Caronna did not want Tina or the bank looking into his finances and that the closing was never going to happen. The reality was he did not even have an approved mortgage.

"When you fill out the application, they're gonna start checking your bank accounts. And ... Tina would have noticed it. And if Tina noticed it, she might ask questions," prosecutor Tom Henderson explained.

What Tina would have noticed, say prosecutors, was that Joe had built a financial house of cards: instead of investing all of his clients' money, his company, Caronna Investments, was scamming people - including Tina, their closest friends, and even his mistress, Becky Black.

"They didn't know anything. The friends and family had no idea," said McCollum.

"Because he was covering it up, using some fraudulent bank accounts," added Henderson.

Investigators scrutinized the Caronna's finances and found checks from clients and friends, like the Strunas.

"How much money did you lose with him?" Maher asked Matt Struna.

"Fifteen-thousand," he replied. "Caronna Investments is where we wrote the checks to. We traced the paper trail and found out that it went into his personal account."

And there was a $30,000 withdrawal from Tina's annuity, requested by Caronna, 10 days before Tina's murder and deposited into his own account 10 days after her death. Police say Caronna forged Tina's signature. Over a period of eight years, investigators say Joe Caronna conned his so-called clients out of more than $780,000.

"Joe Caronna was in trouble because his con was about to be exposed ... because Tina ... wasn't stupid," Henderson explained. "If she were to find out that he's stealing from their friends and relatives and hiding it from her and defrauding her, that would have been the end of it. And he'd have been back working at the Shoe Carnival"

"Or he would have been in jail," said McCollum.

Finally, police had a motive. They believed Caronna was so afraid of Tina learning about and exposing his scam, he killed her.

With this new knowledge of shady financial dealings, authorities went to search the Caronna home for evidence, but Joe was nowhere to be found.

"As the pendulum starts to swing toward Joe Caronna, that's when he decides he's gonna bolt and, of course, flight is a real big indicator of guilt," said Cook.

Nearly five months had passed since Tina's murder, and now, with Joe missing, a warrant was issued for his arrest.

"I thought he ran to Canada of Mexico or something," said Gary Hathaway.

"Mexico, I thought. He liked warm places," said Pat Hathaway.

But after a 17-day search, Joe was found much closer to home. A tip to a Crime Stoppers line led police just 77 miles away to a hotel in Jackson, Tenn.

"He has said that he was not on the run," Maher noted. "Couldn't he just have been visiting someone?"

"Sure," McCollum replied, "But then when police knock on your door at the Howard Johnson and you scream out, 'I've got a gun.'"

Joe Caronna was armed. But so were the cops who knocked on his hotel room door. After just 15 minutes of negotiating, Caronna surrendered.

With a mountain of circumstantial evidence, prosecutors charge Caronna with first-degree murder. They feel they now have their man - and his motive -- but with no physical evidence, do they have a case?

"We didn't have the best shot in the world, but we were gonna take the shot we had, because that's what we are supposed to do," said Henderson.

After Joe Caronna was arrested in March 2009, his friends were shattered by the level of betrayal.

"There were a couple of us that -- had to be hit in the head with a shovel before we finally believed he could do such a horrible thing," Matt Struna told Maureen Maher. "I was like, 'Oh my God, he's been playing us all like a fool.'"

Not everyone from the Corvette club, however, thinks that Joe is guilty.

"He called me from the jail in Bartlett," Patricia Turner said. "During the course of that conversation, he said, 'I did not kill her.'"

"Do you still support Joe now, as we're getting ready to embark on the trial?" Maher asked.

"I support Joe from the standpoint that I believe strongly in our judicial system. And it angers me deeply that so many have already judged him," said Turner.

Almost four years to the day that Tina Caronna was murdered, both sides are now ready to present their case to the jury:

"And the State's proof will show that the defendant, Joe Caronna, killed his wife, Tina, stuffed her back behind the front and back seats of that truck, and left her parked on the side of the road," prosecutor Danielle McCollum addressed the court in her opening statement.

"And you will discover that the evidence does not fit the theory, and that when all is said and done, the only verdict that you can return is that Joe Caronna is innocent of killing his wife," defense attorney Rusty White told the court.

Four members of the jury sat down with "48 Hours" to talk about their reaction to the testimony.

"Were you prepared for it?" Maher asked the group.

"Yeah, nothin' could prepare you for it. I mean, you just roll on in there and you just have to deal with the emotional part," said juror Jeanna.

"It affected me more than I thought it would," juror Ron admitted.

"I determined that the cause of death was asphyxiation," Medical Examiner Dr. Karen Chancellor testified.

The medical examiner could not say exactly how the killer suffocated Tina Caronna, only that it was a slow death.

"This [is] a pretty traumatic thing to process," Ron said. "-- that a person could actually do that."

Prosecutor Tom Henderson: How long [do they] have to cover for them to die of asphyxiation?

Dr. Karen Chancellor: If covered completely they would become unconscious in 40 seconds to a minute ... but to cause death that hold must be maintained for approximately 3 minutes.

