Harlan Coben's Final Twist (2026) s01e01 Episode Script

1
Harlan, over here!
Ladies and gentlemen,
Harlan Coben.
He's the greatest
thriller writer.
Oh.
Coben's written over 30
New York Times Best Sellers.
With over a dozen
hit TV shows and movies.
In all our stories,
the same question:
What made the killer
cross that line?
I'm Harlan Coben.
Ideas for my mystery novels
can come from anywhere--
a conversation with a friend,
eavesdropping in a coffee shop,
a story in the news--
anything, really.
Now, when I hear about
a true crime, I get obsessed.
I have to follow the trail
no matter where it takes me,
like the mind-bending
double homicide
of two people named Billy.
Terrible crimes often blossom
out of something small--
in this case, just a routine
friend request on social media.
And that's where
our mystery begins.
How the hell did it get on?
Oh.
I'm just trying to
figure out this camera.
Billie Jean laughed
at absolutely
anything and everything.
She found the joy
in the little things.
He's going down.
Billy and Billie Jean
met where they worked.
Billy was always
a lot of fun to be around.
Say hi, honey.
They just clicked together.
Bill and Billie Jean
had the same name.
It was always a tongue-tie when
we talked about them together.
It was like, well, you guys
were meant for each other.
She then found out
that she was pregnant,
and that's all that
they ever wanted.
Say cheese, Mommy.
Billie Jean, she was
always holding her baby.
She liked being a mom.
Roll over.
There you go.
Billy was a good dad.
Their baby was starting
just to hit babbles.
I just remember
him making noises.
Baby.
They would have been
such great parents.
Mwah!
Excuse me.
Shut up!
Shut up!
Blood on his--
A crime happened here.
The past isn't what it seemed.
The story told
turns out to be deception.
And just when you're sure
you have the answer--
911, what is the address
of your emergency?
Hello? Anyone there?
there's one final twist.
Investigators describe it
as a quiet neighborhood.
The Johnson County community
is the center
of a double-murder
investigation.
Inside that home,
deputies discovered
Billy Payne Jr. with
a gunshot wound to the head,
and a cut on his throat.
They also found Payne's
girlfriend, Billie Hayworth,
with a gunshot wound
to the head,
and found the couple's
six-month-old baby uninjured
in his dead mother's arms.
Who could hurt someone
holding a child
at point-blank range?
Please come forward
and confess to this,
because this ain't fair.
This ain't right.
This ain't fair to him,
to lose his mom and dad.
The person who
did this crime
was a cold-blooded killer.
My initial motivation was
we're fighting
for this little kid.
The police
was mainly asking,
who do you think
would have done this?
Or why would somebody do this?
And I didn't know what to tell
them 'cause I had no clue.
We thought it might
be a professional hit.
There was not a lot of
physical evidence left behind,
and not a lot of clues.
Investigators
have no real leads
as they search for
the person who murdered
a couple near Mountain City.
We come from
a town that leaves
their doors unlocked at night,
so someone doing this
was unfathomable.
Investigators interviewed
more than 150 people
in the last seven days.
- Have a seat there.
- Have a seat there.
Right.
Nobody has a problem
with this boy.
Everybody liked him.
Everybody got along.
It's so common now that
we live behind pictures.
We live behind a persona
online or on social media.
There's a phrase that says
a picture is worth
a thousand words,
but I believe that a picture
can hide thousand words.
Breaking news today--
Detectives reveal evidence
of a social media conflict.
online war that
may have led to murder.
Every house holds
its own secrets.
We can look at the facade and
guess what's going on inside.
But the truth is,
no one really knows
what's going on behind
our front door,
and we don't know
what's going on behind theirs.
We learned there
was somewhat of a feud
going on between the victims
and this person
called Jenelle Potter.
At that time,
you had an internet website,
called Topix, where people
could just trash each other.
Just hateful, nasty things
being written,
and there was a lot of them
against Jenelle Potter.
Yeah.
When I first met Jenelle,
I worked at the pharmacy.
And they were coming in,
her and her mom and dad,
to get her medicine,
and I started talking to her.
Jenelle Potter was very
engaging, very endearing.
But she didn't have
many friends,
since she had just moved from
Pennsylvania to Mountain City
with her parents,
Barbara and Marvin Potter.
Jenelle was different.
You can tell she hadn't
been out hardly any at all.
We started talking
on the phone.
I asked her if she wanted
to go to my dad's with me
because Dad always had
a lot of people hanging out.
