On 15 November 1995, close friends Halima Jones and Ruby Joyner went out shopping for a new washer and dryer. For the two women, it was a typical night in Peachtree City, Georgia, with one exception: they never came back.

Instantly, investigators launched an all-out manhunt, searching grassy fields, neighbourhoods and a local lake. Four days later, a security guard at Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport noticed an abandoned mini-van in the long-term parking lot. The guard veered in the van and confirmed the community's worst fear: Halima and Ruby were dead.

As one manhunt drew to a close, a new one was just underway for Ruby's husband, Lewis Joyner. After following a labyrinth of clues and evidence, police named Joyner as their prime suspect. Days after the crime, the entrepreneur-turned-fugitive had flown to New York City, evading police, media and family. Atlanta police eventually followed Joyner's trail to Harlem and on a 21-story rooftop, police arrested an aggressive and drunken Lewis Joyner.

Joyner's high-profile trial began in the summer of 1996. At trial, the façade of a picture-perfect Joyner marriage was destroyed. The prosecution exposed an affair between Halima Jones and Lewis Joyner, one entangled with drug abuse and deception.

With gruesome crime scene photographs and expert testimony, the sharp, young prosecutor unveiled her theory of the case. According to the state, Joyner shot Halima Jones in the head, killing her instantly. Joyner, high on cocaine, scuffled with Ruby and brutally beat her to death with approximately 20 blows to the head. She was also strangled.

Throughout trial, Joyner's renowned defence attorney stated that Ruby had killed Halima Jones, not his client. Not only that, but his client had killed Ruby in self- defence and that a jealous Ruby Joyner was responsible for Halima's death.

After deliberating for four hours, the jury found Lewis Joyner guilty of the murder of his wife, but not guilty in the shooting of Halima Jones. The jurors and prosecutor agreed: they did not have enough evidence to find Joyner guilty for the murder of Halima Jones. However, the brutal photographs of Ruby Joyner were more than enough to discount Joyner's claim of self- defence in killing his wife.

Lewis Joyner is currently serving a life sentence in prison, but to this day, he maintains that he acted out of self- defence in killing his wife. Despite his incarceration, Joyner enjoys reading crime novels. Perhaps his own story is the most unusual: From rags to riches to prison.