Carthage, Texas. Voted one of the 100 best small towns in America.

It's an easy-going kind of place where the people are as warm as fresh-baked biscuits and country music pours from every door. But on August 18th, 1997, Carthage learned that even the friendliest face can conceal a frigid heart: one capable of a murder so cold that it still gives Carthage chills.

Smack dab in the middle of East Texas' Piney Woods, Carthage is about as country as it gets. It's also the centre of one of the largest natural gas fields in the whole world.

A large chunk of it belonged to Ted and Marjorie Nugent. An oil-field geologist with millions in the bank, Rod Nugent was one of Carthage's leading citizens. That is, until he up and died in 1990. He was barely in the ground before Marjorie had a new man in her life. His name was Bernie Tiede, assistant funeral director at Carthage's Harthorn funeral home.

Marjorie had earned a frosty reputation as one of the most tight-fisted and ornery old ladies in town. So Carthage was a little surprised when Bernie quit his job at the funeral home and went to work for Marjorie as her caretaker and business manager. They were even more surprised when Bernie started giving more and more money to all his favourite local causes.

It was nearly nine months before Carthage realised they hadn't seen Marjorie in awhile. And when the Sheriff's Department went looking for her, they found her in her deep-freeze, as cold and icy as ever ...