A “dangerous romance” had deadly consequences for Texas mother Mary Ann Murphy.
The 48-year-old victim was found killed in her Humble, Texas, home in 2012 after her frantic teenage daughter Keri Murphy placed a call to 911 to report a break-in at the house.
“All I did was hear my mom scream, ‘Stop, stop, stop,’” the 16-year-old told the 911 dispatcher, as heard in a preview of “Down the Rabbit Hole,” an all-new Dateline episode airing Friday at 9/8c p.m. on NBC.
When police arrived at the home, according to the episode’s synopsis, they discovered “her mother had been murdered, launching a yearslong investigation that featured a false confession and revealed a dangerous romance.”
What Keri Murphy told police about the night her mom was killed
In the aftermath of the fatal attack, Keri told investigators that someone had broken into the home in the middle of the night.
“She heard a male’s voice telling her mother to shut up, and then she ran out of the house,” Juan Viramontes, then a detective at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, told Dateline.
Detectives searched for clues left inside the house, located in a city just outside of Houston, and soon began to take a close look at everyone in Mary Ann’s inner circle at the time of her death.
Mary Ann Murphy’s family looked at by investigators
“They fingerprinted me, they fingerprinted my dad,” Mary Ann’s son Scott Murphy told Dateline.
Even Mary Ann’s daughter Keri fell under suspicion.
“She told me that she felt as if the police were trying to make it seem like she did it,” Keri’s friend Heather Tucker said on Dateline.
In an interrogation room, Keri insisted that she was living in terror after her mother’s brutal murder.
“I’m scared he’s gonna hurt me,” she told one investigator.
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Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison said in a voice-over in the Dateline preview that as the investigation continued, detectives “found themselves heading down a rabbit hole” that would take years to unravel.
Along with Scott, Tucker and Viramontes, the episode features interviews with Deputy Fred Hooper, Detective Sydney Miller, Juvenile Prosecutor Anna Emmons, and Prosecutor Greg Bolton.
“The story has lots of twists and the characters are flawed in a way many parents will understand — and the result was just the sort of thing we tell stories about,” Morrison told NBC Insider of the shocking case. “Shakespeare in Humble, Texas.”
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To find out more about what detectives uncovered during the investigation, watch Dateline on Friday at 9/8c p.m. on NBC or catch the episode the next day, streaming on Peacock.
And for even more Dateline, sign up for the show’s official newsletter and check out its podcast.
