I Lived With A Killer | Season 1 | Episode 17 | Suburban Dad Brian Hummert | Robert Mladinich

Brian Hubbard has a troubled marriage.

The relationship between Brian and Charlene Hummer was contentious at best.

When a stalker threatens Charlene, the family bands together.

It scared my mother at somebody had been following her and stalking her.

But when Charlene is brutally murdered, the police uncover the shocking truth.

By the end of March, he was no longer cooperating with the investigation.

I believe that Brian wanted to have over this family unit and Brian didn't have control.

And the Hummer children are torn apart.

That was the end of our family pretty much. We all lost both our parents and I lost my brother and sister at the same time.

Brian Hubbard is a small town family man, longtime husband to Charlene and a father of three. When his wife is found murdered after disappearing late at night from their home, Brian and his are devastated. But as mounting evidence points to an unlikely suspect close to home, Brian's children are confronted with the ugly truth. Eldest son David is especially close to his mother.

My mother was definitely the center of our family. She pretty much brought everybody together.

Brian and Charlene are fixtures in their New Cumberland, Pennsylvania neighborhood.

When I was younger, I thought we were a normal typical. Me and my father did boy Scouts and stuff like that together. My mother was very active in the community. She did a lot of charity events, helped with community cookouts and tons of events with the church. She organized events with our family, our family reunions, just family dinners, stuff like that with the extended family.

On March 19, 2004, the Hummerts enjoy one of Charlene's family dinners in their home. After the meal, 18 year old David and teenage sister Tracy both go out for the evening. With their youngest child away at camp, Brian and Charlene are left alone in the house. Later that night, David returns to an unusual scene.

I went out with friends. I was out until approximately 4 o' clock in the morning. When I came back, my mother's Land Rover was in the driveway. My dad was up sitting in his computer room with all the lights off. So I asked him why he was sitting up and he said that him and my mother had gotten in a fight and she left and he was waiting for her to come home so they could talk about it. I was pretty tired and just wanted to go to bed and figured if it was anything super serious, she would have called me or text me or something. And I was supposed to have an appointment with her in the morning to go purchase a vehicle. So I figured I'd see her in the morning and talk to her about it. I just went to bed.

The following morning, Charlene Remains uncharacteristically absent.

The following morning, woke up and I was expecting my mom to be there and instead my father was up early. Hey, hey. And he said she hadn't come home when he was awake. But after he dozed off, she must have come home and took her car because her car was gone from the driveway. We were supposed to be meeting at a car dealership to purchase a vehicle that I'd test driven the week before. And she was co signing the loan. So we had plans to meet at 9 in the morning. It just did not feel right. She promised she was doing something with me, my sister, my brother. She was there. No matter what happened, she would have made sure that she was there for that appointment.

Worried, David tries to reach his mother.

So I called her, didn't get an answer. Sent her a text, didn't get an answer. I started getting concerned because I hadn't, you know, she never just didn't respond to me. Called my grandmother, I called her brother. I tried to figure out where she might have gone.

So I'm trying to get ahold of mom.

There was a lady that had worked with her at a previous job, but they were still friends and had her number on my phone for some reason. So I called her. She heard anything, I called her boss and everybody was like, no, I have no idea where she'd be.

David leaves for work in the afternoon, but continues to try to reach his mother. He returns home that evening anxious for an update from his father.

Have you heard anything? What's going on? And he's like, I tried to call the police, but they said I can't file anything until tomorrow evening. But they'll put out some type of like alert on the car and if they happen to find it, they'll call us. At the time seemed really odd. He was definitely talking like she wasn't coming back. The authorities finally filed a report on Sunday morning because that was after the two day waiting period. We gave them a description of the vehicle, you know, her id, everything like that.

That night, police called the family with devastating news.

Later that evening, they called us and said that they had found the car and that my mother's body was inside and that she was. The detectives told us that her body had been found in her truck and it was found at the grocery store right up the street about a mile and a half from my house.

Charlene was in the back of the Land Rover, face down. There was no evidence of a struggle within the Land Rover. There was no evidence of struggle surrounding the Land rover and the doors were locked. Police were immediately thinking foul play and that this was a homicide investigation.

Investigators gently question the devastated family.

