DATELINE Out of the Darkness – Why Chacey Poynter had her husband Robert murdered

On Friday, September 9, 2016, in Royce City, TX a woman called 911 asking for help with her husband, who had been shot in the head. She was hyperventilating and in clear distress. When officers arrived the woman, Chacey Poynter, said she had only seen a shadow.

Chacey had blood and mud all over her and was still having trouble breathing, so she was put in an ambulance. Meanwhile, the rains poured down, which may have washed away some of the evidence.

It was clear that Chacey’s husband Robert Poynter had been killed with a shotgun.

Robert “Bob” Poynter was a firefighter who always kept in close contact with his mom. He would call her up to 15 times a day. In 2005 he had traveled to Louisiana to help Hurricane Katrina victims.

By his 40s he was a divorced dad and found love with Chacey, a woman half his age. Chacey worked at a dentist’s office and also ran a cake business on the side. The couple soon had a daughter named Addison, who was six years old at the time of her father’s murder.

Chacey had been complaining to friends about how Robert was never around. A few days before his death, Bob had arranged for a family vacation to Mexico to help reconnect.

While Chacey received medical help, police found Chacey’s purse in the truck where Robert lay dead and her cell phone was in the mud. The shotgun had been fired at a very close range, but the weapon wasn’t anywhere at the scene.

Chacey told police that she had been on her way to meet Bob at the Jack in the Box. At the time their daughter was at a friend’s house. Chacey said he texted her and she went around a curve and went off the road and got her Jeep stuck in the mud. She asked Bob to come help her. He got in the driver’s seat and pulled out her Jeep.

This is when Chacey said she heard a shot and her Jeep started rolling. This is when she ran and called the police. While she was telling her story, Chacey noticed the blood on her arms.

The paramedics released Chacey, where she told the police about her marital problems. She said that they didn’t spend a lot of time together, and when they did they would argue.

She explained that Bob had been threatening to take their daughter if they got divorced. She said they had just gone to Mexico together, but that their relationship had gone downhill in the days since they came back from Mexico.

Chacey had been staying with a friend, Michael Garza, for a few days when she and Bob decided to meet at Jack in the Box to reconnect and try to make their marriage work.

The officers started to suspect Chacey because it seemed like she was giving too much information. He also noticed that she would only hyperventilate when he spoke to her, which made her labored breathing feel fake.

The blood patterns on Chacey’s arms and face indicated that she would have been right next to her when he was shot. Chacey claims she got blood on her when she touched her husband, but that didn’t add up to the way the blood had run down her body.

Chacey’s story changed the more she spoke with the police.

Police were immediately suspicious of Chacey’s friend, Michael Garza, and Chacey confessed to investigations that she had had sex with Michael while she stayed with him. She had first said that Michael had been driving out of state when Bob was later shot. While being interrogated by the police, she said that there was a chance Michael could have shot Bob.

She then told them that she had seen a camo shotgun at Michael’s house. Two hours into the interrogation, Chacey told police that it had, in fact, been Michael who had shot her husband. She confessed that she and Michael had planned to “rough” Bob up, but not kill him.

She then said that it was all Michael’s idea, not hers, to ambush Bob and make it look like a robbery. To further prove that Michael had something to do with Bob’s death, Micahel’s phone had pinged near the murder site when Bob was killed.

Michael Garza soon surrendered. While both Michael and Chacey were in jailed, a farmer found a camo shirt and camo gun in his fields.

Chacey claims that Michael was infatuated with her, and told her he loved her “too soon” for her. Chacey’s text messages proved that Michael was enamored with her, they also proved that Chacey was complaining to Michael about her abusive marriage. Michael offered to protect her, and at one point boldly told her that he could “rock an orange jumpsuit.”

Micahel Garza was found guilty of Bob Poynter’s murder after only two hours of jury deliberation and was sentenced to 99 years in prison where he would wear the orange jumpsuit he bragged about someday wearing.

At Chacey’s trial, she said she had been an abused wife. She also argued that she tried to stop Michael from killing Bob.

The prosecutor argued that there was no evidence that Chacey was physically abused and they brought out the fact that Chacey wasn’t just dating Michael Garza. She had three other boyfriends besides Micahel. Two of her other boyfriends shared with law enforcement that she had also shared with them that she was being abused.

She would also text to the men messages that seemed to test out whether or not they’d be willing to kill Bob for her. She would say that she wished he would die in a fire and that she only had “one way out of this.” She even texted that she didn’t think she would look good in orange, which proves that maybe Michael’s line about that had come from her at some point. Of all the guys Chacey was texting fishing for someone to harm her husband, only Michael took the bait.

Why Chacey wanted to kill her husband Bob

On the day Chacey, Bob, and their daughter were flying home from their Mexico vacation she texted Michael Garza “Me more than anyone wants him gone.”

Michael replied back “Well it can happen.”

Bob also was looking for a way out after their vacation. He messaged his lawyer over Facebook. He shared that Chacey didn’t want divorce because they had signed a prenup and Chacey would not have gotten money from the split.

However, if Bob died, Chacey would be set financially as she was Bob’s beneficiary for a hefty life insurance policy. When Bob wanted divorce, that would give her a financial motive to want him dead.

In June 2019, Chacey Poynter was life in prison for Robert Poynter’s murder, but the jury didn’t find that she had done it for money. She does have a possibility of parole after 30 years. Chacey appealed because she argued she was “never sufficiently advised of her constitutional right to have an attorney during her initial questioning by law enforcement officers.” In 2021 her appeal was denied and her conviction was upheld.