Murder On The Cape

A Woman Is Killed And Almost Everyone Could Be A Suspect

(CBS)  Arnold emphatically denied to police that he had anything to do with the crime. Otherwise he refused to discuss Christa Worthington. These days, Arnold struggles with health problems, mainly affecting his vision. He is haunted by memories of what happened five years ago.

"I think about it a lot...I think about it just about every day," he acknowledges.

And he sometimes writes about Christa…

While Tim Arnold may have been at the top of the suspect list, early on, Ava’s father, Tony Jackett, wasn’t far behind.

According to Christa’s friends, Jackett had little time for the baby at first and eventually, Christa demanded that he at least pay child support. She also demanded that he tell his wife, Susan.

Susan Jackett says she didn't have a clue her husband had fathered Ava.

"He said he was in trouble. And I said with the IRS? And he said 'No worse.' With the police? 'No worse than that.' And I said what could be worse than that?" she remembers.

What was she thinking at this point? "I was sort of frightened. I couldn’t, he was very uncomfortable. I couldn’t imagine that it was and he said I had an affair and there’s a child. He hesitated and he said there’s a child, and I said 'You’re kidding,'" she recalls.

Then, to Tony’s total shock, she forgave him. "It’s been too many years and he’s a nice man, you know, and people make mistakes, he’s only human. I don’t want this anger in me. I just want to make this all work," she tells Spencer.

And by the time of the murder, the Jacketts claim, it was more or less working - the three of them had a relationship of sorts, with Ava at its center. Tony, they say, had no reason to kill Christa.

"We had her over for dinner. And it was a little uncomfortable the first time. But the more I got to know her, I liked her. I thought she was a nice person. And the baby was very enchanting," says Tony's wife Jackett.

Susan says Tony was home with her when Christa was killed. Tony took a lie detector test and says he "clearly passed."

But police refused to rule anyone out, and the suspect list was expanding to Agatha Christie-size proportions, at times even including Tony’s then son-in-law, Keith Amato, who had taken an outside shower or two at Christa’s house near the beach.

Even Christa’s elderly father was drawn into the investigation, though his 29-year-old girlfriend - a former heroin addict upon whom Christa thought he was spending far too much money.

Meanwhile, the state crime lab was hopelessly backed up. Months passed with no word on the DNA taken from Christa’s body. The police went to the FBI for a profile of the killer, but nobody seemed a fit.

Then finally, a year after the murder, the crime lab at last produced results. The results were disappointing to police, because the DNA from Christa didn’t match Tim Arnold or Tony Jackett, or any other suspect the police had.

Police widened their circle. The widened circle brought in DNA from repairmen, trash men and deliverymen. With pressure mounting, District Attorney O’Keefe took an unprecedented step, asking for DNA from single every man in Truro.

"Somebody killed Christa. So if we sample everybody, we’ll find who it was," O'Keefe argues. "We’re still taking DNA from people, dozens of people."

But reporter Eric Williams has an opinion on this move. "These guys are throwing darts at an elephant, you know. I mean, they've got no chance. It’s just crazy."