Detectives ask us when the last time we had seen or heard from her was and, you know, ask us if we could look at our cell phones. The last time she had called us that we actually been in contact. Asked when the last time that we had physically been home, that she was there, was then basically just gave us condolences and asked if we were willing to come in sometime in the next couple days for an interview, you know, just to talk to him and get any information about what might have happen. I was kind of just in shock and really didn't know what to make of anything or what to do with myself. My relationship with my mother was very close. I mean, we did pretty much everything together, talked about everything. We definitely spent a lot more time together than my brother or sister did.

As David struggles with his tragic loss, investigators from the local police force find there is an abundance of physical evidence to sort through.

In addition to Charlene's body, some of the. The things that were gathered at the scene where she was found would include the straw that was tangled in her hair, the soil and debris that was on her clothing that police thought got there by her being dragged.

Police also request surveillance video from the grocery store that they hope may show the image of their killer. But the most promising lead comes from an unexpected source. When detectives look into Charlene's past, they uncover a disturbing detail. Two years earlier, Charlene had been the victim of a stalker.

Around Christmas 2001, we had gotten a letter from a stalker that was following my mother around and claimed to be an ex boyfriend from high school or college.

The letters included glamour shots of her that she had had taken for her husband as a present.

It scared my mother that somebody had been following her and stalking her.

The stalker reports there was an affair with Charlene, and Charlene was responsible for the destruction of the stalker's relationship with his significant other and was seeking revenge. And the stalker is now following Charlene and reports that Charlene is buying lingerie, has a particular tattoo, and was not wearing a wedding ring.

My mother was shocked, angry, denied everything, and said that nothing had ever happened, that she never cheated, that there was no.

The shaken Hummert family rallies around Charlene.

My father put an alarm on the house, cameras up to try and catch this stalker. And pretty much everybody in the family was on high alert. Like, every noise you heard, you thought there might be somebody outside the house. You were going Outside, walking around, looking around at night with flashlights just created a sense of paranoia. I was pretty protective of my mother, so I was concerned. We checked on my mother Constant. The stalker said he followed her to work, you know, knew what her car was, so she would drive my car sometimes, drive my father's car sometimes, just to throw off this person.

Brian and Charlene called police about the stalker. The police investigated, but there was no stalker ever found. And the investigation just closed and the letters stopped.

Now, with Charlene's murder, detectives must reopen the investigation into the mysterious stalker.

My father presented this stalker as a possible suspect almost immediately.

Brian alleged that there was a boyfriend in Charlene's life. So part of that background investigation that we did was to try to find out who this boyfriend was and could he have been the author of these stalking letters. And in fact, is there somebody out there who's a threat to the community?

But as investigators take a closer look at the Hummert family, they find that behind the white picket fence, all is not what it seams. Small town dad Brian Hummert has everyone fooled when he blames his wife Charlene's brutal murder on the stalker who tormented her in the past. Eldest son David is devastated by his mother's death.

I think at the time, I was pretty much just in disbelief and shock. I just kind of didn't want to accept it. So I went to do anything that would make me not think about it, which didn't work. Of course.

David has no idea who is responsible for his mother's death, but he knows they're not the picture perfect family they appear to be.

My father was mentally abusive pretty much the whole way through childhood. He was just very angry. If you did something wrong, he'd yell and scream at you, call your names, just beat you down emotionally. But even physically abusive probably started when I was, like, five, seven years old. You kind of learned to watch what you said, watch what you did, make sure you cleaned up after yourself, because otherwise it would turn into a bad situation very quickly. There was a lot of times that you could see when he was gonna go off, and then other times, he would just flip out out of nowhere, and he would have a bad day at work, a fight with my mom, and he'd take it out of the. I think we just became the targets because, you know, when you're young, you're weaker, and you can not really fight back and not really do anything about it. And he just was a bully. He took advantage and bullied us all when we were younger and even into our teenage years.

Their father's abuse has a lasting effect on the Hummer children.

I think that dealing with that type of abuse when you're younger just hardens you to the rest of the world. Like you much more introverted than you would be and you react poorly to a lot of situations. Like I find myself either not reacting at all or having an extreme reaction where you don't really need an extreme reaction. It definitely messes with your head.

