The Bad Nurse (7 page)

CHAPTER 25

D
espite her declarations of undying love and faithfulness to Nathan Wilder, Karri evidently had enough time on her hands while in jail to cultivate another relationship simultaneously. It is not known whether she was writing to a fellow inmate or to one of the jail staff. No name was found in that letter, but it contained some telling hints as to Karri's true nature.

In that letter, Karri told the unknown object of her affection that she wanted them to have a beach wedding, make love every night, and bring their families together.

I want to be your wife,
she wrote.
I love you. I am in love with you. Doesn't that matter to you? I've already sent you two other letters with no response.

Whoever this mystery lover might have been, it was probably one of his better decisions not to have responded to Karri's entreaties, otherwise his identity would have been plastered throughout the case files for all the world to see.

Karri didn't just spend her time writing to Nathan Wilder and the mystery man. There were well over a dozen letters in the evidence file to other people, including Nathan Wilder's mother, Karri's family members, and her children. There were also letters to her husband, although from the amount of time Karri was spending on her jailhouse romances, it would seem there was little time left over for Jason Willoughby.

Nonetheless, she managed to squeeze in a little correspondence to him. She wrote to him about missing Christmas with him and the children and how she wished she could be with them. She told him about how her visiting privileges had been revoked because of her refusal to cut her hair. She talked about how much she missed being there for the children, saying she couldn't imagine being away from them while they were growing up.

I want to be there for them as their mother,
she penned.

Karri knew, however, that it was looking less and less likely that would be the case, despite her massive public relations campaign waged online and on the roadsides of north DeKalb County. Shortly before she shocked the courtroom with her surprise guilty plea, she wrote to Jason that she wanted to win the trial:
I should win it because I'm innocent, but I don't think it's going to go my way.
She said Billy Dalton, her brother-in-law, was going to lie, and Kim, his wife and her sister, was going to say that Karri stole their mother's identity.

And Nancy is going to say mother was upset at the bank,
she wrote, admitting that she did sign out the drugs that were in her stepfather's system.

I have no alibi,
she revealed,
and who is going to believe I was really taking a nap on the side of the Interstate?
Plus, she said, she had two bankruptcies before she was thirty:
[A]nd now this sex letter. Let's face it, it doesn't look good.

Through it all, even presumably through the mention of the sex letter, which she undoubtedly had tried to convince Jason was a fake, Karri always professed her innocence on every opportunity.

If I go down, I go down fighting and clinging to that truth,
she wrote.

CHAPTER 26

K
arri's blogs and Facebook postings always hyped her deep and abiding love and faithfulness to her husband, saying how blessed she was to have Jason for her husband and as the father of their children.

He is not perfect,
she wrote,
but he is perfect for our family.

He was more than she could ever ask for and much more than she deserved, she said, but God had somehow brought them together and guided them every step of the way through their marriage, blessing them with two beautiful children.

I love him with all my heart,
she wrote.
My soul is for Jesus, but Jason has the rest of me!
Karri said she didn't tell him often enough how much she appreciated him and everything he did for their family:
I don't know what we would do without him.

Karri went on to say that Jason had “more than honored” the vows they took almost fourteen years earlier. She wrote that
in sickness and in health, in good times and bad . . . he has honored me all the days of our marriage.

He was a Christian role model for the children, Karri wrote of her husband, saying that Jason loved the children, but he was a disciplinarian when it was needed.

I can't say enough good things about him, I am truly a blessed woman. Thank you God for bringing Jason and I together, and thank you Jason for being the man you are,
Karri committed to paper.

It would seem that Jason would surely begin to doubt his wife's professions of abiding and undying love and faithfulness when the jailhouse love letters were made public. With Karri writing to one man about their beach wedding and making love every night, while at the same time writing sexually explicit letters to Nathan Wilder about her desire to be his wife “officially” and claiming to love him beyond her wildest hopes and dreams, where did Jason Willoughby fit into her plans?