"Had the medical examiner not broken down how asphyxiation happens ... it takes perseverance to do it," juror Amy noted.

The state starts building its case brick by brick and Gary Hathaway is a key witness.

"In order to get the Chevelle you have to take a vehicle down there, leave it, and then drive the Chevelle back," Gary Hathaway told the court.

"Well, the cars, certainly stood out and the -- the positioning of the cars and--" said Ron.

"And also just the location of the-- where the truck was found in relation to the storage facility as well as the cars," said juror Amy.

Detective Kevin Martin from the Bartlett Police Department was one of the lead investigators on the case:

Prosecutor Karen Cook: Did you consider robbery a feasible reason or cause?

Det. Kevin Martin: No ma'am. ... We learned the value amount of the rings from Mr. Caronna himself in the interview. He gave us a rough figure of those rings being worth $30,000.

"The Avalanche was parked locked," juror Jeanne commented. "If you're gonna make it appear as a robbery occurred, how 'bout not lockin' the door? And if she was robbed, how 'bout takin' her rings off?"

But defense attorney Rusty White pounces on the opportunity to discredit the police.

Defense attorney Rusty White: Was that dusted for fingerprints?

Det. Kevin Martin: I don't believe it was, sir.

Rusty White: Was it sent to the TBI for DNA?

Det. Kevin Martin: I don't believe it was, sir.

"They admitted that they didn't have the experience -- say-- Memphis would have or whatever," juror Ron said. "And I think the defense really hit on that."

Rusty White: How many murder investigations have you done in your career?

Det. Kevin Martin: Been a part of or lead of?

Rusty White: Lead on.

Det. Kevin Martin: Two.

Rusty White: And how many have you been apart of?

Det. Kevin Martin: About eight.

"I don't think it was incompetence. I just think that it was -- just inexperience," said juror Ron.

And jurors wondered if it was more inexperience that led to potentially important evidence being lost.

Jeff Cox is a neighbor of the Caronna's. His home security cameras faced the Caronna house, and were rolling the day Tina went missing.

Asked what he remembered seeing on the footage, Cox told Maher, "I remember him moving several cars around."

"And how about the truck?" Maher asked.

"The truck left," Cox replied. "And never came back."

"Could you see the driver in the footage?"

"We could not see the driver," said Cox.

At the trial, Cox testified police never knew about the footage until five months later. He told the jury by then it was gone - recorded over numerous times.

"I was disappointed -- when we-- when we didn't get to see that," said juror Ron.

"And we would see some evidence of Tina leaving the house that day as he claimed she did," Maher told the jurors. "So you were expecting it to exonerate or implicate in one way."

"Yeah," said jury foreman Ron.

The person the jury was most eager to hear from was Joe Caronna's mistress, Becky Black.

"I think we all had high expectations for her because she was just surfacing in so many of the testimonies," said juror Jeanna.

"Did Becky live up to your expectations as a witness? Maher asked the jurors.

The group replied, "No."

"I think we all really felt that. I think that we thought she was gonna be the smokin' gun or whatever," said Ron.

It's not a smoking gun, but jurors say a letter Joe Caronna wrote to Becky Black was revealing about his character and his true feelings for Tina.

On the stand, Black read the letter to the court: "Never makes me feel dumb. ... Never loved for what she could get. ... Never pressured to do anything."

"And I think there was a couple things in there that are -- actually was-- showed his feelings toward Tina. He said that Becky would never make him feel dumb. I mean, then -- to me, is a direct reflection on that somebody else had made him feel that way," said Ron.

"That these were more against Tina --than for Becky," noted Maher.

"Uh-huh," the group affirmed in unison.

So far, none of the testimony was hard evidence against Joe Caronna.

"There's a lot of circumstantial evidence. Were you left wanting something tangible to hook this guy into this murder?" Maher asked the group.

"Well, I certainly think so," said jury foreman Ron.

That moment might just come from the unlikeliest of places: a fellow inmate named John Bowers.

"Were you worried that the jury would have a credibility issue with him? Maher asked prosecutor Karen Cook.

"Absolutely," Cook replied. "You know, it's -- it's a gamble. ... Sometimes you don't even know what the snitch is gonna do when they get up on the stand."

It's been five days since the trial started and, thus far, the prosecution has only presented circumstantial evidence. Finally, they are about to call one person who claims to have some hard evidence against Joe Caronna.

"Who is John Bowers?" Maureen Maher asked prosecutor Karen Cook.

"John Bowers is a federal inmate ... convicted of manufacturing meth ... and happened to be in the same cell ... and he talked to Joe," Cook explained. "After ranting and raving about wantin' to kill his own girlfriend, Joe decided he would, you know, say, 'Hey, yeah, I killed somebody too.'"

Prosecutor Tom Henderson : Can you explain to the ladies and gentlemen what that man told you in the holding cell of the federal building?

John Bowers: He turned around and said that, uh, they were in the house him and his wife arguing and it escalated all the way back to the garage and she was getting in the truck [and] that he ducted taped her and put a bag over her head.