To make up for her husband's abusive behavior, Charlene overcompensates by doting on the children.

My mother definitely put herself out to make sure that myself and my brother and sister had anything we needed, that we were able to do whatever we wanted and made sure that we were taken care of.

Charlene assumed the role of loving the children and she was protective of the children and took the lead in taking care of the day to day things that the children needed. Brian did not.

My father wanted to make sure that things were taken care of for himself. And then after that, then the kids would get, you know, the trickle down, whatever was left.

As the children get older, Brian and Charlene's different parenting philosophies drive a wedge in the Hummerts marriage.

There were several arguments that I remember between my parents about my father's treatment of the kids. And a lot of times it involved my little brother. My brother was eight years younger than me. So it really was becoming socially unacceptable to smack your kids around. And he's going to school with, you know, bruises and stuff like that.

When David is 50, he's had enough. Like the troubled son played by Leonardo DiCaprio in this boy's Life, David pushes back against a verbally and physically abusive father.

I was riding my bike back from school, I got a flat tire, probably 5 to 10 minute drive from home. Ended up calling my mother. She called my father, told him to come pick me up. We loaded the bike into the back and when we got home and went to unload the bike, one of the pedals got caught on the rear seat upholstery and put like a small tear in the seat when we were getting it out. And he pushed the bike back into my face pretty much as hard as he could.

Look at what your bike did.

We got into a fight in the carport just outside of his vehicle and one of the neighbors saw and had called the police because we were yelling and screaming and fighting with each other.

Brian had inflicted an injury on David that resulted in a broken nose. And there was A great deal of psychological abuse and verbal abuse on the part of Brian directed towards David in particular.

This time, Charlene has had enough.

After the fight, my mother had called the York county police and the courthouse and had filed a restraining order to keep him out of the house.

In 1999, Brian and Charlene separated. And that was because child services agency here in York county was investigating Brian for alleged abuse against his children.

Brian undergoes court mandated therapy and soon the family attends counseling together.

We mainly discussed his actions toward the children, just his general lack of compassion for his own children and the fact that he had jealousy issues and anger issues with where he was at in life. I remember the counselor specifically telling him it wasn't a competition with his children, that parents are supposed to help build their children up. And he, he constantly wanted to tear us down if he felt that any of us were doing better than he did at our age or we had nicer things than him or anything like that. It became like a competition almost with his own kids.

When Brian suffers a health crisis, it forces him to reevaluate his life.

The counselor told him his anger was gonna cause him problems with his health, and it clearly did. And my father had a heart attack. He ended up in the hospital and we all went and saw him and everybo. And a near death experience always, you know, wants to find religion and be a better person. And he convincingly sounded like he was going to change.

Charlene calls a meeting with her children to decide the fate of their family.

My mother said she wasn't going to let him back without all of us agreeing to it. And I think the main one that, you know, she was waiting on approval from was me because we had such a physical fight that led to him being thrown out in the first place. She was not letting him back in without me saying that I was okay with it happening. We all sat down and talked and agreed to let him come back and try again.

With Brian back at home, the hope of a peaceful family life looks promising. Brian throws himself into the role of doting dad, trying to erase the years of neglect and abuse.

He was definitely trying to like go over the top with like going to get ice cream with the family and going to have family dinners and wanted us all to be home for dinners every night. And just a bunch of stuff that never happened when we were growing up. So it was very odd that all of a sudden it was like every night he wanted to have a family dinner. Just very like 1970s TV family. Just weird with the dynamic of how it had been prior to that.

Shortly after Brian's return, the newly reunited family is threatened when Charlene receives the first letter from her menacing stalker. David braces for the. But the new and improved Brian Hummert stands by his wife.

My father's reaction was uncharacteristically supportive. Normally, anything like that would have sent him off the edge. He would have been flipping out, screaming, yelling. But he was very supportive and actually a good husband at the time. For a while, it seemed like it was helping the relationship that there was this outside force of fear coming in. They got closer. Seemed like he might actually be changing. Maybe he does have some redeeming qualities. At least he's a decent. If he's not a decent father, at least he is supportive of my mother. There was a second letter that had come after that that claimed that there was an affair between this stalker and my mother. But my father wanted to be the hero and said he was going to take care of it and make sure everybody was safe.