I said, we gotta
find her a boyfriend
to get her out of the house.
So Billy said, well,
let's get her hooked up
with our cousin Jamie.
She was real excited,
and Jamie was head over heels
for her.
I mean, they weren't dating
two or three weeks,
and they was wanting
to get married.
Jamie was not considered good
enough to Jenelle's parents
to be associated
as a boyfriend.
So that prompted the two
to doing it underground,
away from the prying eyes
of Jenelle's parents.
Being lied to is like
an everyday thing
for police officers,
and one of the
biggest reasons to lie
is to protect people
you care about.
We're raised being told
loyalty is everything.
But as we get older,
the real question is,
who gets our loyalty and why?
They say family comes first,
until that special someone
comes along
and changes everything.
Jenelle's friendship
toward Bill
seemed to have taken
a turn once Bill
became involved
with Billie Jean
in a romantic relationship.
That's when Billie Jean
started going online,
saying mean things
about Jenelle.
We heard Billie Jean
was bullying Jenelle
and wouldn't leave her alone.
Marvin Potter had actually
visited the sheriff's
department to complain
about the online harassment
of his daughter, Jenelle.
The sheriff told him,
the best thing you can do
is take that computer of hers
and throw it out the window.
I felt bad for Jenelle.
Jamie and Billy
totally quit talking.
I mean, they wasn't even
looking at each other.
I figured Jamie and Billy
would get over it.
You know,
it was just over a girl.
They'd get over it.
What Jamie didn't know
was that investigators
had gotten a tip.
The more you study
human behavior,
the more you start to see
patterns in the evidence.
There's the person
who did the deed
and another person
who put them up to it.
Usually, one is more
criminally minded,
and the other is, well,
more gullible,
impressionable,
easier to manipulate.
That's usually the one
who breaks first.
Mike Hannon conducted
the interrogation.
His calm country demeanor
is just
devastating to someone
who's got something to hide.
We stayed persistent with that
and didn't back off
of Jamie Curd.
When we asked him
that question,
he was closed
in his body language.
I mean, you could almost see
that he was hiding something.
When Jamie asked me
that question,
he said, the CIA is
involved in this case?
I was totally shocked.
When a suspect deflects,
our first instinct
is to assume deception.
They're trying
to hide something.
We see it as a sign of guilt.
But what if it's blind loyalty
that's driving them--
the primitive desire
to protect someone else?
And maybe even the one
pulling your strings?
Jamie told us that
he and the CIA agent
they were sending emails
back and forth.
Chris would write
what he was learning
through his CIA methods--
that Bill and Billie Jean
were plotting to harm Jenelle.
The correspondence from
Chris
was that he was prepared,
ready, willing, and able to,
"take care" of these people
who were bullying Jenelle.
At that point,
Jamie wound up getting
thrown off balance
in the interrogation.
The investigators could tell
they were on to something
and kept pressing him.
Buddy is the nickname
they call Marvin Potter,
Jenelle Potter's father.
When the world throws you off
balance, there's always family.
They're the safe harbor,
the ones who have your back.
They'll protect you from
the dangerous world outside--
sometimes so much so
that you get sealed off
from that world entirely.
The problem is,
without outside perspective,
you might never notice
when that very protection,
that supposed safety,
becomes the most dangerous
thing of all.
Whew!
Marvin Potter had served
his country as a Marine.
But at this point,
he's on disability.
He has mobility issues.
He was on oxygen.
While Buddy's mobility
issues were a concern
for investigators, Buddy
had a very strong motivation
for killing the victims,
because he believed
his daughter was in danger.
It was several hours.
He denied,
he denied, he denied.
And really, he had nowhere else
to go, but denial.
On a recording.
Investigators coached
Jamie into getting
a statement from Marvin
to show that he had
involvement with the crime.
When we were playing
the phone call to Buddy,
you could almost see the color
drain out of his face.
He was seriously concerned.
At this point,
he knows we're not bluffing.
Yeah, let's see what
you got to give.
Mike Hannon finally
found an angle with Buddy,
that you're the protector
of your family
and trying to touch on
the Marine background,
because he's very proud of
his service to his country.
Johnson County investigators
arrested Jamie Lynn Curd
and Marvin Potter Jr.
overnight,
their charges, two counts
of first-degree murder each
in the shooting deaths
of Billie Jean Hayworth
and Curd's cousin,
Billy Payne.
But the investigation
is not over yet.
