Texas Confidential

Who Killed The Bookie's Wife?

(CBS) 
When Vanessa Leggett heard about the high-profile case, she starting visiting Roger in jail. At the time, she was just an aspiring true crime writer looking for a story. And this time, she got lucky.

Leggett says Roger told her it was Bob's idea to kill Doris. Asked if she believed him, she said, "Yes, I do."

In January 1998, Leggett visited Roger in jail and tape recorded about 50 hours of conversations.

"Bob had asked him for some help on something. That he had a problem. And would Roger come to Houston?" says Leggett.

According to Roger, Bob wanted his wife dead and he asked him for help.

"I knew he was dead serious," Roger told Leggett, because of the way he allegedly acted, saying his brother was "calm and determined."

"Bob said he's having a problem with Doris, were the words that he used and that he asked Roger to help him have her killed," Leggett recalled.

Roger even confessed to Leggett that he had killed Doris. "He said he came through the front door at around 7 o'clock that evening. And he waited there," Leggett explained. "And he said when he felt she was really close he said and 'I jumped out on two feet with both guns.'"

Roger said the brothers had made a deal that Bob would pay him to kill Doris, disappear and keep quiet forever.

"Roger asked Bob to give him 24 hours to get out of town," Leggett said.

Remember when Bob went to the police after the murder and told them his brother Roger killed his wife?

"What was going thru his mind? Rage," says Bob.

Roger said that too was all just part of their plan.

"So Roger wrote out letters that were threatening to Bob saying 'you owe me money if you don't I’m going to hurt you or someone you love. Pay up,'" says Leggett.

Roger told his attorney, Jim Skelton, the same story and swore him to secrecy.

"The fee was for a million dollars. I think that was it. It was supposed to be $100,000 down and $100,000 every year for ten years," says Skelton.

But their elaborate plan unraveled, Roger says, when he got arrested in Las Vegas, and police found those audio tapes in his briefcase.

Roger told Leggett that he recorded his brother helping him plan the murder in case he ever needed the tape to use against him. Skelton believes the tape was Roger's insurance policy.

"He was worried about Bob paying him so he kept a lot of incriminating evidence on the murder he could later use to blackmail Bob if Bob didn't pay him the money," says Skelton.

Asked if he hired his brother to kill Doris, Bob says, "No."