Brian seems like a changed man. But before long, the real Brian Hummert returns.

Over time, we ended up getting right back into the same thing. Pushing, shoving, throwing stuff. Tried to kick me down the staircase. Time that quickly escalated back into being just as bad as it was before he got out.

For David, his father's relapse is strangely reassuring.

I felt almost relieved that it was going back. It was always like, waiting for the other shoe to drop when he was acting totally differently. It was almost comforting to just see that he was sliding back into the same patterns. And at least you knew where you stood and how to act.

As Brian's temper escalates, Charlene begins to consider leaving him for good and leans on her eldest child for support.

My mom started confiding in me more and more and telling me to start trying to think of ways to help get my brother and sister on board with it without actually telling them anything. She didn't want them going running back to my father and telling him anything. I was happy to be helping, and I was just happy that we were going to be getting rid of him and hopefully moving on with less stress. It was kind of nice to think, well, there is actually an end in sight.

Over time, Charlene secretly puts her plan in motion.

She started, like, squirreling away money so that when she left, he couldn't do anything spiteful. Go take all the money out of all the accounts, because he was definitely that type of person. He would have done anything he could to mess up a new life.

In December 2000, 3. Another letter from the stalker arrives. This time, it contains the security codes to the Hummert home.

The police were called. They conducted another investigation to include checking for fingerprints in an effort to identify the origin of the letter and a potential suspect, to no avail. They weren't successful in that the letter.

That arrived had pictures with it that my mom had taken in lingerie. It had shown up with a stalker letter accusing her of having an affair again, and it definitely drove a wedge between them.

Over the next few months, the the tension in the Hummert house increases, and Charlene solidifies her plans to leave.

She pretty much had started a plan to move out with the children and get away from him before anything crazy happened. My father is very controlling, so I think he would have done any and everything he could have to keep us from leaving.

On March 19, 2004, Charlene tries to keep up appearances by making dinner for her husband and two older children while her youngest is on a weekend campus.

My mom often had family dinners. I'd say it was about 50, 50 if me and my sister both actually stayed through dinner. It always resulted in an argument either between my father and myself or my sister and my father and my sister and my mother. It just was not a good situation at the time. Everybody pretty much was on edge. And then between the stalker letters and all that stuff, just still lingering, and it was just really stressful.

During dinner, both David and his sister argue with their father and storm off, leaving Brian and Charlene alone. Brian seizes the opportunity to enact a horrifying plan. And sometime that night, he murders his unsuspecting wife. When Charlene's body is found two days later, Brian points the finger at her stalker, confident he's gotten away with murder. Brian Hummert is not the grieving husband he pretends to be. After murdering his wife, he leaves her body in the parking lot of a grocery store in their New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, neighborhood. In shock following his mother's death, oldest son David believes his father's claim that Charlene was attacked by her stalker.

Somebody had been following her and stalking her. My father presented this stalker as a possible susp almost immediately.

But as detectives learn more about the troubled Hummert family, they become suspicious.

The relationship between Brian and Charlene Hummert was contentious at best.

Looking for evidence to confirm their suspicions, investigators obtained surveillance video from the grocery store where Charlene's body is found. The video shows a lone man entering the store around the time of Charlene's death.

So he walks into the store and his image is captured by several different cameras. And he buys a bag of dog food. I believe it was at 6 in the morning or so. And. And then walks out.

In the video, it's clear that the man is wearing a blue parka and black boots, but his face is obscured. An examination of the body, however, reveals some promising information.

Cause of death was determined after a forensic autopsy was conducted. And the results of the autopsy show showed ligature strangulation, although it wasn't clear exactly what the instrument was that was used. Also, numerous injuries on Charlene's person her body that indicated there was a bit of a struggle and her body was moved as well.

But after police release the body, new evidence comes to light.

After the autopsy, Charlene was sent to a funeral home and her body was embalmed. And the embalming process highlighted the injury pattern on her. Her neck.

From the injury pattern, investigators determined that Charlene was strangled by some kind of modified dog collar. Despite their devastation, David and his siblings aid in the investigation.

