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48 HOURS: “Chacey Poynter: Witness to Murder” was Saturday’s #1 broadcast with viewers at 10:00 PM, according to Nielsen live plus same day ratings for Saturday, Jan. 18.

The broadcast delivered 3.40 million viewers, 0.7/03 with adults 25-54 and a 0.5/03 with adults 18-49. 48 HOURS was up +40% in adults 25-54 (from 0.5/02), +67% in adults 18-49 (from 0.3/02) and added +920,000 viewers (from 2.48m, +38%), compared to the last first-run broadcast on Dec. 21, 2019.

Saturday’s broadcast featured Peter Van Sant and 48 HOURS investigation into the 2016 murder of a Texas firefighter Robert Poynter and the case against his wife, Chacey Poynter, who told her side of the story for the first time on television.

Poynter, a veteran firefighter and paramedic, was shot in the head while sitting in his wife’s Jeep, on an unmaintained county road in Royse City, Texas. His wife, Chacey Poynter, told police she’d called her husband for help after she claimed her Jeep was stuck in mud. Chacey Poynter claims when Robert Poynter got in to help move the vehicle, he was shot by a man who emerged from the dark. She told police she had no idea who fired the fatal shot.

From the moment police arrived at the scene, they were skeptical of Poynter’s story of what happened. Everything she told them – in breathless and halting sentences – was captured by police body cameras, including an admission that she was having problems in her marriage. Later, at the police station, she confessed that she did know the identity of the man who killed her husband – a lover by the name of Michael Garza.

The investigation into the murder exposed the fractured relationship between the Poynters, including a twisted plot for killing the 47-year-old firefighter, whose wife, then 29, had carried on multiple extra-marital affairs. Prosecutors maintain Poynter plotted out the murder with Garza to cash in on her husband’s life insurance policy.

48 HOURS: “Chacey Poynter: Witness to Murder” is produced by Asena Basak. Claire St. Amant is the development producer. Elizabeth Caholo is the associate producer. Mike Baluzy, Kevin Dean and Joan Adelman are the editors. Anthony Batson is the senior broadcast producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.

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