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Married Tennessee Woman Kills 83-Year-Old Lover For Money: "Easy Target”
“Five rounds to the back of the head for somebody that’s 83 — that’s overkill,” police said of Jack Rains’ death on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins.
Former state trooper and former chief of police General “Jack” Rains was found slumped over his kitchen table in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in only a t-shirt and boxers. The 83-year-old veteran was shot execution-style and discovered by his friends, Ronald and Tina Williamson, on Sept. 1, 2007. There was no forced entry. No broken windows. A safe was still in his bedroom.
Police were stumped as to what happened to him, until neighbors told them the rumor that Rains was seeing a younger woman as his wife lived in a nursing home with dementia. Investigators soon turned their attention to the woman who discovered him dead: 39-year-old Tina Williamson.
“When we hear that Tina and Jack were having some kind of intimate relationship, that’s like, ‘Wow!’” Ralph Mayercik, a former detective for the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office, said on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins, airing Saturdays at 8/7c on Oxygen.
Police suspect Jack Rains and Tina Williamson were more than friends
Tina Williamson and Jack Rains were in business together, flipping cars for profit. Tina Williamson insisted to police their relationship never went beyond their work, but Rains’ family suspected he was involved with Tina Williamson.
“Tina tells us her relationship with Jack is they’re very good friends,” Mayercik said. “He’s almost like family to them. Ron and Jack trade guns. They go to gun shows together. Jack comes to their home for dinner. He comes for cookouts.”
However, his family didn't believe Tina Williamson's story. “As time went on, he started to hang out with her more, and didn’t come around his own family more, and that was strange to us,” said Rachel Farless, Rains’ granddaughter, on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins.
When police spoke to Tina Williamson, she said she saw Rains and had breakfast with him the day he died. She told police that when he didn’t answer or return her calls later that day, she and her husband went to check on him and found him dead.
The medical examiner determined he died between 11 a.m. and noon on Aug. 31, 2007.
Ronald Williamson had an alibi for Rains’ murder, and was at work when he was killed. That left police to suspect his wife Tina Williamson in Rains’ slaying.
Police believe money was the motive for Jack Rains' murder
Jack Rains was a wealthy man by the time he died, and police suspected money was the reason for his murder.
“Jack had a fair amount of money in the bank, as well as having income from retirement and coming from the duplex rental, so Jack was pretty well set money-wise,” Mayercik said.
Because of their joint business, Tina Williamson and Rains had a shared bank account, with $100,000 remaining. Tina Williamson also stood to gain possession of a duplex if he died.
“So, you know, $280,000 worth of assets with Jack dead,” Mayercik said. “The bank people said five days after Jack was killed, Tina went down to the bank and withdrew $10,000 out of the business account. They also said that she was attempting to withdraw the $100,000 but then paused that.”
When police confronted Tina Williamson with the rumor that she was in a relationship with Rains, she denied it.
“First of all, that’s totally disgusting to me…I know he loved me to death, and I loved him to death, but it’s not that kinda love,” she told police during an interview.
But in the interview, she mentioned that Rains was planning to sign over the title of his Mercedes to her but hadn’t penned his signature yet. When she showed it to police, it had what looked like blood splatter on it, and police sent it off to be analyzed.
“There was in fact blood on that title, and that blood matched back to Jack Rains,” said Chuck Hardy, forensic analyst with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins. “The walls are really starting to close in.”
During a search of the Williamson home, police found many of Rains’ personal items, such as his military ID and Social Security Card. Bullets were also found in their home that matched the bullet fragment found in Rains’ home. A gun was also found that matched the gun that killed him.
Tina Williamson's friend gives police the key to the murder investigation
Police checked Tina Williamson’s phone locations for the day Jack Rains was murdered. Although she claimed she was home in Woodbury, her phone showed she was 20 miles away in Murfreesboro, where Rains lived. Police saw she called her friend Betty Olson during this time. Olson told them Tina Williamson had called her for a ride that day.
“Tina was walking down the road, and when she got in the car, Tina had some kind of red substance on her like blood,” Mayercik said. “And Tina explained it was ketchup or tomato she’d eaten. It was like, ‘Wow, this is huge!’”
Surveillance video confirmed Olson picked Tina Williamson up at a Walmart five minutes from Rains’ home. Olson agreed to wear a wire when talking to Tina Williamson, and recorded Tina Williamson telling her not to tell police about the ride.
The final piece of evidence against Tina Williamson came from Jack Rains’ boxers. Tina Williamson’s DNA was found on them — proving she lied about having a sexual relationship with Rains.
In February 2009, a jury found Tina Williamson guilty of Jack Rains’ murder. She was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
“I think money was her main goal,” Eloise Rains, Jack’s daughter-in-law, said on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins. “That’s the reason she initiated the relationship to begin with. I guess he seemed to be an easy target for her. He paid with his life.”
Watch all-new episodes of Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins on Saturdays at 8/7c on Oxygen.