I volunteered to help however I could. When the detectives asked me to come in for an interview, wanted to go out of my way to help with whatever they needed. My brother and sister, you know, pretty much the same thing said whenever you know, whatever you need, whatever questions you need answered. They had several people that they were looking into through the stalker letters. And an ex boyfriend that didn't necessarily have to be the stalker, but could have been and other people of interest.

But as the investigation continues, the questions begin to focus in on the Hummerts troubled marriage.

The detectives asked me a lot of questions about their relationship in general. I told them it was rocky at best. And my mother was planning on leaving, but my father didn't know anything about her planning on leaving.

David has no idea that his father is a suspect. But Brian quickly goes on the offensive.

My father was very. Just immediately suspicious and just kept saying that the police always blame the husband and he's gonna be the suspect and just acting really paranoid.

Charlene's body was found on March 21. And by the end of March, he had retained an attorney and according to police, was no longer cooperating with the investigation. His attorney said that that wasn't true, that he was continuing to cooperate. But when I checked with police, they reiterated that the cooperation had.

It was just odd that my father refused to help the police. He was very upset that I was talking to the police and I was cooperating with the investigation.

But as the investigation continues, Brian becomes uncharacteristically supportive.

My father just Started being very nice, offering to help me with things, kind of in the way. Like my mother used to just said, you know, if you need a car, if you need money, I'm more than willing to help you out. Just, it felt like he was just trying bribe me.

It all adds up. And David comes to a startling conclusion. His father is the number one suspect.

Over time, just with helping them with the interviews, they ask about for fingerprints, for exclusion, DNA, different stuff. And just the way my father had been acting, refusing to help them. He said they were looking to pin it on him. And their questions kind of more and more narrowed down on, you know, information about him, his whereabouts, things around the house. It became more and more apparent that they were certain that it was him and that something was gonna happen.

David struggles to come to grips with his new reality.

It was just a ridiculous situation to be in. I don't really know how else to describe it. It was like a bad movie. You don't know what's gonna happen next. You don't know what's gonna happen. Day to day, you're hoping that the police arrest him and get it over with. And another party is hoping that they find somebody else. Cause you don't wanna admit that not only one of your parents, but both of your parents.

With police suspicion against Brian, mounting evidence begins to pile up.

They were able to link the fibers, plant material, and especially the soil that was found on Charlene's body to soil that is unique to the geography, immediately inclusive of the Hummert house and immediately surrounded.

In addition to proving that Charlene was dragged outside her own home, another link to the humble house is found.

Charlene's body was covered with a blanket that David later said was a blanket he had used as a child.

As the evidence piles up, Brian's behavior begins to frighten his son.

As it went on, it became more and more apparent that they were certain that it was him and that something was going to happen. He was just acting very out of character. Mood swings, like happy one minute, paranoid the next, angry the next. Just all over the place. You didn't really know like what you were going to walk into the house to.

David decides he needs to protect himself and his siblings from his unpredictable father.

I started sleeping with a gun under my pillow. Nobody knew what was going to happen, when and if they were going to arrest him. It was clear that that's the route they were going. But you didn't know if it was going to be before or after he did something crazy. I was just paranoid that he was going to try and do something to myself or my sister for cooperating with the police.

But as the walls close, Brian, a frightening new suspect emerges.

There was a letter mailed to the Patriot, which is a local newspaper, with a serial killer claiming to have been the one to kill my mother.

The serial killer claimed that indeed they were the one that committed this crime and that there are many other victims, and they're out there, and there will be more.

Small town Pennsylvania mom Charlene Hummert is found strangled to death in the back of her car in the parking lot of a grocery store less than two miles from her home. Her husband Brian, is the prime suspect. Brian points to finger at the stalker who terrorized Charlene in the past. But when letters are delivered to the police and the media, claiming a serial killer is the culprit, the Hummert family find themselves at the center of a media storm.

At the time, it almost seemed like a movie. Like it was not only just very odd for our small town that, like, there would be a murder, let alone that it was, then there's this stalker and then a serious serial killer. I had news reporters coming to my school. I was followed to the mall one time by somebody that I recognized as somebody that worked for one of the news stations from outside my house. It was numbing, sort of just. It kind of was like one thing after another after another after another, and you didn't know what was going to happen next or what the actual truth was.

But as the investigation continues, David realizes that the police still have their sights set on his father.