In one of her letters to her husband, Karri wrote that it was Christmas night, foggy and drizzling rain, and how she wished she could be snuggling on the couch with Jason, watching the children playing with their new toys.

There's nowhere on earth I'd rather be,
she wrote,
than cuddled up in your arms.

Unless, perhaps, she could have been cuddled up in the arms of Nathan Wilder or her other unidentified jailhouse crush. To one of those two prospective lovers, she wrote,
Well, they just popped my door so I'm gonna go now. Baby, I love you so much and I'm so happy I got to see you today. You're always in my thoughts and dreams. Hugs and kisses. I love you.

The letters that had been posted on Karri's Facebook page were a far cry from the ones that ended up in the evidence files and published in the newspapers. While her followers were reading about her undying love and devotion to her husband, Karri, at the same time, was writing to her fellow inmates about how excited she was at the prospect of leaving Jason and having a future together with both Nathan and her mystery man after leaving jail.

Perhaps Jason Willoughby was the only person who really knew the truth about his wife's dark side and was aware of the extent of all her lies and manipulations. Or maybe, on the other hand, like so many hundreds of people, her betrayals and admission of guilt had come as a complete shock to him. Maybe she'd had him thoroughly fooled into believing all the things she had told him for almost fourteen years. At any rate, the façade of the devoted Christian wife had crumbled to the ground.

CHAPTER 27

W
hen Karri Willoughby left the DeKalb County Jail en route to Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women, the scene at the jail reminded some observers of a celebrity walking the red carpet instead of a convicted murderer walking to a transport vehicle. Karri signed autographs, waved and smiled broadly at the bystanders and the media waiting for her to make her appearance, and even handed out autographed pictures to some of the jail staff before leaving.

“She thinks she's some kind of a star,” one of the jailers remarked as Karri made her way out of the building.

Karri had a few words for those gathered outside to watch her leave for prison.

“Just want my community to take care of my husband and children,” she said, evidently not realizing that her legion of thirteen hundred loyal fans had shrunk to near nonexistence overnight following her shocking admission of guilt. It was unlikely that her community had much interest in continuing to support her or blindly do her bidding. They were, for the most part, deeply hurt and disillusioned. Only a few remained in denial, steadfastly refusing to accept the real truth from Karri, even when they'd heard it spoken by her in court.

CHAPTER 28

T
he activity on the “Truth for Karri” Facebook page took a drastic downturn following her shocking courtroom admission of guilt. It was only a short time until the page disappeared entirely. There was apparently a lot of “I told you so” being doled out by those who had believed Karri to be guilty from the start. Her remaining friends and supporters just didn't want to hear it or admit to themselves that there was even the slightest possibility that it could be true. They continued to make their opinions known, loudly and often, at every possible opportunity.

Others, who had accepted the facts and no longer were in denial, had been badly hurt and highly disillusioned by the shocking turn of events in the courtroom. For the most part, they were staying quiet, lying low, and licking their wounds.

One person wrote in the comments section of a newspaper's website that they had been following many of the posts left by Karri's friends who remained adamant about her innocence, and said that they had formed an opinion about those supporters based on what they had said in their continuing posts.

Those friends, the writer had come to believe, were “the hateful, holier-than-thou bunch.” They were spreading thoughts and opinions that were obviously “their interpretation of what is going on,” and not the facts as had been provided by the prosecution's case files and the court records, which had been made public.

I think that a lot of people are going to be gravely disappointed that their loyalty has been so misplaced,
the writer emphasized.

Another writer put it a little less tactfully:
Where's all the truth 4 Karri stuff that Ider was so fired up about?
The writer went on to say they guessed everyone “got lockjaw” when she pled guilty. The writer ended by proclaiming,
The truth will set you free!

The defection of so many of her true believers must have come as a surprise to Karri. She had worked long and hard to get as many people lined up in her corner as possible. Right before the trial was scheduled to start, she had posted a letter to her supporters on the soon-to-be-defunct “Truth for Karri” page.