"... probably the most difficult thing was hearing the John Bowers ... story that Joe had told him in their holding cell," Todd Gray said. "That was probably the most difficult thing to hear."

John Bowers: He said he messed up and left her jewelry on.

To add to his credibility, Bowers had a few details that were not public, such as Tina's salary range. Yet, he was still a huge risk for the state. Would the jury believe a convict?

"I thought he was believable. I really did," said jury foreman Ron.

"His only offense was he was a meth addict," juror Jeanna, who believed Bowers, told Maher.

Bower's testimony is damaging to the defense and Rusty White demands to know if he made a deal with the D.A.:

Defense attorney Rusty White: ...you're hoping to get a time cut on your federal case by cooperating in this matter? Is that correct?

John Bowers: I mean I ain't been promised anything. I don't know.

Rusty White: That's what you're hoping to get though, right?

John Bowers: It would be nice.

"I think he was the first person, for me, that actually strung all the stuff that we had been hearing together and actually put it in a timeline," said jury foreman Ron.

The defense then uses its best weapon: reasonable doubt. One by one, Brannick Street residents take the stand, contradicting each other as they recall when each one of them saw the Avalanche on their street:

Stanley Myers: I thought it was Friday.

Juanita Myers: I was convinced all the time that it was Saturday...

Carol McElya: It was around 3 o'clock that afternoon.

Then, two more people testify. Each says they saw a woman matching Tina's description Saturday afternoon sitting in a truck parked on Brannick Street at the same time prosecutors say Tina was dead:

Roy Lemmon: Her hair was short, light color.

Defense Attorney Alicia Kutch: You're sure of the time, 5:45?

Darlene Lemmon: [nods head]

Alicia Kutch: Why are you sure of the time?

Darlene Lemmon: Well, we had to be at church around six and we were leaving to go to church.

At 5:45 p.m., Joe was heading to Sam's Club - looking for Tina:

[Video shown of a red Corvette pulling into parking lot]

Defense attorney Rusty White: Do you recognize that car right there?

Det. J.D. Owens: It looks like a red Corvette.

[Video shown of Joe Caronna inside Sam's Club]

Rusty White: Detective Owens, do you -- recognize Mr. Caronna in this picture?

Det. J.D. Owens: Yes, I do. ... He's in the lower right corner of the picture.

Rusty White: And what does that say as far as the date?

Det. J.D. Owens: October 25th, 2008, 5:54

Finally, Joe Caronna takes the stand -- but the jury is out of the courtroom:

Rusty White: And you understand that if you are convicted as charged you're looking at life in prison?

Joe Caronna: Correct.

Rusty White: Have you decided what you want to do in this matter?

Joe Caronna: Yes I have.

Rusty White: And what is that decision?

Joe Caronna: I will not testify.

Joe Caronna decided not to testify. He and his attorney declined repeated requests by "48 Hours" to be interviewed. As closing arguments begin, A.D.A. Karen Cook hammers home the financial motive:

"The defendant was living a lie," Cook told the court. "He stole from an elderly man. From infant to elder. He had absolutely no compunction who he stole from. ... And all of that was going to be coming to light as soon as the house did not close."

Caronna's defense attorney, Rusty White, strikes back with mistakes made by the cops:

"They didn't swab the back of the car where the perpetrator would have been," White told the court. "You'll see these rings ... And these are expensive. They didn't check these for DNA. Somebody tugging on a finger to take them off. "

"I thought that was their best moment," said juror Ron.

Asked why, he told Maher," Well, I just thought the passion and that it seemed that he was really pounding on some things there, and then I thought that when the prosecution had did that last closing argument as well, then they shut the door on that."

Prosecutor Tom Henderson's fiery closing reminds the jury of Tina's vicious, slow death:

"All he had to do during that first four minutes was STOP and she could have lived. But he kept it up for four to six minutes because he wanted her DEAD," he shouted.

Finally, the case goes to the jury. Less than two hours later, there's a verdict: guilty.

The verdict comes four years to the day that Joe Caronna buried his wife, Tina.

"And since there's no other punishment but life imprisonment, I will impose that today," said the judge.

For Joe Caronna, there will be no chance for parole until the year 2068. By then, he would be 104 years old.

"She'd be hugging me and telling me that...Sorry [wipes eyes]. You can finally be happy. You can finally move on," Todd Gray said of his mother. "There's not a day that goes by I won't think about her ... I'll love her and miss her everyday."

Video: Inside the Caronna home with Tina's mother and son

"After Tina's death, Joe was cleaning everything out of the house that was Tina's ... he threw her Bible ... in the waste paper can," Tina's mother, Clara Murphy said. "Somebody brought the Bible to me ... and this is something she wrote in here: 'Worry is the greatest thief of joy. Right praying, right thinking and right living.'"

In late February, Joe Caronna pleaded guilty to four of the 57 federal charges of fraud, embezzlement and money laundering.

That added seven years to his life sentence for murder.