The Bad Wife : Kelly Gissendaner

In February 1997, 30-year-old Douglas Gissendaner left a friend’s house after working on cars and drove home to the house he shared with his wife, Kelly, in Auburn, Georgia. He never made it back alive. What looked at first like a robbery gone wrong in a remote wooded area of Gwinnett County was anything but random. Douglas was forced at knifepoint into his own car, driven deep into the woods near Harbins Park, ordered to his knees, beaten with a nightstick, and stabbed repeatedly in the neck. His watch and wedding ring were taken to stage a robbery.

His body was left for animals to find. The real architect of the crime was not the man who wielded the knife—Gregory Owen, Kelly’s lover—but Kelly herself. She had planned the murder for months, rejected divorce as an option because she believed Douglas would “never leave her alone,” and wanted the house and the life insurance money. On the night of the killing she drove Owen to the house, handed him a nightstick and a hunting knife, then went out dancing with friends to create her alibi. She later returned to the scene as the murder was being carried out.

Timestamps

05:12 A New Family Forms

11:28 Army Life Unravels

18:41 Doug Goes Missing

28:14 Suspects Surface

38:14 The Body Is Found

50:43 The Murder Plot