Brian talking to the police at the time, it just seemed like they didn't really seem to believe these serial killer letters.

The serial killer letters surfaced a little while after the investigation was starting to gain some momentum. Those of us who investigate crimes like this recognize efforts like this as crime staging. Staging is defined typically as the person who is responsible for the act thinks that everyone else thinks he is responsible for the act and therefore is compelled to do something to draw the attention away from themselves.

Police suspect that the. The letters are coming from Brian himself.

My opinion is that Brian was feeling that he was the focus of the investigation, and the serial killer letters were an attempt to throw the police off the trail and put our attention somewhere else, away from him. Naturally, we took another look at Brian Hummert, a closer look, and then began trying to figure out how we can determine the author of these letters.

Investigators use both handwriting analysis and forensic linguistics to analyze the serial killer letters.

The judge approved a search Warrant to go to Brian's home and look for other documents that we could send back to the handwriting expert and the linguist for their opinions to whether or not all the documents matched. And as it turned out, we found Brian's computer.

When they examine the computer's contents, police discover something. Unless unexpected, we seized the computer.

And from the computer they extracted documents that matched the previous stalker letters. So it appeared that Brian had wrote the previous stalker letters from that computer.

They found evidence that showed that Brian had had Charlene's glamour shots, that he had ripped them up and put them in an envelope, and that was in his office area.

But the search also yields a crucial piece of evidence. A homemade dog collar.

One of the lead detectives told me when he was searching, he saw a metal cable, plastic coated, red metal cable on the ground. And he told me the second he saw that he knew it was the murder weapon. They also noticed and seen seized as evidence his parka and his boots, which they said matched the clothing that was worn by the man who bought the dog biscuits in the grocery store. Shortly after, police believe Charlene Hummert's body was driven there.

Within the pocket of his jacket was the receipt for the dog food that he had purchased. At 6am on the morning that he.

Murdered his wife with enough evidence to move, make an arrest. Police move in on Brian Hummert in November 2004. David is at school when he learns of his father's arrest.

I got a call from the detectives asking if I was home. I said no. They said, well, you know, you might not want to go home for a little bit, where, you know, we just arrested your father at work. There's news crews at your house. If you can call your brother and sister, tell them not to go home. It's just going to be a media circus for at least a couple hours. It was just a terrible situation to be in.

Despite David's desire to protect his younger siblings, their father's arrest tears the family apart.

My brother, who's still really too young to understand what was going on, but I told my sister, like, they have a ton of evidence and it's like, you know, it really looks like he did it. And she just refused to believe. She's like, no, they're framing him. He said he never would do that. And she just refused to believe anything. He had her twisted in her mind that this was some big conspiracy that they set up just to frame him to clear the case.

By the time the case goes to trial in 2006, the family is more Divided than ever.

My sister refused to help in any way with the investigation. And she testified on the defense side and also as a character witness for my father. My father's attorney also contacted me, asking me to be a witness for the defense and not to. I guess not in direct terms, but not to help the prosecution. But I'm not going to not try and help in finding my mother's killer.

As the prosecution presents their case, David learns for the first time the gruesome details from the night his father killed his mother.

Brian Hummer took advantage of the fact that Charlene had turned her back to him. He came from behind her with her, completely unaware, and then slipped this dog leash around her neck and applied the ligature, strangling her, forcing her down to the ground where he could further control. He was heavier than her, so she was face down. He choked her to death with this dog leash. It took more than a couple minutes to kill Charlene in this fashion, so we had plenty of time to appreciate what he was doing to her. Following the event, he takes extensive steps to cover the crime. The evidence showed clearly that Charlene was drugged from inside the Hummert house, through the yard, into the garage and then into her own vehicle. Brian picked her up and put her in fan and then tried to push her all the way into the vehicle. She was too tall for the back, so her legs were bent. There was some moisture on her person and around her in the back of the vehicle. I believe that that came from being transferred from the house into the land Rover.

At 4am David comes home.

Looking back, I think that she had to be in the car when I got home, which is kind of disturbing to think about. The fact that I probably walked with within 5ft of my mother's body. Didn't even realize it, but it was almost like he was waiting for me to come home because he knew I was gonna come home. At some point. Before he moved everything.

