Editing Carthage, Texas (section)

=== 1996 murder of Marjorie Nugent ===
[[File:Carthage July 2017 10 (Central Baptist Church).jpg|thumb|left|Central [[Baptist]] Church in downtown Carthage]]
After losing her husband, widow Marjorie Nugent, an 81-year-old resident of Carthage, became friends with Bernie Tiede, the assistant funeral director in town. In late 1996, townspeople did not see her, but thought perhaps she had moved to join her out-of-town family. When the family could not reach her, they filed a missing-person's report. Nine months after her death, her friend and companion, 39-year-old [[Bernie Tiede]], was brought in for questioning by police and confessed to killing her. He claimed she had emotionally abused him.<ref name="perry"/><ref name="hollandsworth">{{cite news|last=Hollandsworth|first=Skip|title=Midnight in the Garden of East Texas|url=http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/midnight-in-the-garden-of-east-texas/|work=Texas Monthly|date=January 1998|access-date=April 5, 2016}}</ref>

He shot her four times in the back with a .22 rifle in November 1996. A mortician, he cleaned her body and placed it in a freezer in her house, where it was not discovered until 1997. Tiede continued his community activities for several months after her death. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. After a ''habeas corpus'' challenge, he was paroled on a $10,000 bond in 2014, but in 2016, Tiede had a resentencing hearing, and was sentenced to 99 years to life.<ref name="perry"/><ref name="hollandsworth"/>

Panola County District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson said initially that few in the community questioned no longer seeing the elderly woman. He said, "That's what you do when you're a con guy and you move in. He had her cut all ties, so ultimately the only person she had to rely on was him. Mrs. Nugent was a human being. She didn't deserve her fate at the hands of Bernie." Tiede apparently killed the wealthy woman to get control of her money, spending an estimated $3 million of Nugent's $10 million. Davidson said Tiede used some of it for philanthropy: "He sent people to college. He donated to musicals, plays and bought instruments at the college. That was all done with Mrs. Nugent's money. After she was in the freezer, he really jumped out there as a benefactor."<ref name="perry">{{cite web|last1=Perry|first1=Ryan|title=The Killer Inside Him: The Bernie Tiede Story|url=https://www.behance.net/gallery/15720439/The-Killer-Inside-Him-The-Bernie-Tiede-Story|website=Behance}}</ref>