But Diane was crying. Diane was scared. Diane needed her. And Margaret had always been a fool for people who needed her. The plan, as Diane explained it, was simple. She would give Margaret copies of the documents for safekeeping. She would go to the FBI with the originals. Gerald Whitmore would be arrested and the threat would be over. But there was a complication. If something happens to me before I can get to the FBI, Diane said, “If Witmore’s men get to me first, someone needs to know the truth.
Someone needs to be able to finish what I started.” She handed Margaret a flash drive, told her it contained everything, every document, every transaction, every piece of evidence against Gerald Witmore. “Hide this somewhere safe,” Diane said. And if I disappear, if something happens, take it to the authorities. Promise me, Maggie. Promise me you’ll finish this if I can’t, Margaret promised. 3 weeks later, Gerald Whitmore was dead. And 2 days after that, the police showed up at Margaret’s door with a warrant for her arrest.
The trial lasted 3 weeks. 17 years have passed since then, and some of it is still a blur. Even Margaret can’t recall every moment. But here’s what matters. The flash drive Diane gave her didn’t contain financial documents. It contained detailed plans for Gerald Whitmore’s murder, meeting times, security schedules, diagrams of his house, instructions written in what looked like Margaret’s handwriting, but wasn’t. According to the prosecution, Margaret was the mastermind. She’d orchestrated the whole thing, convinced Diane to help her, used her sister’s access to Whitmore’s office to gather intelligence, and arranged for a man named Curtis Webb to do the actual killing.
Curtis was a drifter with a record. He’d been paid $8,000 in cash. The serial numbers on those bills were traced back to a withdrawal from Margaret’s personal savings account. Margaret hadn’t made that withdrawal. She didn’t know Curtis Webb. She’d never set foot in Gerald Whitmore’s office or his house, but none of that mattered. The evidence was overwhelming. Her fingerprints were on the flash drive. The money came from her account. Her handwriting, or something close enough to fool the experts, was all over those plans.
And Diane Diane testified against her. She sat on the witness stand in a black dress, tears streaming down her face, and told the court that Margaret had manipulated her, that Margaret had a grudge against Whitmore. Some story about him foreclosing on a friend’s property years ago, that Margaret had threatened to hurt her if she didn’t help. I was scared of my own sister, Diane sobbed. I didn’t know what she was capable of. Margaret sat at the defense table and watched her sister lie.
watched her cry those fake tears. Watched her destroy her life with every word that came out of her mouth and she still didn’t understand. That’s the part that haunts this story. Even then, even as Diane was sending her to prison, part of Margaret thought her sister must be confused, must be mistaken, must have been threatened or coerced into testifying. She couldn’t believe Diane would do this on purpose. She couldn’t believe it was real. The jury deliberated for 6 hours.
They came back with a verdict of guilty on all counts, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, firstdegree murder under Tennessee’s felony murder rule. The judge sentenced Margaret to 30 years. She was 52 years old. That sentence meant she’d be 82 before she saw the outside world again if she lived that long. But she got lucky, if you can call it that. good behavior, overcrowding, a compassionate release program for elderly inmates that Tennessee started in 2020. She served 20 years instead of 30.