Brian got a blanket that both his sons had used as boys, covered her with that blanket, her son's blanket, and drove her to a nearby grocery store. There he left the Land Rover. And police say one of his big mistakes was instead of merely leaving, he decided to go into the store and buy a big box of dog biscuits for their dog. The case was basically a trove of forensic evidence from soil to linguistics to DNA surveillance video and computer experts.

At that point, I knew that he was guilty. It was proven to me beyond any reasonable doubt.

But as the defense presents its case, Brian's suggestion of yet another Suspect sends shock waves through the courtroom. Small town Pennsylvania father Brian Hummert is standing trial for first degree murder in the 2004 death of his wife, Charlene. The prosecution presents a trove of damning evidence, laying to rest any doubt in the mind of Brian and Charlene's eldest son, son David.

At that point, I knew that he was guilty. It was proven to me beyond any reasonable doubt.

But as the trial continues, the defense team readies a theory of its own.

His defense was pretty bare bones. There wasn't a lot of evidence. It was just an attempt to dispute stuff. The whole time my father was handing notes to his lawyer, both when I had testified for cross examination and when other people had testified. You could see him handing notes to the attorney, telling him, I'm assuming questions.

To ask when David is called to testify. The defense shocks the courtroom.

During my testimony, there were several questions that, like, seemed to almost be trying to raise doubt, as if I could have, if I could have done it. Just saying I was in better physical shape than my father, my mother was in better physical shape than my father, and that if, you know, there was a struggle and who had a better chance of overcoming her in a physical struggle?

David. David's sister then takes the stand to reinforce the defense's theory.

When my sister testified, she basically said that my father couldn't. Wouldn't have done it, and that I had a temper, made several, not open accusations, but a lot of innuendo that I could have done it.

For David, his family's betrayal is earth shattering.

I think I was even more shocked than furious because I had a great relationship with my mother. Anybody that knew us knew that I never would do anything to hurt her. It was just disgusting that they would take things that far. And it was just transparent and desperate to anybody that knew the family and knew me and knew my mother that they would go to that length to try and cast a shadow of doubt on the fact that my father did it.

Despite the defense's attempt to deflect blame away from Brian, the jury returns a verdict in record time.

We went to go get lunch and we didn't even have time to finish eating lunch before they called us and said to come back to court that the jury was back in.

Brian Hummert is convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

I believe that Brian, at the end of the day, wanted to have control over this family unit. Brian didn't have control. All Brian wanted was to avoid justice in this case and not be held responsible for the murder that he committed, which makes him a evil person, and he is in the right place where he will spend the rest of his days.

But the damage Brian's actions inflict on his family is far reaching. At the sentencing hearing, David and his sister sit on opposite sides of the courtroom.

During the sentencing phase of the trial. There was a ton of people that sat on my mother's side, including myself, and on my father's side of court, there was my sister and my father's parents. Since that date, my sister and I haven't spoken. My brother and I haven't spoken. That was the end of our family pretty much. We all lost both our parents, and, you know, I lost my brother and sister at the same time.

After the trial, David leaves town to escape the constant public scrutiny.

It was a very public trial. Everyone around seen it in the newspaper, seen it on tv. I couldn't go to, you know, a gas station, a supermarket, a bar, or anything without seeing somebody that, you know, wanted to tell you they were sorry, which I'm sure they meant in a nice way to make you feel better. But the last thing you want to hear when you're trying to get over something is, I'm so sorry. Sorry about your loss. You know, you don't want to be reminded of it constantly. I was drinking heavily and, you know, coping by trying to just make it through the day, get done with work, go to the bar, come home, do it all over again the next day. For a while, I just tried to not think about things and file it away and not feel anything, which doesn't really help. Doesn't really work.

Even in death, David's mother comes through for her son in the same way she had in life.

I think a lot of finally getting through it was just realizing that my mother wouldn't want me to keep doing what I'm doing and would want me to pick myself up and put my life back together and do something productive with it. And I moved back, kind of reset my life, started working on cars again, started a business. I think the only positive out of a situation like this is it forces you to figure out what type of person you are and, you know, put together the strength to go on and put your life back together. Cause it really does just take you down to nothing. You have no choice but to either pick yourself up and do something good or just completely fall apart.