Some say she could make or break the case of Tracey Richter, but Mary Higgins wasn't alwys so upfront about the information she knew concerning the death of Dustin Wehde.
It's considered to be the biggest piece of evidence in this case. A pink spiral notebook that was collected from Dustin Wehde's car after his death. In it, shocking information prosecutors believe only Tracey Richter or her ex-husband John Pitman would know.
To the naked eye the entries in it suggest Pitman was behind the crime all along. And Richter told her close friend Mary Higgins that the entries would get Pitman arrested, eventually granting her full custody of their son Bert.
But when Richter told Higgins the color of the notebook, it raised a red flag. From a previous conversation. Higgins knew Richter had purchased a pink notebook for Bert.
Mary Higgins said, "In order to get like six different colors for six different subjects, there weren't enough colors, so she had to take a pink one and Bert refused to take it to school.
While Higgins assumed Wehde had simply stolen the notebook at some point, another flag was raised when Bert sat in on a conversation between his mother and Higgins. Bert began acting out when details of the shooting were shared.
Higgins said, "He said, why did you go up there? Why did you go back up there? And he said, you didn't have to shoot him, you didn't have to kill him."All of this information though wasn't exactly shared with police when Higgins was questioned. "I was afraid. I was afraid for myself, I was afraid for my family and I was afraid for Tracey."
Higgins eventually came clean to police about everything, which brings us here. To the Webster County District Court with a woman who could face a mandatory sentence of life in prison. If convicted of first degree murder.