Both Jamie and Buddy
were repeating information
to the investigators
that they had gotten
from Chris, the CIA agent.
They wanted to murder her,
and they wanted to rape her
because she's a virgin.
Determining who Chris was,
was very important
to determining
who was responsible for
trying to propel
this crime forward.
So while Marvin was
being interrogated,
the sheriff's department was
conducting their own search
of the Potter residence,
which ultimately led
to finding thousands
of shredded emails
from the CIA agent
named Chris.
It was obvious from
the emails that Chris
was very invested in
the potential deaths
of Bill and Billie Jean.
And then in one message,
I found a last name
that popped out.
It was Tjaden.
We found him.
Trial begins this morning
for the 2012 killings
of Billy Payne
and Billie Jean Hayworth.
My name is
Christopher Tjaden.
Have you ever been
employed by the CIA?
Never employed by the CIA.
Have you ever
emailed Jamie Curd?
Never.
I don't even know
who Jamie Curd is.
At that point, we knew
this was a catfishing case.
Often the more
outlandish the story,
the more effective the con.
Would you rather be
part of a Hollywood
cloak-and-dagger conspiracy
or an amateur hit job?
Chris Tjaden,
the real Chris Tjaden,
was a guy that had
had his identity stolen
in the course
of this double homicide.
He had been a cop,
but he was not in the CIA.
All these pictures
of himself had been
pulled off of his
public Facebook profile.
Investigators did
an IP address search
for where these Chris emails
were coming from.
In every instance,
it was coming from
the Potter household.
We then had to prove
who was Chris
among the three people
that were living there,
so I got an expert
in forensic linguistics
to examine known
writing samples
from the Potter family.
It was found that
Jenelle would misspell
certain words consistently.
Like when she's supposed to
take the E out before the -ing,
she wouldn't do that.
Then Chris, the CIA agent,
would do the same thing.
At that point, I felt,
OK, I'm on to something.
As I spent more and more
time with Jenelle,
it became apparent to me
that she had
a little crush on Billy Payne.
Billy Payne was a dynamic
and charismatic individual,
and Jenelle was taken by him.
Bill knew Jenelle
had a crush on him.
But he didn't feel the same,
so he tried to set her up
with his cousin Jamie
to take the pressure off.
Jenelle ran with it and used
Jamie to stay close to Bill.
But when Billy Payne got
with Billie Jean Hayworth,
Jenelle became jealous.
Jenelle was in love
with Billy
and knew that she
couldn't have him,
so she didn't want Billie Jean
to have him either.
Star-crossed lovers,
you know,
something she can't have,
she's upset about it.
Jenelle's anger
was palpable,
and it all came out online.
We discovered that Jenelle
had this regular habit
of going on anonymous internet
chat boards on Topix,
and now she was posing
as Billie Jean online,
attacking herself.
And then Jenelle would pose
as other people defending her.
Really weird.
Really weird.
Jenelle had a very unassuming
demeanor about herself,
but when her fingers
were on a keyboard
pretending to be other people,
she would be a lot meaner,
a lot nastier than anything
you'd ever see visually.
At the beginning,
Bill and Billie Jean
tried to completely
stay out of it.
They were just trying
to start a life together.
But it got real bad when
Billie Jean got pregnant.
It's like Jenelle
turned into somebody else.
Billy had tried multiple times
to get Jenelle
to leave him and Billie Jean
alone, but it's just like
the more he tried,
the worse it got.
The need for attention can
become a toxic addiction.
It needs to be fed constantly.
And like any addiction,
eventually, over time,
we need higher and higher
doses to get our fix.
Jenelle Potter craved
attention and love.
By creating this drama and
pretending to be a victim,
it brought loving attention
from her parents,
and eventually it spiraled
into something else.
Jenelle was sending
her mother emails as Chris,
the CIA agent.
Jenelle, posing as Chris,
would tell Barbara
that Bill and Billie Jean
were plotting to kill Jenelle,
and Barbara Potter
believed her.
It was clear through
the voluminous amount
of electronic evidence that
Barbara Potter was the one
that directed
Marvin and Jamie
to put the hit
on these two victims.
Barbara believed
Jenelle was endangered.
And that triggers in Barbara
the mama bear.
Barbara confided in Chris.
She trusted him.
She would want to see him.
Of course, he'd be busy.
He couldn't meet.
In reality, it was Jenelle
behind those emails.
Jenelle is the one
convincing Barbara
to bring in Buddy, her father.