Thank you everyone for your many prayers and letters,
she wrote. She added that the DA would probably be “cussing” her by “this time next week.” Karri said she was feeling the love from all around her, and she felt happier at that time than she had for a long time, even with all the turmoil she was experiencing in her life.

God is so good, He gives me relief when I think I can't take any more,
she wrote, telling her followers that they were the best friends anyone could ever ask for.
If I can ever do anything for any one of you, all you have to do is ask.

Karri went on to say that she loved her friends “from the depths of my soul.” She wrote,
[Y]our support means more to me than I will ever be able to tell you.

It is likely that even as Karri was composing this letter, skillfully designed to bolster the support of her followers, she was also planning the guilty plea she would present in a few short days.

CHAPTER 29

A
nother shock came for Karri's friends after the trial, when the case files revealed what the prosecution stated that they believed to be Karri's motive for the murder of Billy Shaw. Many of her supporters knew, to a certain degree and even by Karri's own admission in several of her blog posts, that she and Jason were having financial difficulties. There was no way, however, that they could have imagined just to what degree those money problems had mushroomed during the months prior to the deaths of Billy and Lila Shaw.

The court files revealed the prosecution's belief that Karri's entire life had been built around what they referred to as “selfish greed,” which had motivated her to murder Billy Shaw. She had siphoned money from the Shaw Saddlery accounts, her mother's accounts, and from the accounts of Shaw himself for years. When her embezzling and identity theft schemes were discovered, and all access to their funds was finally, completely cut off, she killed her stepfather for the money she stood to inherit upon his death.

Earlier in the investigation, statements from Jason Willoughby had confirmed that he and Karri had filed for bankruptcy two times within a five-year period, with debt that amounted to more than $500,000. One of Karri's statements said that they had always had money trouble, but were having “pretty bad money trouble” right before Lila Shaw's death.

In addition to the staggering bankruptcy total, during a five-month period from mid August to late December 2007, a total of $21,551.47 in bad checks were written and signed by Karri. Many had been given to several types of businesses, but a large number of them had been written for cash.

Along with her out-of-control check writing, the investigators learned that Karri had also applied for three credit cards in her mother's name during that time. The applications were all submitted in the name of Lila Shaw; but on all three forms, Karri had listed her own home address as the billing address for the accounts. One of the credit cards was soon declined, but Karri continued to try to use it several times, even after realizing that it would no longer be accepted.

 

 

 

In September 2007, during the height of the bad checks and credit card scams, Karri began attempting another method to take money from her parents and the business. Shaw Saddlery, LLC, did all its banking business in nearby Trenton, Georgia, at the Bank of Dade. Karri was a signatory on the account, which was considered to be a family business. She went to the bank and made arrangements for all bad checks written by her on her personal account to be charged back to the Shaw Saddlery account. Before long, she had siphoned over $2,000 from the business to cover her bouncing checks.

Karri's mother had not been aware that Karri had arranged for the charge backs. So, when Lila received a copy of the most recent charge back—for nearly $1,000—and realized what was being done, she went to the bank to put an immediate stop to things. Incredibly, while Lila was at the bank plugging the leak that was draining money from the business, Karri was on the Internet, trying to set up online banking for the account. Thanks to Lila's timely intervention, the bank stopped that online attempt.

That action didn't stop Karri's continuing use of the business account, however. On April 1, 2008, Billy Shaw decided he'd had enough. It was evidently easier for him to revise his banking arrangements than to confront the daughter whom he loved, and whose financial escapades he had tried to overlook. He went to the Bank of Dade and closed his LLC account, changing the business account instead to a sole proprietorship and effectively removing Karri from the business. The new account was opened with $20,000, money that Karri could no longer touch.

Financial matters lost all their importance to Billy Shaw later that day, though. It was the day that his wife, Lila “Susie” Shaw, passed away. Money became the last thing on Billy's mind.