When it came down to it,
Marvin did what Barbara
told him to do.
But Marvin was a disabled
vet who had limited mobility,
and he'd be entering that home
trying to kill people
who were much younger
and more mobile than him,
and he needed help.
Barbara did not approve
of Jamie for her daughter.
But then once Jenelle,
in the guise of Chris,
convinces her that Jamie is
a potential help to Marvin,
she then takes
a different tact with Jamie
and starts being loving
and motherly towards him.
Jamie wanted Barbara's
approval because he wanted
a relationship with Jenelle.
Jenelle Potter and
Barbara Potter were both
charged with
conspiracy to commit
premeditated
first-degree murder.
There is nothing
in your lives
that has prepared you
to understand
the Potter family.
You have never seen
anyone like them.
This wasn't a clear-cut
criminal case.
In all those TV shows,
it's always just one person
catfishing one person.
Here I had one person
conning two.
Both Jamie and Barbara
were catfished
by Jenelle posing as Chris.
Did you go to high school
with Jenelle Potter?
I did.
I can't remember the last time
I talked to her.
She was, uh, you know,
one of those kids that--
just very strange.
Chris wasn't just a name
that she came up with
at random.
This was a person that
she knew back in school,
probably had a crush on
at some point.
He tried to be friendly to her,
and she probably took it
the wrong way.
Jenelle was always
kind of a loner.
She was peculiar,
like somebody
that wasn't in
their right mind, fully.
Social media to Jenelle
was her lifeline.
It's attention-seeking.
It's fantasyland.
Jenelle operated as a child.
We had experts come in
and test her.
Although she was
in her early 30s,
she operated at
the level of someone
who was in their early teens.
Her IQ was 72.
She was incapable of
masterminding these crimes.
This mastermind,
the general that
draws up the battle plans--
no, that's not her.
She has no idea how to
effectuate a hit on a person.
That was Barbara.
If mastermind means going in
and killing two people,
that's probably Marvin Potter.
Marvin was the shooter
and Jamie was the watchman.
Today, we've learned Jamie
Curd has reached a plea deal
in exchange for his testimony.
Looking back on it,
do you feel like
you've been manipulated in
any way by the Potter family?
Yes.
With Buddy,
we had the confession,
so he was found guilty of
killing Bill and Billie Jean.
The involvement of Barbara
and Jenelle Potter in this,
you're criminally responsible
if you aided a crime
committed by someone else.
You can't imagine this case
without these two women.
They didn't have guns.
They didn't do it.
But it wouldn't have
happened without them.
I told the jury,
I want you to close your eyes
and imagine
this crime happening
without Barbara Potter.
Do the same for Jenelle Potter.
If you can't imagine it,
you know what your verdict is.
They just kept
making that snowball
get bigger and bigger
and bigger and bigger
until men acted on
their behalf.
Are you going to hell?
Yeah, you're going to hell.
And if I have to forgive any
of you'uns, stay out of hell,
I'll see you there.
It is all up to the jury.
They will now decide the fate
of a mother and daughter
accused in a double murder.
Bring the jury in, please.
We, the jury, find the
defendant, Barbara Mae Potter,
guilty of first-degree murder.
We, the jury,
find the defendant,
Jenelle L. Potter,
guilty of first-degree murder.
Jenelle and Barbara were
both given two life sentences.
I burst into tears.
I've tried a lot
of murder cases.
It's the only time I've ever
had that kind of reaction.
It was finally over,
and we'd gotten justice
for Bill and Billie Jean.
It was awesome.
But then, it still
don't bring them back.
I felt like if I had never
wanted to be her friend,
then it wouldn't
have happened.
OK.
Now sing, Bill.
Well, it's not-- ♪
There's not a day
that don't go by
that I don't think about him.
It was a relief that
Tyler came out alive,
but now he doesn't get to grow
up with a mother or father.
I'm gonna get you!
I just hope that he knows
that they loved him.
They would have supported him.
And, uh,
I wish that, you know,
we would have gotten
to see how beautiful
their family would have become.
Telling Billie Jean
and Bill's story,
it's keeping them alive.
That's what Bill and
Billie Jean would have wanted.
There was never a spy
in this town,
no deep-state conspiracy,
just a family with
an internet signal
and a few too many secrets.
In a world where
digital deception
moves faster than fact,
doesn't take a novel
for fiction to become
the motive for murder.
I'm Harlan Coben.
Good night.